**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 91.06.30 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> WELCOME NEW PLAYERS! Our special Free Weekend on Fed has attracted an enormous amount of new players to the game. We'd like to take this opportunity to say "Welcome" to you all. If you haven't done so already, please take the time to download the read the Fed manual - The Idiot's Guide to Federation II. It will tell you everything you need to know, as well as quite a few things you -*don't*- need to know! You should also have a look at the Fed category in the MP Games bulletin board on page 1045. It's category 14, and it contains all kinds of useful information about the game. The Library has lots of maps in it, too. You can order a printed copy of the Idiot's Guide to Federation II by typing ORDER from any GEnie menu. It costs $12.95 and is much expanded from the online version, giving you lots more information, a host of pretty pictures, and a different joke! And of course, don't be afraid to ask questions. We were all new once, so we won't shoot you just for not knowing how things work! **>> SO HOW'S THE WEEKEND BEEN GOING THEN? Astonishingly well, although not without its problems. We've had over 400 new personas created so far - and the weekend isn't over yet! After shepherding what seemed like several thousand new people backwards and forwards, Hazed put in a request for the Office Block to be moved nearer to the Shipyard. The Galactic Administration is going to have to re-surface that bit of road; the pounding feet of GroundHogs have run grooves into it. Rezrov attempted to organise a tour of the Solar System, to program all the navigational computers. There were people wandering aimlessly all over the place. In the mass confusion of trying to guide people from Mars to Venus, several flew into the sun! The hospital was certainly doing a roaring trade in cloning and restoration. A couple of newbods kept higher level players entertained for hours by bumbling around in the ruins on Mars. We don't know who persuaded them to go in there in the first place... **>> TO ERR IS HUMAN, BUT TO REALLY SCREW THINGS UP YOU NEED A COMPUTER! The sheer number of new personas did cause some problems, with two crashes and two strange episodes. Here's what actually happened. Our Illustrious Leader, Bella, did a rough calculation and decided that we would get approximately 1 new player every five minutes, so she allowed for 100 new personas per session. This wasn't enough - they were coming 2 or 3 times faster than that - and when the magic number of 100 was reached... wham! The game crashed! Bella quickly upped the limit to 300, so that when she reset the game there would be enough space to accomodate Saturday's rush. The next problem needs a little bit of explanation. A couple of weeks ago, Bella provided short versions of some of the trading commodities, to make trading easier. The commodity called Simulatons can now be shortened to Sims. Trouble was, there's a player called Sims as well... so when he logged on, nobody could kiss him, or send him tightbeam messages! It's obviously no fun being a trading commodity. Bella put a fix into the game to change his name to Simms (adding an M) - but she left out a vital equals sign, and when she fired up the new version of the game it changed EVERYBODY'S name to Simms! She hastily backed the game out to the previous version, restored the previous persona file, and heaved a huge sigh of relief! Of course... the previous version of the game had the 100 persona limit on it. So some time in the far reaches of Saturday night, the game crashed again! By now, Bella was even balder than before, as she tugged out great handfuls of her green hair. Come the dawn... and all was peaceful in Fed Data Space. Too peaceful... it was obviously the calm before the storm. Suddenly, everything went... strange... freaky... location descriptions got all out of sync and nobody knew where they were! Luckily, Hazed appeared and noticed that all was not as it should be. She logged off in a hurry, telephoned Our Illustrious Leader (who was in the bath) and whimpered and gibbered down the phone. She then reset the game, which solved the problem. Bella has now put in another new version of the game which fixes all these little problems. Actually, it is astonishing that the game stood up so well to the sheer weight of numbers, and even more astonishing that Bella's and Hazed's nerves haven't completely snapped! Note to new players: it's not like this all the time. Honest! **>> WELCOME BACK NEWLY WEDS Welcome back to Catrina and Rezrov, who got married last week. Really married, in "real life" (whatever that is!) We would have thought that only a week after the wedding, they would have better things to do than play Fed, but obviously taking advantage of the free weekend is more important than... erm... Well, both of them seemed deeply uninvolved in the impromptu orgy that didn't take place in Chez Diesel this morning. Hazed didn't have anything to do with the non-existant orgy, and even if she did, she was on Earth at the time, so wasn't anywhere near Chez Diesel. **>> NAME THAT MAN! Did you know we have a player called Russie Poo? No, neither did we... but when Squire Russ logged on last night, that was the greeting he received from one of his female fans (who shall remain nameless to spare her (and his) blushes). So next time you see him, just remember his new name. **>> CORRECTION! In last week's news, we told you how long you could expect your persona to stay safely in the file if you don't log on. And we made a mistake! The newsdroid responsible has been taken outside and dismantled, and is now a very hi-tech garbage can. Basically, a GroundHog's persona is saved for 30 days, a Commander's for 60 days, and so on, each rank remaining for a further 30 days before being consigned to the great bit-bucket in the sky. **>> THE READER'S DIGEST BOOK OF PLANETARY ECONOMIES Bella has started to work on planetary economies, giving the Squires a whole host of new toys to play with. The first command, which went in last