**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 93.07.18 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> NEW NEW NEW! Another little perk has been added to the game for Very Rich People. Dukes and above can find out exactly where another player is in the game: the command gives their location number as well as the system they are in, so you can teleport straight to them. Very convenient! After months, nay, -years- of nagging, Hazed finally persuaded Bella to have the SpyNet Review show someone's rank if they die dead-dead. Now you can decide whether it's worth mourning the loss of a player. Coming soon: provided nothing goes wrong, Bella will have some of the new smuggling code in during the week. She's not quite sure how much she will get done, so we can't give you any advance warning of the nature of the changes to smuggling. If anything significant gets put in the game before the weekend, we will put up a special news bulletin detailing the new features. **>> PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS Apparently there is still a problem with Dukes and Senators receiving sendmail when their builds are unsuccessful. Although the mail is getting sent, it is not telling you correctly what it was attempting to build! This will be fixed shortly. A reminder: if you are Fed and it crashes, please mail us and tell us what you were doing just before the crash. By crash, we do not mean getting thrown off the game with the message "Federation Shutdown: please re-logon". That's a normal message to tell you the game has been shut down in an orderly fashion. We mean those occasions when everything just dies. **>> FEDTERM NEWS FedTerm for the Amiga was released recently, and a few compatibility problems have emerged due to the differences between Amigas made in the US and in Europe. The programmer of FedTerm on the Amiga, Jon Mullins (who also happens to be the SysOp for Fed in the UK) will be the guest at a special RTC in the Amiga are on GEnie, on page 555. The RTC will be held next Saturday, August 24, at 2.30 eastern. Fedders who use Amigas should attend, because it will give you a chance not only to help sort out remaining compatability problems, but also to tell Jon what features you would like to see in Amiga FedTerm. FedTerm on the PC is compatible with Creative Labs' Soundblaster card, or clones of the card. Bella wrote the programme using Creative Labs' own library routines, so she was very surprised to find that people with older cards sometimes report problems. These problems are easily solved by using the correct drivers. Unfortunately, since the drivers belong to Creative Labs, we cannot upload them to the FedTerm library: however, we can send them via GEnie mail to anyone who needs them, and will include detailed instructions about what to do with the drivers to get the sound capabilities of FedTerm to work properly. Since Hazed had her computer stolen, she's been unable to check out new files uploaded into the FedTerm libraries. There are going to be delays in releasing files, and we apologise in advance for these. To help us speed things up, please drop us some GEnie mail when you upload a file. **>> GUEST NEWSDROID Next weekend, Hazed will be handing over the reins to a Guest NewsDroid. Altasren will be writing the news, so expect him to spend the coming week probing the nooks and crannies of Fed Data Space to find all the sleaze and dirt. Speaking of which... is it true that new player Sleazy wants to set himself up as a rival service to this excellent news bulletin? Surely not! **>> EMMI THE ASSASSIN? Emmi surely seems to be following in the footsteps of her brother! Poor Barberousse was attempting to power up the Martian ruins prior to doing the GM puzzle, but Emmi sabotaged his efforts by luring one of his helpers out of the room he'd been told to stand in. The ruins went "Boom"! Emmi claims this was not intentional, but we don't believe a word of it! Particularly since she has also been slaughtering Captains as she attempts to solve the JP puzzle herself. So far she has disposed of Capo, Razor and Baron with her bungling. Take warning, new players: if attractive woman try to lure you into the Martian Ruins, don't go! **>> BROTHERLY LOVE? We have it on good authority that Glurg intends to make Maxwell miserable until Emmi gives him up and marries Galimos. Of course, by his very existance Glurg makes -everyone- miserable, so we don't suppose it will make any difference. We also recorded the following quote from Emmi, talking about Dyars: "he has a rather kind heart, listens well, and really soft lips. And he is attracted to Emmi, but since she is so adamantly faithful to Max, settles for Sheba." Hmm... sounds like Sheba's getting a bad bargain here! **>> MONEY CAN BUY YOU LOVE Menace is continuing to cut a swathe through the ranks of female newbods. A recent captain was found to have a networth of over 2 megs - and this happened soon after her entrance into Sam's, where Menace was waiting. After a few minutes of grunting and groaning (and even a bit of moaning) she left the bar, a much richer woman. **>> PERSONAL MESSAGE We have been asked by Trader Chainsaw to publish the following message: I was in Fed about a year and a half ago... I made it up to Trader before I quit GEnie... This time I'm back for good! I started out once again at the beginning of this month, and have already reached my previous rank of Trader! I am, in fact, nearly halfway to Merchant!! I would like to thank, among many others too numerous to mention, Squire Marcia and newly appointed GM Elli! :) I certainly could not have made it as far as I have so quickly had it not been for them! :) Thanks a lot and I'll see you in Fed!!! :) Trader Chainsaw **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES Niun was promoted to Duke last week, finally managing to crack the devilish Duke puzzle. His sun went nova and his planet (along with all the factories on it) fried. His elevation to Dukedom meant that one of the previous Dukes had to be promoted to Senator (since there is a limited number of slots for Dukes). The person who had put in the largest bid for promotion turned out to be Freya, who was duly promoted, throwing all her vassals back to Independent status. Meanwhile, Dane's planet Loki advanced to Leisure. He will now start to gather the resources he needs to build for Duke. **>> THE PRICE OF ADVANCEMENT Following her recent elevation to Senator, Freya was completely bankrupt. So great were her election expenses (for which, read "bribes") that she was several giga-groats in the red! Fortunately, her "associate", the Godfather decided to bail her out. He is delighted to have an ear in the highest echelons of Fed's power structure. Incidentally, it has come to our attention that Occy is already starting his campaign to become Fed's first Emperor. We hope he doesn't have to spend as much money as Freya did to become Senator! **>> SPYNET REVIEW Congratulations to everyone who was promoted during the past week, and what a lot of you there were! The week's new Captains were Notpel, Telstar, Taalon, Gallowglass, Starhawk, Xiti, Danl, Sleazy, Lardon, Baron, Otto, Corngod, Mosha, Tc, and Dyars (back from the dead). Chainsaw, Maniac, Razor, Sleazy and Baron were all promoted to Adventurer. The Traders' Guide admitted Killian, Chainsaw, Telidon, Magnazon and Sleazy to its ranks. Gemini and Sleazy made it to Merchant. The fiendish GM puzzle proved no match for Noe, Galimos and Dyars (before he went dead-dead!). Noe moved on to become an Explorer, and has started work on her planet. Dane became a Baron, Niun a Duke, and Freya a Senator. There were two significant dead-deaths during the week (we count as significant a player who has reached Trader). Magnazon died not long after being promoted to Trader, and we would guess it was suicide from the times of the deaths. Dyars went dead-dead (not for the first time!) by accident. We've been asking around for the reason for his demise, and most people seem to think it was stupidity! **>>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 * a message to Hazed or Bella * send GEnie mail with the Mail about Federation option from the main menu A front-end terminal program is available for Federation, for the PC and the Amiga. You can download a copy of FedTerm from the Federation libraries (option 3 on the main Fed page). 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 Senate, 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