LINE NOISE News from Chez Diesel 2 March, 1989 PEG-MOBILE Good News - Our Illustrious Leader has received a cheque from Cnet HQ, and what's more it didn't bounce! So your heroic efforts in staying away from Fed for over a week were not in vain. To prove that the strike had some effect, a new version went in on Monday. Those of you who do silly things like picking up dangerous animals (whatever happened to Anthony?) can now get your stats replaced in the Hospital on Earth using the command. It costs 25K, and that will replace all lost stats in one go. However, the location in the hospital isn't marked - so you'll just have to try all the wards until you find the right one! Typing when in your ship will now show you the viewscreen, making it easier to identify whatever is making your ship's warning buzzer sound. This could be vital, because there is a new mobile flying around the Interplanetary Wastes, commemmorating one of Fed's most famous players (I'm sure you can work out who it is!) and it is deadly! It moves twice as fast as Monty and has much more powerful armament, so my advice is to stay well clear - unless you're an ex-Alliance member who fancies getting your own back! The JP bug which was responsible for Omi's record-breaking overdraft, has now been fixed. More on that bug later! And another part of the GM puzzle has been implemented. The portal that allows ships through to the Snark Asteroid can now be opened - but only for those with a high enough stamina! More parts to the puzzle we've all been waiting for will appear in the next version. Our Illustrious Leader now hopes to put a new version up every fortnight, probably on Mondays. However, you should never believe Bella's promises... Since the boycott ended, Fed Data Space has been fairly busy with a number of new players appearing (although some of them may be reincarnations of old players - it's not always easy to tell!) Well, when I say busy, I am speaking relatively. The Stardate has been reaching about the 1000 mark on some evenings, which is nothing compared to last summer/autumn, when at weekends it regularly topped the 4000 mark; but it's certainly an improvement over the last few months when Fed Data Space has been practically deserted! Let's hope it continues to be busy (I have my pizza sales to consider) and that even more new players join, to stop the game becoming too top-heavy. Compunet has been down a great deal over the last week or so which has (obviously!) kept people off Fed; but the game itself suffered a mysterious crash last weekend due to the current Obnoxious Poor Person, Garfield. The pillock decided to sell his ship while sitting in it, and got stuck in a phantom control centre. He quit, but when he tried to log on again later, the game couldn't work out where he was supposed to be, got confused and had a nervous break down. This little problem has now been fixed! While unable to get their fix of Fed, players flocked to Hawk's chat directory, Tight Beam. It now has alpha-gotos - BEAM2, BEAMMEUPSCOTTY etc) which makes it a lot easier to cope with. And to improve things even more, good old Bil has adapted TC's excellent Pro-Chat programme to work with BEAM. For those of you who haven't come across it, Pro-Chat does many clever things like automatically re-sending a directory until something new is uploaded, uploading without having to specify life, price or page type, cutting out the hassle of trying to upload on a full directory, keeping track of where you were on the net before you started chatting, and where you had got to in chat, and many other goodies. The BEAM version works in exactly the same way but for the Fed Chat area. It's only for the C64 so tough luck all you filthy rich Amiga and ST owners! Remember the JP bug? (I said I'd come back to that later!) You know, the one that allowed JP's to make illicit profits by giving jobs to each other. Well Hawk has been a right crafty bugger and managed to come out of it far better off than we all thought! It's quite a complex bug, so I'll explain it fully. In its original form, JP's would offer someone a job and then log off before the cargo was delivered. The person doing the job would get paid for it, but since the JP wasn't around the money was coming from nowhere, and not out of their bank balance. So it was a licence to print money! Omi discovered this bug first and made a fair profit out of it with the help of Pegasus and Pugwash. But Our Illustrious Leader got wind of it and put a fix in which took the money out of a JP's account if they logged off before a job was delivered. (This, incidentally, was where the problem of Omi's disappearing groats arose.) Crafty JP's soon realised that it was still possible to make illicit profits by giving each other jobs with time bonuses. For example: JP Vroomfondel gives JP Majikthise a job for 2 meg from Earth to Mars, and allows 20 GTUs to complete it. JP M accepts the job. JP V logs off, and has 2 meg deducted from his balance. JP M then delivers the cargo and gets paid 2 meg for the job - plus a 33% bonus which appears out of thin air. And on a 2 meg job that is quite a substantial gain! The two JP's then swap roles, giving each other jobs for larger and larger amounts, finally sharing out the proceeds at the end. So you can see how vast profits can be made! Hawk, Omi, Zugger, Pugwash and Xaviour were the JPs at the time, and they all made loadsamoney from this scam. But then they agreed that enough was enough; they had all made about the same amount, and didn't want to totally unbalance the game. They made a pact not to exploit this very lucrative bug any further. Unfortunately, not all the JPs stuck to their promise. Omi and Xaviour decided to carry on, but got it wrong, which is how Juniorplonka lost all his money! And there ended the matter... or so we thought. Hawk, it appears, had taken out insurance. In order to deceive his fellow JPs about how much he had actually made, he gave 15 meg to Dave to look after. And Dave gave it back last night. Result: Hawk's networth shot up and he is now head of the conclave. And there's more... while paying back the 15 meg, Dave was giving Hawk the groats in 9K chunks, which meant that although tax was payable it was only at 5%. He typed 'Give Hawk 9000' and hit the hash key about a million times. And at this point another little bugette manifested... the amount accumulated so the second command was read as 'Give Hawk 9900' and the third... well you get the picture. At the end of it, Dave was giving over several megagroats at a time and paying the extortionate tax, ending up with a deficit of over 7 meg. Once he realised what had happened, Hawk, being the honest, upright citizen he is, started to pay Dave back. But Dave's very dodgy 64 threw a wobbly and chucked him off! Obviously, Hawk will give Dave the money he lost over the deal, but he has certainly come out of it very well without anyone suspecting. However, it doesn't seem to have occurred to clever old Hawk that other JPs might have had the same idea... watch out for other meteoric rises in networths over the next few days! And finally, Sunday at 9.00 sees the Trial of the Century as that vile fiend Magius stands in the dock accused by Pugwash of indecent assault, illegal use of drugs, and many other horrendous crimes. I am sure you all look forward to seeing Red-eyes at long last getting the come-uppance he so richly deserves!