week, was the command which tells you exactly what the exchange on your planet is actually doing. You get a report on each category separately. Here is what the leisure goods on Hazed's planet, Scratchwood, looked like earlier today: >digest leisure Summary for Scratchwood Leisure goods [time = 93 markup = 10% level ] Name Stockpile Prod Demand Stock Producing Hypnotapes 5 14 27 -108 Yes Studios 32 86 4 + 68 No SensAmps 28 75 27 + 55 Yes Games 9 1 36 -144 Yes Artifacts 14 42 19 + 31 No Katydidics 12 95 3 + 30 No Musiks 15 68 2 + 31 No Libraries 10 20 3 + 21 No Holos 21 17 30 -120 Yes Univators 2 28 7 + 6 No Simulations 25 61 11 + 53 No Don't panic, it may look complicated, but it's quite easy really. First, the stuff at the top: the time is the number of ETUs the exchange is through its cycle. There are 100 ETUs in an exchange cycle. The length of an ETU varies, depending on who is on the game: the more players at Trader or above, the faster they click over. The markup is the difference between the base price and the buying/selling prices. At the moment, all exchanges are set to 10%. After that you're told the current state of the exchange - whether it is "high" or "low". In the example above, it is level; if it was high, there would be a row of plus signs; if low, a row of minus signs. The more plusses or minuses, the higher or lower it is. Then, the commodities in that group are listed and you are told the following: the stockpile is the level of the commodity that the exchange wishes to have. If it has less than the stockpile, it will give a good price for the commodity, and continue buying until the stockpile level is reached. If it has more, it will have goods to sell, and will continue selling until the stockpile level is reached. Prod is the number of tons the exchange will produce in a cycle. Demand is the number of tons the planet consumes in a cycle. Stock is the amount it actually has in stock. Finally you are told whether that commodity is being produced or not. An exchange cycle goes like this: every 10 ETUs the stock is updated. First, the exchange adds one tenth of the "prod" figure to the stock; then it removes one tenth of the "demand" figure. These figures are both rounded down to the nearest whole number. When the ETUs reach 100, the remaining prod and demand are taken into account, and the cycle starts again. Some time next week, Squires will be able to change the values for the markup and the stockpile. The money still won't be going into your planet's bank account, so you can experiment without having to pay the consequences of your mistakes! **>> RECESSION HITS TRADING EXCHANGES The Galaxy-wide economic slump affected the Trading Exchanges last week. Oxcart lost a fortune overnight and was reduced to wearing a barrel! And very fetching he looked, too. Bella has changed the way that exchanges work. Previously, every time the game was reset, the exchanges would be zeroed and their cycles start again from scratch. She also introduced a new command, the command which for the first time gave an instant picture of exactly what the exchanges are doing. It was apparent that the exchanges were building up large 'negative stockpiles' of goods. This wasn't a problem when it was zeroed each day, in fact it allowed people to sell vast quantities of the same commodity without the exchange flooding. But with the status being saved, the danger was that the negative stockpile could escalate. This could have been disastrous for planet-owners. So, Bella put a ceiling (or a floor) on the stockpile level. This was obviously too harsh, hence the flood of complaints about the markets flooding after just one sale. She has tampered with it several times and will continue to do so until she is happy with it. Meanwhile, don't forget that the player-written planets practically doubles the number of exchanges that you can take advantage of. And don't discount the value of carrying mixed loads. Another compensation is that is an exchange is desperately short of something, it will pay even higher prices for it. **>> GAMBLING IS BAD FOR YOUR WEALTH Poor Harry. He was looking for a fast way to promotion, so tried his luck on the roulette wheel. He managed to lose 600 of his hard-earned jobs! Be nice to him if you see him; he needs comforting. The display that on-lookers get went someone uses the wheel has been shortened a little, so it doesn't inhibit conversation quite so much! **>> ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME? No longer can you sneak sly looks at people without them noticing. If you EX someone, they'll know about it. But you can add a qualifier... will tell her that you are looking at her frankly. What you cannot ex is your own spaceship, or anyone elses if they are in the same place. Bella made some modifications recently which allowed you to substitute a ship name for a persona name when using tell messages, and this had an unfortunate side-effect! However, since very few people bother to paint their ships, she is considering removing the command and using the space in the persona record for something else. **>> GROAT CONTEST July 4, Independence Day, will see our next contest. It will take the form of the very successful contest we held over Easter. At the end of Independence Day - 8.00 am Eastern time on the 5th - we will reset the game, and make a note of the highest scoring persona at each of the levels. The names will go into a space helmet and we will draw one out. The winner will receive a genuine solid-silver groat, in mint condition, to commemorate Independence Day. All you new players: you stand quite a good chance of winning this, since one person from each rank (excluding GroundHog) will be put into the draw. **>> PROMOTIONS NEWS With all the new players, we've sort of had other things on our minds this week, so haven't been making a note of all the promotions. We do know, though, that Sadie and Dr both made Trader. Congratulations to both of you. If you would like us to mention your promotion, mail us using the FEEDBACK option on the main menu. **>>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