**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 93.01.10 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> FED IS FREE AGAIN Yes, this weekend Fed is free once again. Our previous free weekends were such a success that we decided to have another one. The free weekend means that new players can "test-drive" the game to see if they like it, and spend as much time as they need acclimatising themselves to a new universe. Welcome to all the newbods who are taking advantage of this to get started in the game, we hope you enjoy yourselves. You can get a lot of information about the game from the MPGames RT on page 1045. The BBS is part of GEnie *Basic, so you can read and reply to the messages for free during non-prime-time. There's lots of useful hints and tips from the more experienced players, discussions and suggestions, and general fun. Next Sunday there will be a conference in the MPGames RTC giving you a chance to ask experienced players questions about the game. It will be at 3.00pm eastern. As usual, the free weekend has been very popular so far. There were times last night when the game was completely full, preventing new players from joining the fun. However, looking at the log file shows that there is quite a high turnover - people are logging off and back on all the time, so if you find the game is full, try again every few minutes and you should be lucky soon. Last night there was a problem with the game which may have corrupted part of the persona file. If you experience any problems, talk to Bella or Hazed in the game, or mail us using the Feedback to Federation option. **>> NEW VERSION OF FEDTERM FedTerm is the multimedia front end program for Federation, which lets you link pictures and sound to the game. Bella is putting the finishing touches to a new version of FedTerm, v1.20. It will be uploaded to the library in a few days. An upgrade package containing just the new program and manual will be uploaded for those who already have the earlier version of FedTerm. Here is a brief summary of the differences between FedTerm v1.00 and v1.20: 9600 autologon: The requirements for logging on at 9600 baud are different from those at lower speeds (no HHH required), so there is a new option on the main menu to cope with this. Enhanced 'alert' command: The 'alert' script command now has facilities similar to those of the 'send' command to allow you to output the value of variables. This is designed to help with debugging FedTerm scripts. Reset of Color while on line: It is sometimes possible for FedTerm to get confused when displaying SpyBeam text in a different color and put all text into the SpyBeam color. If this happens, Alt-R should restore the proper color. SpyBeam to own window: There was an error in the manual that stated this option was available when you had the display set for a single large picture. In fact it is only available when you have no pictures. The manual has now been corrected. Beeping when writing text into the Mayday window: It is now possible to turn this on and off, both with the main settings screen, and with Alt-B while you are on line. Dump Scroll Back Buffer: If there is something in the scroll back buffer you wish to save, you can now dump the whole buffer to disk with Alt-D. The buffer will be saved to a file called 'buffer.sav.' If the file already exists the buffer is appended to it. Multiple key words on Multi-Media facilities: The display/playing of files can now be keyed to more than one word, and the words need not be consecutive in the line of text from Federation. In the data file "vocab.d" list the words with a "&" between them. **>> FEDTERM LIBRARY Option 6 on the main Fed menu is the Federation library, where you can download the main FedTerm program. The library also contains tools to help you prepare your own pictures and sounds for uploading. Bella has uploaded an art package for the PC called Neopaint, that is ideal for preparing pictures for use in FedTerm. Neopaint is in six files: 20-25. When you have downloaded all six files, put them all in the same directory and run the NEOINST.EXE program. This will unpack all the other files and put them in the correct directories for the program to run. Neopaint can save the pictures in GIF format, so you can then use the GIF2FED conversion utility to turn the pictures into FedTerms own format. During the next few weeks Bella will be uploading some clipart pictures that you can modify for your own use. Thank you to those players who have uploaded sounds and pictures, we look forward to seeing many more. If you are uploading files to the Federation library (or to any library on GEnie) you'll find you can now edit the long description using all the usual GEnie editor commands. This will make it much easier to get the description just right! Don't forget that Marcia is offering an hour's Gift of Time as a prize to the person who paints her the best. Her picture, that is, not her body! Note: Gifts of Time can only be bought by and for GEnie users in the US. Users in Canada or elsewhere will have to make other arrangements. **>> THE MISSING MONTHS Last week we told you about the 1993 Fed calendar. We newsdroids had the only copy in the universe pinned up on the H-by-A office wall. Well, when Hazed found out about it - and when we saw what we wrote in the news - she was furious! She grabbed the calendar off the wall, tore all the pages off, and threw them out. Before we could rescue them from the rubbish dump, a freak whirlwind blew through the corridors and whisked the pages away, blowing them to the four corners of the Galaxy! [Four corners... hmmm... given that space is three-dimensional (at least) surely there are eight corners?] We had planned this week to tell you about the poseurs on the other pages - February, March, June, August and November - but now, of course, we can't. We also don't have anything to cover that stain on the H-by-A office wall! If any of you find one of the pages, please return it to us - or at least let us know who was on the missing pages, and what they were doing in the picture. We want to share this information with all our readers. **>> EXCLUSIVITY! One of our droids was lurking in a dark corner of Samantha's bar on Castillo recently, when a shady figure sidled up and whispered out of the side of his, her or its mouth (a rather strange way to talk, it made it quite difficult to understand the words!) that some delicious Fedders are forming a company: Andalusian Rumpswatters Society, Exclusive. More news as we dredge it up. **>> SPYNET REVIEW The free weekend has vastly inflated the usual number of promotions at lower ranks. We have almost 30 new Captains to report: Spindleman, Airedale, Shyla, Astra, Misti, Devon, Stevem, Ixtix, Tig, Axfire, Laduke, Azure, Slacker, Avatar, Noe, Larkin, Shekinah, Tasslehoff, Trania, Shoothemoon, Joyrider, Balrog, Michael, Cassiopeia, Cauliflour, Princess, Akiko, Mark, and Nursina. Congratulations to you all, and welcome to the game! The new Adventurers are: Astra, Talon, Dunsel, Ixtix, Scrooge, Shyla, Trania, Michael and Spindleman. The Traders Guild has four new members: Scrope, Cicero, Abdulah and Ixtix. Looney was promoted to Merchant. Tether solved the fiendish GM puzzle. There have been no changes to the planets or duchies this week. Finally, in one evening Total's reward shot up to 102000! What could he have been doing to inspire so such bounty? **>>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 or Bella in the game * leave a message in the game log * a message to Hazed or Bella * send GEnie mail with the Federation Feedback option from the main menu FedTerm, the multimedia front-end program for the game, can be downloaded from the Federation library (option 6 on the main menu). You can order a copy of the unexpurgated printed Idiot's Guide to Federation by typing ORDER at any GEnie menu. Cost - a mere $12.95. (New edition will be available shortly!) Federation has several categories in the new MPGames RT. To get there, type M1045,1 from any menu prompt and SET category 13 (for information, instructions, questions and answers) or 14 (for general chat and discussions). The Federation Leader in the bulletin board is Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). There are also private categories for Explorers, run by Krell, and for the Conclave run by Oddball (Mail ID: D.STALZLE). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS