**>> SPYNET BULLETIN **>> EARTHDATE 95.08.27 **>> AN H-by-A SERVICE **>> Compiled by Hazed plus a team of specialist newsdroids **>> your news and gossip and get paid good groats! **>> CHANGES THIS WEEK The new version of the code will be going into Aries Fed on Wednesday. During the day, there will be much disruption, with the game going up and down like a yo-yo. Since hardly anything works right first time, there may be a few crashes during the day, so be warned: you play at your own risk on Wednesday. Things will be settled down by 6.00pm eastern. Last week's news detailed all of the changes you will see in the new version of Fed. There are a few additional features, and a few changes to the changes, which are explained below. The entire list of new features is repeated at the end of this news bulletin, after the SpyNet Review information, for those that missed it last week. Meanwhile, new versions of the Newbod's and Intermediate Guide will be uploaded on Wednesday. The Advanced Guide will not be updated at the moment, because the planet-owning ranks and Dukes, which are covered by this manual, will be changing further in the near future; we'll update the Advanced Guide once more of the changes are in. Hazed will be attending Freya's Tea and Questions session on Wednesday evening at 9.00 eastern, so if you have questions about the new code (of course you will have questions!!) you can ask her then. If you can't attend, either get someone else to ask your questions for you, or drop Hazed some mail with your query. She will then answer the question at the session. A capture of the session will be uploaded to the Fed library. **>> ADVANCE WARNING FOR DUKES When the new code goes into the game, access to a duchy will be via the Capital planet - the world owned by the Duke. Existing Dukes need to make sure they have a planet ready to be linked into the game. If you don't, your duchy will be cut off from the rest of the Galaxy, and no- one will be able to jump in or out. You should make sure you sell all your factories and liquidate your company before Wednesday, because they will vanish when the new code goes in. This new version makes few changes to what Dukes actually do... this will come in the next version. **>> ADVANCE WARNING FOR SENATORS If any Senators wish to move back to being Dukes or planet-owners, you must speak now. Send Hazed some mail immediately. **>> ADVANCE WARNING FOR PLANET-OWNERS If you still own a company, you need to liquidate it before Wednesday. It will be vanishing when the new code goes in. **>> CHANGES TO LAST WEEK'S LIST OF CHANGES Last week we explained the new promotion requirement for the JP rank. Since then, we've decided to simplify it considerably. There is no monetary payment, and you don't gain any stats for this rank - all you need to do is make a 25 meg profit last cycle. You can then buy additional stats as and when you wish to. Planets can only join duchies if they have the required fee in their treasury. The stardate now shows a different format (see story below). If you don't have enough money to pay the customs duty when you enter a duchy, you will be turned back at the border. When the game fires up, objects and mobiles are placed at a random location within their permitted range. **>> THE NEW STATS SYSTEM When the new version goes in there will be change to the way you increase your stats, as explained last week and repeated in the list of changes at the end of this news. All existing players will have to do the stat puzzles once for each stat, before they will be able to buy stats from the new locations. **>> THE NEXT NEW VERSION... After this new version goes in on Wednesday, there will be a pause of about 7 to 10 days while the techdroid works on the next batch of changes. Next week's news will detail the changes you can expect in that version. One of the changes will affect planet numbering. Instead of starting at 1, planets will be started at 9 instead. This will eliminate a lot of the problems with people sitting on planets seeing stray messages about people entering and leaving. All existing planets will be run through a conversion routine that increases all their locations by 8. Planet-owners will have to change their maps to reflect the new numbering, and teleporting types will have to be careful until they get used to the new numbers! Anyone who is currently designing a planet is advised to either hurry up and get it finished and in the game, or to hold off starting to put it into the workbench until after this change is made. Otherwise, halfway through your design process, you will find all your location numbers changing, with the consequence chaos to your records of where objects and mobiles go and what events do! **>> A NEW MEANING FOR THOSE MEANINGLESS NUMBERS The stardate is the Galactic Administration's attempt to force metric time onto its citizens, and as such it is used in official transactions such as job offers. However, the citizens of the Galaxy are almost unanimous in rejecting such an impractical way of measuring their days, sticking to the old system of hours, minutes and seconds, and in general using the time of Earth (with the exception of the inhabitants of Rigel, who have invented a system of time which allows them to use flexible minutes; if a Rigellian says that something will happen in ten minutes, it could actually mean any time between 1 minute and 1 year!) In a further attempt to sway the populace into accepting its clumsy chronology, the Galactic Administration has changed the stardate system. The left hand