IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FED2

PLANETARY CONSTRUCTION

CLAIMING A STOCK PLANET

If you're not interested in designing your own planet, or want to get a planet linked quickly which you can then customize later, you can use the 'CLAIM' command to automate the process.

The command is: 'CLAIM SYSTEM systemname PLANET planetname TYPE stocksystemname'. 'Systemname' is the name you want to give your system, 'planetname' is the name you want to give your planet, and 'stocksystemname' is which of the stock systems you want to use.

Names have to be unique - you cannot call your planet or system something that is already in use by another planet or system. They can be up to 32 characters long, and can contain spaces. You can use letters and numbers , but no punctuation or symbols, and they must start with a letter. Do not use the words system, planet or type as part of the names.

For example, you could call your system Big Star, and your planet New World 1.

There are six different stock systems - here's a list:

You can examine the six stock systems in the showroom on Magrathea (west of the Sol interstellar link).

An example of what the command would look like is: claim system big star planet new world 1 type sweet.

Warning: make sure you have spelled the system and planet names correctly before you press return, because you can't change them once you have issued the command!

The new planet will be linked into the game at the next reset at which point you will promote to Founder.


Making Changes to your Stock Planet

Once your stock planet is in the game, you can change the name and description of any location, by redecorating the location you are in. You can change the location name with the command 'CHANGE NAME new_name' - for example, 'change name Big Bertha's Bar and Grill'. You can change the description of the room with 'CHANGE DESC new_description' - for example 'change desc This long and winding road winds along for a long way, linking the Fool's Hill to the east, to Strawberry Fields which is south.'

The 'CHANGE DESC' command has some restrictions. You are limited to the number of characters the game will accept for any input, so you won't be able to use all the 1,000 characters that the Workbench location editor allows for a description. You will also be unable to split the text up into paragraphs - the whole description will be one paragraph. And you won't be able to put any spaces at the start of the descriptions, to indent the text.
You can decide whether these changes should be permanent or whether they should disappear at reset. Normally, the changes are just temporary and when the game resets, the planet files will be loaded in as they were before, reverting to the stock version. So you could redecorate a room for a party or other special event, safe in the knowledge that the decor will revert to the its normal state once the festivities are over.

However, if you want your change to stick around, then use the command 'SAVE MAP' and the current version of your planet will be saved to disk, and will load back in at reset. Note that the command only affects the map you are on, so if you have made changes to both ground and space locations, you will need to use the command twice, once on the ground and once in space.


Customizing Your Stock Planet

If you later decide you want to customize your planet you can start over from scratch and design a brand new planet which will replace the stock planet, or you can ask us to send you the stock planet files that the game created for you, and use them as the basis for your amendments. If you want the files, email feedback@ibgames.com (don't forget to put Fed2 in the subject line) and give your Fed2 character name.


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