**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 91.06.23 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> PLAY FED FOR FREE! During the last weekend in June, the billing clock for Federation II will be turned off, enabling you to play Fed all weekend absolutely free. This will be the ideal opportunity for you to introduce your friends to the fun and excitement of Fed Data Space. It'll also be a chance for you to work extra hard to gain that elusive promotion. Diesel, proprieteuse of Chez Diesel (Social Centre of the Solar System) is laying in extra supplies of pizza and beer, to cater for the expected rush, and the Starship Cantina on Earth is also expecting to be busy with new players taking their first tentative steps in Fed. Free Fed starts at 6.00 pm, your local time, on Friday June 28 and continues until 8.00 am, your local time, on Monday July 1. **>> LESS TYPING FOR TRADERS How do you spell Pharmaceuticals? Is there a hyphen in bio-chips? How many Ds in Katydidics? These are questions which torment those using the trading exchanges, keeping them awake at night, tossing and turning in their sweat- soaked beds, falling into a fitful dose only to wake, screaming, once again... (Yes, that's quite enough poetic imagery, thank you!) Our Illustrious Leader has at last taken pity on us all, and has rationalised the trading commodities. All the items are now single words, and some of the very long ones are shorter. This has meant that some have changed radically - for example, Precious Metals has now become Gold, and Broadcast Equipment is now Studios! In addition, some of the commodity names have abbreviations that can be used as alternatives... ie, powerpacks can be referred to simply as pow. Since there are 52 different trading commodities, we are not going to list all the changes and abbreviations here. A complete list has been uploaded in the Fed BBS, in the topic about companies and factories, and you can get a reminder of the new names by watching the displays in the trading exchanges. A side effect of the change is that the hash key (#) will now repeat the entire command when you are purchasing goods, so you can use it to buy several lumps of the same commodity. **>> ADDING IT ALL UP The command, which allows Merchants and above to combine the contents of warehouse bays, has been enhanced. Now you can use it to combine up to five bays at a time; simply separate the different bay numbers with a space, for example . The commodities still have to be of the same type, though! **>> COMING SOON TO A COMPUTER NEAR YOU A couple of new features are in test at the moment and will be implemented some time next week. First, typing when in a shop will tell you what the shop actually sells. About time those storekeepers started publishing a price list! Secondly, something very complicated for Squires. Bella is working on planetary economies, and will be adding the features slowly, a bit at a time, to make sure they run smoothly. The first new toy for you to play with will be the command. This will display lots of details about the exchange on your planet: the stockpile level for each commodity, whether the exchange is producing or consuming it, and so on. We can't be any more specific than that, since we haven't seen it in action! Eventually you will be able to tamper with all the values shown, in an attempt to make your Trading Exchange the most attractive in the Galaxy (while still making a profit). **>> WAREHOUSE LIMIT There has been some confusion about whether the limit on the number of warehouses you could buy is temporary or permanent. It is extremely hard to get anything other than a vague "maybe" out of Bella, but by tying her to a chair and shining a very bright light in her eyes, we eventually managed to get a straight answer out of her. The limit is permanent; you can only have ten warehouses. You will have to pick and choose quite carefully which planets you actually want to have a warehouse on. Quite soon you will be able to sell unwanted warehouses, like that one on Castillo. **>> THE SAVING OF PERSONAE It sometimes happens that players go away for a while, and are not able to log onto GEnie for several months. We often get enquiries, asking if their Fed persona will still be there when they return. The game will save your persona for a certain length of time, which varies depending on your rank, as follows: GroundHogs (if their bank balance has not changed) 14 days GroundHogs (if their bank balance has changed) 30 days Commanders 60 days Captains 90 days Adventurers 120 days Traders 150 days Merchants 180 days And so on, each rank being saved an extra 60 days. If you are going to be away from Fed for longer than the length of time shown above, then you will have to make arrangements for someone to keep your persona alive. They only need to log into Fed and straight out again for the number of days to be set back to zero. **>> ONLINE GUIDE UPDATED Those jolly nice H-by-A people have provided an up-to-date version of the online manual, which includes all changes up to last weekend, such as the new command and gambling with groats. **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS We have several new Adventurers this week: Richard, Moose, Sorel and Harry are the ones that we noticed. Well done to you all. Maxis and Kele both made Trader, while Rogan made Merchant. Congratulations. Davidge spent most of the week blowing up various bits of the game in his attempt to solve the fiendish GM puzzle, and finally succeeded today. He becomes Fed's newest Guild Master. These promotions are only the ones we happened to notice in the SpyNet Review, or ones that someone told us about. If you want to make sure your promotion is mentioned in the news, then drop us a line using the FEEDBACK option on the main Fed menu. **>> GROAT CONTEST! Look out soon for our special contest to celebrate Independence Day, where you can win a solid silver groat! Details in next week's news. **>>CONTACTS The following information will appear at the end of every News Bulletin, so you don't have to read it if you already know it. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed, Bella or Clem in the game * leave a message in the game log * send mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu You can order a copy of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation II by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. Federation II has a category in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 14. The Federation II Leader in the bulletin board is Occy (Mail ID: OCPAC). Topic 1 of the Fed category contains the Federation II policy statement. The MPGames RT also has a Federation II library in the files area, Library 5. **>> BULLETIN ENDS