number continues to increase by 1 each day (at midnight GMT, for those who are interested) but the right hand number now shows STUs (those familiar with Fed terminology should be able to work out that this stands for Stardate Thingy Units). There are 1000 STUs in a day, which means that 1 STU is 1/1000th of a day, or approximately 86.4 seconds. (That's actually not approximate, it's definite!) If you really want to know what the stardate is, you can find out by typing (intuitive, huh?). Company owners will notice that their company cycles flip over at the same time the stardate flips to a new day. Fascinating. Truly fascinating. -------------------------------- AND NOW, THE REST OF THE NEWS... -------------------------------- **>> DRINK YOUR WAY AROUND THE GALAXY TONIGHT Of all the bars, on all the planets in the Galaxy... which one shall we visit next? Tonight, join Grannie on the pub crawl to visit bars on different planets around the Galaxy. It's your chance to drink in a wide variety of watering holes and discover some of the player planets you may not have visited before. The barhop starts at 7.00pm eastern, meet in Chez Diesel on Mars. **>> SPECIAL EVENTS: TIME CHANGE After tonight's barhop, all our Sunday special events will be moving back a few hours, to start at 9.00pm eastern. Make a note in your diary of September's events: Sunday Sept 3 - Trivia with Lyrynna Sunday Sept 10 - Fighting Championship Sunday Sept 17 - School - how to solve puzzles Sunday Sept 24 - Pubcrawl with Grannie **>> TRIVIA TRIVIA TRIVIA It's trivia time in Federation, the adult space fantasy! This is your chance to demonstrate your knowledge of all things Fed-related, as our Trivia Maitreuse taxes your brain and teases out those obscure little factoids. So if you need a break from hauling cargo, or trading on the exchanges or managing the economy of a planet, join Game Hostess Lyrynna. There's groats for the winners, as well as the opportunity to impress your friends with your knowledge of the obscure. Join us on Sunday, September 3rd, at 9.00pm eastern, in Chez Diesel, the Social Center of the Solar System, for Fed Trivia! **>> UNSTABLE PLANET If you plan on flying close to Kainaw's planet Tisnar, make sure you've got some heavy-duty armor on your ship. There's likely to be a lot of loose rock floating about, as the planet is starting to come apart at the seams! We sent a newsdroid to ask Kainaw just what's going on with his planet, and this is what he said: "It's not my fault really. I've been ignoring the planet for too long. It was unstable to begin with, being a small atmosphere in the hole of a crashed comet on a rather large rock in space. Well, now the mining and construction has become too much. The rock is breaking up. If I had been paying closer attention I could have taken care of things a bit better, but alas, the population of Tisnar is now preparing an exploration ship to find another place to move to. So, Tisnar is now stocking up on all kinds of agricultural goods, along with some crystals and mech-parts for the ship. Hopefully it'll be completed in time. Let this be a lesson to all Fed planet owners. Keep an eye on your planet, or it just might blow up on you." **>> PLANETS AND DUCHIES There are two new planets in the game this week. Pyke is the proud owner of Ballpark, while Trista has brought back Bliss (a planet very old players will remember from the early days of planets in Fed). Added to the two planets linked in the week before, Benson's Musica and Hermes' Olympus, that gives four worlds waiting to be reviewed by our newsdroids... but we've been asked by the owners to hold off on all of them until they are complete, so guys, just give us a yell when you want a review! Draco's Absolom is now a mining world, Kassandra's Delphi is industrial, and Astrin's Ymris is technical. **>> SPYNET REVIEW Alas poor... Trader Chad, Thane Kain and JP Jeb, who all went d-d this week. R.I.P. Congratulations to everyone who was promoted during the week. The new Captains were Cornholio, Big, Goldberry, Azorian, Gman, Amy, Kodri, Kodiak, Esperanca, Critter, Bubba and Tv. Rokmonster and Big made it to Adventurer. Rchael, Stalkerjoe, Fallon and Amy joined the Traders Guild. The new Merchants were Amy, Ashley, Fallon and Rchael. We have two new Squires: Pyke and Trista, whose planets linked in during the week. Draca was promoted to Thane, Kassandra to Industrialist and Astrin to Technocrat. ---------------------------------------------------------- COMPLETE LIST OF THE CHANGES IN WEDNESDAY'S NEW VERSION... ---------------------------------------------------------- **>> GROUNDHOG STUFF New players have their stats set up automatically at 35 each, but are given the option to change this if they wish. There is a new location where GroundHogs start the game: the Meeting Point. Its position is where the old Starship Cantina used to be (the Cantina has moved south of its old position). While GroundHogs are in the meeting point, a public address system gives them messages every 30 seconds telling them what to do to get started in the game. GroundHogs have jobs turned off so they do not see the notification of jobs from Transportation Central. This turns on automatically when they promote to Commander. GroundHogs are not insured, but when they promote to Commander they are given their first insurance automatically as part of the package. GroundHogs cannot custom order a ship, they can only purchase the starter special. **>> COMMUNICATIONS There are 15 XT channels. Hosts and newbods are automatically tuned to channel 