**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 93.09.26 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> GUEST NEWSDROID Next week's news will be brought to you by a Guest NewsDroid. He, she or it has asked to remain anonymous so they can poke around picking up all the dirt without you suspecting! **>> FUTURE ATTRACTIONS We've got some special planets lined up to go in over the next few months, as part of a package of attractions. First up, as a joint promotion with the Religion and Philosophy RT, is the planet Heaven. Written by Glurg and Tellurian, it features their ideas of what the afterlife might be like. It has several different sections catering for different religious beliefs, so it's probably guaranteed to shock just about everyone. The planet will be in the game for the weekend of October 16 and 17. Afterwards, Bella will be the guest at an RTC in the R&P conference, talking about the ethical and moral aspects of writing a multi-player game. The date for that is tentatively October 20. We'll give you more details closer to the date. Later in October, we will finally get to see the long-awaited UnCon planet. Written by Krell, it shows you just what did happen to the people who attended this year's Fed Meet in Los Angeles. Freya is writing us a delightful family holiday planet for Thanksgiving... at least, that's what we asked her to do. Goodness knows what her warped mind will actually come up with! Are there any volunteers to write us a Christmas planet? Krell did an excellent job last year with Winter; someone out there must have the urge to try to do better. In the pipeline is a joint promotion with the Education RT, and there's also the possibility of a collaboration with the Sports RT. Both of these are very nebulous at the moment, we'll tell you more when things became sorted out. **>> THE FEDERATION LIBRARIES We've been rather neglecting the Federation libraries recently, what with Hazed's computer getting stolen and Amiga FedTerm still in beta-test. Apologies if you uploaded pictures or sounds to the library which didn't get released. We are now getting our act together again - Hazed has got a new computer - and we're going through the recent uploads. There are a number of files containing Amiga pictures and sounds, which we haven't released - we'll hold them until Amiga FedTerm is on general release. On the PC, we have released the following files: File 76, WARP.VOC, is a sound of a ship going into warp, uploaded by D.MANCHIR. File 79, AKE.GIF is a digitized GIF of the artist (B.AKERBERG) warping space. File 80, ASHLEY01.GIF, is a very good picture of Ashley uploaded by R.SCHWARTZ15. File 82, DUCKIE.VOC, is a sound uploaded by Bochiman. File 82, MARCIA.VOC, also uploaded by Bochiman, is Marcia's voice welcoming you to her bar. Not yet released is a file containing four pictures of Tao's new planet - we'll get that one released in the next few days. It is worth reminding you that if you are drawing pictures for use with FedTerm, you need to get them the right size and shape otherwise only a small portion of them will be displayed. Some of the GIFs uploaded in the library just won't work at the size/shape they are! You can tell if your picture will work by running the GIF2FED program. That gives you a rectangular frame the correct size for large or small pictures, allowing you to "cut" the area of the picture you want to use. **>> THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK Also new in the Federation library - but we thought it deserved a section of its own - is an ASCII text version of the Lewis Carroll poem, The Hunting of the Snark. Many of you will realise the relevance of this to the game. If you don't yet know how it relates to Fed, you will find out as you advance! SNARK.TXT is file 84. **>> YET AGAIN... Yet another version of Plantking's offline planet program has been uploaded to the MPGames libraries! This version not only fixes problems in the previous one, it also adds some new features. CANNA106.ZIP is file 3235. The new features are listed in Cat 14, Top 14. **>> NO MORE ODDBALL Oddball has retired from managing the Senate category in the MPGames RT. For the time being, Krell will handle the administrative work in the Cat, until such time as Oxcart grows up and becomes a Senator; then he'll take over. Thanks to Oddball for his work in the past. **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES Tao's planet, Rtyui, was added to the game at the beginning of the week. There's a problem with the object file so there's no objects or mobiles on the planet at the moment - but you can still explore. Delights that await you are a tree that looks remarkably similar to one that used to be on Marcia's planet, a horseride, a comfy sleep in a hammock, and a trip through some song lyrics! We asked Tao how the name of his planet was pronounced, and he tried to tell us... the best we can come up with is that it sounds like a French vegetable disk called ratatouille! Early next week, Neuromancer planet will go in. We'll report on it in next week's news. Barberousse's planet, Source, has advanced to Mining level, and Topper's Oasis is now a Leisure world. There's been a little movement in the duchies: Rtyui has joined up with Bochiman's Hell, as has Oasis. Source, which recently joined Glurg's Sapien, has now defected to Niun's Ocean. Incidentally, a check of the duchy display shows that Hell has an embargo on Celibacy. Tao says he's smuggling... **>> SPYNET REVIEW Congratulations to everyone who got themselves promoted during the week. The new Captains are Bascom, Penster, Montego, Dagg, Mcbain, Billthecat, Greendog, Semaphore, Deth, Slp, Gene, Sim, Kedar and Feralis. Sagen, Capt and Tim all became Traders. Tabby, Stalker and Bandar were promoted to Merchant. The awesome JP puzzle proved no match for the minds of Hypatia and Abdulah. Rand became an Explorer. Tao became a Squire - not bad for someone who originally vowed to stay an Adventurer for ever! Barberousse is now a Thane, and Topper is a Baron. **>> 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. You can download a copy of FedTerm from the Federation libraries (option 3 on the main Fed page). The Amiga version is in beta-test. 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 - and this time we really mean it!) 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 Oxcart (Mail ID: J.LONG29). There are also private categories for Explorers and for the Senate, run by Krell (Mail ID: K.HILLYER). The MPGames RT also has a Federation library in the files area, Library 5. Library 18 holds the Federation News Archives. **>> BULLETIN ENDS