LINE NOISE News from Chez Diesel 1 September, 1988 You'll have to excuse me if I seem a little unsociable these days, but I'm in mourning over the death of Merchant Pugwash - not only one of my most regular customers, but also a close personal friend. But I must choke back my tears because there is a lot to tell you about (including the details on fighting which I know you all await with baited breath). Firstly, no sooner had I uploaded my last Line Noise than it was proved out of date by Pegasus making Merchant. I think he only did it to spite me. Congratulations, Peg! There's been a few minor changes to the game, and some tidying up that you probably won't notice. The command for insurance has changed: now gives you a quotation and actually renews your policy. Eventually you will be able to insure yourself and your ship separately. I don't think you'll be able to insure you spybeam though. Only Traders and above now need to service their ships, and it is only engines and shields that need attention; computers, weapons and hulls (including paintwork) are now safe unless you get involved in a fight (yes, yes, more about that later. Have patience!) The Grizzle has returned! And he looks meaner and nastier than ever. Our Illustrious Leader tells me that, unlike terrestial animals, Grizzles hibernate during the summer so he was curled up in a cave somewhere sleeping off his last meal. There is a new object, the Opal, which is quite easy to find (it is on the route to another valuable object) but has a puzzle attached to it. There are two new ways to die - one of the valuable objects is no protected; unless you take care you could come to a nasty end; and you can now starve to death. When your stamina falls to 5 you are told you are very hungry; at 1 you are warned that you are about to faint; and if it gets to 0, that's it. There is really no excuse to die in this way; I serve a particularly tasty Rigellian Lasagne and, of course, my prize-winning, galazy- famous ale, Diesel's Old Peculiar. A few changes to the way the Trading Exchanges work. Firstly, they are now inactive unless Traders or above are logged on (previously Adventures would keep the exchanges running, but since there are so few Adventurers that really won't make much difference.) Also the way prices are displayed has changed - instead of a carousel showing one price after another, no matter what exchange you are in, you will now be shown the price of whatever commodity you last sold, and the carousel will proceed from that point until you sell something else. This will help you to avoid dumping a whole cargo-load at 10 groats a ton! There will be one more new object on Sunday - a black box. Since I haven't seen it yet I'm afraid I can't give you any more details. And now... the information you have all been waiting for: FIGHTING! Ship-fighting is expected to be in on Sunday. Before you all fly into a panic, Monty Pirate is not going to attack anyone - YET! Until the fighting routines are perfected you are safe from that sinister black ship. However, you won't be safe from each other. Now, this is complicated so pay attention at the back! There are two ways to fight someone; you can engage in full ship-to-ship combat, or you can take a potshot. If you want to take a potshot at someone you just fire a laser or launch a missile at them when you come across them. This may or may not hit them before they cruise out of the sector, depending on how quick you are on the draw, and how fast they are travelling. You can take a potshot at anyone, no matter what their rank. You will be told if you hit them or not. The syntax will be (you can use their persona name or shipname, whichever is shorter.) Sniping in this fashion does not detain them at all. Full ship-to-ship combat, on the other hand, cancels any moves they had subsequently made, so if they type- ahead a complete journey from Titan to Mercury and you engage them in combat on the way, the rest of their journey is aborted. You can only initiate a full attack on someone of the same, or higher, rank than you. This will stop those beastly cruel horrid Merchants blowing poor innocent little Commanders out of the sky. You can either fight manually by typing over and over again, or you can let your computer fight for you. turns the computer on; reverses the process, and checking the ship's status indicates which mode the computer is in. If you wish to initiate an attack, there are several ways to do it (I told you it was complicated!) You can loiter in space with your tractor beam on and see what you catch. This could be dangerous, however, as trapping someone with your beam is considered a hostile act and you may catch more than you bargained for! Or you can wait until your prey appears in the sector and then them. If your computer is on auto this will switch your tractor beam on and start blasting away at them; if you are on manual it will just switch the beam on. If you are snared by someone's beam and have your computer on auto, it will automatically respond. If you wish to run away instead of fighting, you can which will send you to a random location in space, but it overloads your engines and severely damages them. Firing your lasers uses power, and so does using your shields, so you may wish to turn the shilds off and concentrate on offense rather than defense. toggles them and it's indicated on the ship's status. If you let your computer do the fighting, it will look down your list of weapons and choose the first undamaged weapon. It is a good idea, therefore, to think about what order you buy weapons in. The computer will automaticlly switch your shields on. Because of this, it will sometimes pay to fight manually instead. Everytime you fire at someone, or they fire at you, you'll be told what damage there is (if any). You can get full details on their ship status by typing , and of course check your own by using . You can in the middle of a fight but it will give the opposition a free shot at you, which might be fatal! And you can squawk for help by typing which will tell everyone you are being attacked (but won't tell them where you are). Depending upon how popular you are, this might bring some help - or it might encourage others to join in the attack! Here is a list of the commands that you can use while engaged in full ship-to-ship combat: ATTACK ASSESS AUTO FIRE FLEE LAUNCH MANUAL MAYDAY QUIT SCORE STATUS SWITCH SHIELDS SWITCH TRACTOR A word of warning: Even though high-ranking players cannot attack obnoxious Commanders, players who are a persistent pest should not feel that they are immune from chastistement. Higher players will still be able to take pot-shots; and they can always prevail upon other low- ranking players to do their dirty work for them. And if you are really irritating you may find several players ganging up on you - which means you are much more likely to lose! However, as long as you are insured you should find fighting expensive but not fatal - unless, of course, you annoy someone enough that they will attack you again before you have a chance to re-insure! But you wouldn't be that silly... would you? . FOOTNOTE The Proprieteuse of Chez Diesel (Social Centre of the Solar System) disclaims all responsibility for any damage to property or loss of life caused by players following these instructions on fighting.