1, which is designated the Help Channel. Channel 15 is reserved for Hosts and game staff. The command, which lists all the players in the game, can be more selective: lists the players in that system, and lists the players tuned to that channel. toggles on and off the SpyNet Notice messages, so you don't have to leave the game to activate it. Game Staff are able to send messages that will be received by all players, even if they have their comm units turned off. These show up as Public Service Announcements. They are used for emergencies, such as warning people that the game is about to shut down for maintenance. **>> MOVEMENT The command no longer fails when you meet another player's ship in the Interplanetary Wastes. However, it does misfire occasionally, leaving you in a random location in Sol space (rumor has it that Jarrow Shipyard has been fitting the navigation computers with Pentium chips). There's been a lot of cleaning up of the messages you get telling you when ships have entered, left, taken off, entered hyperspace and so on. The ship's viewscreen now tells you which planet you are on when you have landed. You can only jump into or out of a duchy via the Capital planet. If the Capital planet spins out, then the duchy is cut off from the rest of the Galaxy and the only way to enter or leave it is to sell your ship and . If you don't have enough money to pay the customs duty when you enter a duchy, you will be turned back at the border. **>> JOBS There are no more milk-run jobs. Jobs can only be done via the Transportation Central workboard, using the command. The board has been increased in size and will generate more Sol jobs for 75 ton hull ships. **>> LOCATION CHANGES The Starship Cantina has moved to south of its old position. You now enter it by going SW from the terminus, not west. The TWF Office on Mercury has been replaced by Slarti's Planet Shop, which is now the access to the Explorer's Workbench (previously an option on the shell menu). To get into the Workbench, go or from Slarti's. There is a new clothes shop on Mars, Tux Deluxe. It is west from the road outside Chez Diesel (replacing the old Admin Office). Samantha's bar on Castillo has been closed and replaced with the popular fast-food joint, Fedruckers. Chez Diesel has been redecorated. The bar has gone up-market, and now has a dress-code. Anyone who tries to enter without having bought clothes is refused entrance by the bouncers. The building site and the deserted gates on Earth have gone. There are four new locations on Earth, where players go to buy additional stats (this is explained below). **>> PROMOTION REQUIREMENTS Promotion to Adventurer happens as soon as you have the required number of trader credits, without having to log out then back in again. When Adventurers are ready to promote to Trader and have been visited by Da Messenger, the message on which tells you what to do to promote changes to remind you that you have to find the Grand Master. The location of the Grand Master is unique to each individual player. He will only move if you log out of the game and stay off for more than 1 hour. The promotion to JP has been changed. You no longer have to increase your stats and then solve a puzzle. Instead you have to prove your financial ability by successfully running a company, so that it makes at least 25 meg profit. The figure of relevance is the "profit last cycle" on the company display. The old JP puzzle has been moved and merged with the old GM puzzle, which has had some changes, to make a much larger puzzle for the promotion to GM. This puzzle no longer requires you to move at speed, so network delays or slowdowns won't mess up your attempts at the puzzle. The price of stats has increased. Dex, Stam and Strength stats now cost 1.5 meg each. Doing the stat puzzle costs 6 meg and yields 4 stats. Int stats cost 3 meg; the puzzle costs 6 meg and yields 2 points. Players can now get additional stats without doing the puzzles, provided they have done each puzzle once. There are four new locations on Earth that sell the four different stats, and players can buy as many as they like at once, at the cost of 1.5 meg each for Dex, Stam and Strength and 3 meg each for Int. There is a new item which can be used for the initial Stamina puzzle, using a different command from the other methods. We will leave you to discover what it is! **>> COMPANIES AND FACTORIES The initial cost of a factory no longer covers the 100K working capital. Provided there is money in the company balance, the capital will be transferred into the factory when you log into the game and the factory becomes operational. Dukes can no longer buy factories. Planet-owners and Dukes can no longer own companies. **>> PLANET OWNERS Population growth has been capped to prevent population explosions eating the planet out of house and home. The limit is 100 above basic for an agri planet, 200 for mining, etc. Exchange production has been tweaked, to make the operation of exchanges more predictable. Exchanges will run a little slower than previously. Planets cannot join duchies unless they have the required fee in their treasury. Duchy tax is deducted from money going into a planet treasury instead of being manufactured out of thin air. will no longer be a valid direction to use in a ground location. In the new version, the workbench checker will complain if you use it. However, the load checker (that checks all planets when the game fires up) will not be changed immediately, so existing planets won't break straight away... but you will have to change all movements before we do change the load checker, or your planet won't load. When we make this full change, typing on the ground will tell you what planet you are on. Objects and mobiles are now placed at a random location within their permitted range when the game fires up. **>> DUKES AND DUCHIES Dukes will no long lose their planets when they promote. Their planet will become the capital planet of the duchy, with a new economic level, bureacracy. The planet will have no exchange, since it will be a world peopled by administrators, lawyers, court functionaries and hangers-on! It doesn't matter if the planet has a location called Trading Exchange: it just won't do anything. There will be no restriction on the number of Dukes. You will only be able to between duchies by going via the capital planets. You won't have to go via Sol any more, which means you will only have to pay one lot of tax when going to a different duchy. Embargo will have a different use. Instead of preventing you bringing goods into the duchy, it will break the direct link between two duchies, so you will have to jump via another duchy (and pay two lots of tax). Smuggling has been removed from the game completely. All references to naval bases and embassies have gone. In a later version, Dukes will have different facilities to build up the protection for their duchies. Duchies no longer have a bank account... all duchy tax goes into the treasury of the Capital planet. **>> ODDS AND SODS The cleaning droid mobile that used to roam the Martian ruins now travels throughout Sol, and actually cleans up as it goes. It will pick up any object it finds that is not where it belongs; the object will join the recycle queue. Planet owners will be able to put cleaning mobiles on their planets in a later version. Drinking the whoosh makes you drop everything you are holding as you rush for relief. Objects that have been held in players' inventories for a long period (between 90 and 120 minutes) will be siezed by the drug squad as suspicious items and taken away for analysis. The object will join the recycle queue. This will happen no matter who has been holding the items, so the drug squad cannot be avoided by passing objects around. Networth is now displayed in score rather than by a separate command. GroundHog personas are deleted after 10 days of inactivity. All other personas are now deleted after six months of inactivity, no matter what the rank of the player. The right hand number on the stardate now shows STUs (Stardate Thingy Units). An STU is one thousandth of a day (86.4 seconds). **>> FUTURE CHANGES Here are details of some of the changes still to be made. The promotion requirements for Explorer will be changed. Explorers will have to increase their stamina, strength and dexterity to 90 and their intelligence to 75. They also have to ship out 40,000 tons of goods by giving jobs to Poor People. Existing Explorers will have their job credits converted at the rate of 75 tons per job. In order to get a planet, Explorers will have to build the hyperspace link for their new system. You will no longer be obliged to design a planet from scratch; instead you will buy an off-the-peg planet, which you can link as it is, or customise to your own specification. There will be a selection of ready-made planets and you'll be able to choose which one you want. Planet numbering will start from 9 instead of 1 (see earlier story). Planets will be loaded in and out of the game dynamically, without having to wait for the game to reset. To take a planet out of the game, you will type then when there is nobody on the planet the lights will be turned out and the planet will spin out. To bring it back in, type and it will reappear shortly. You will not be able to make any changes to your workbench files without first taking the planet offline. You will not be able to bring the planet online again unless you have run the planet through the checker and it has shown no problems. Workthing consumption will be changed to make it less random, since at the moment there is no way of knowing just how much your workthings are going to eat! The build system will be revamped as explained in previous news bulletins, so that commodities needed for a build are taken from the warehouse on the planet. The warehouse will be expanded by tunnelling into the planet's surface. Dukes will get goods to feed their workthings by tithing a percentage from the planets in their duchies. Dukes will have to defend their duchy against an external threat, provided by the Martians, bent on invasion or sabotage. This will provide the incentive for planets to stay in a well-defended duchy. **>> 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. The current Federation Game Hosts are: Freya, Porcupine, Lyrynna, Grannie, Sparky, Zzzax, Geezer, Magneto, Syfari and Goblin. Their function is to answer questions, help new players get started, and make fun things happen. In the event of a problem or question, you can: * talk to Hazed or one of the Game Hosts in the game * a message to Hazed * send mail on your host system to the Federation team: on GEnie, mail FEDII.2 or use the option on the main Fed page on Delphi, mail FED2 or use the option on the main Fed page on Cris, mail FEDERATION2 You can buy a copy of the very excellent Idiot's Guide to Federation for the paltry sum of $15.95. On GEnie, type ORDER from any main menu page. On Delphi and Cris, send a check for $15.95 to: Leah Parker, 4543 La Crescenta Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214-2912. **>> BULLETIN ENDS