The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 6, 2007

Official News - page 7


SUPERMAYMAN NOMINATED FOR MENSA AWARD

A tale of woe - and of caution
by Cloudbase

Both Supermayman and I have inhabited Fed Dataspace for some time now, both having climbed the ranks to reach the heady status of Founder. And that is what makes the following account almost impossible to believe.

In the fashion of Fed, Supermayman commissioned an alt, who goes by the name of Professormay.

Now Professormay had duly acquired a ship, paid off the loan, completed the required number of hauling jobs to tackle the rank of Adventurer. But Professormay didn't relish the prospect of hauling all those Akaturi jobs himself, so he sought the help of Cloudbase, who was more than happy to help. But Cloudbase had an ulterior motive! Having purchased a Ship Registry, he devised a cunning plan - whilst undertaking the AK jobs, he also traded Professormay's standard specification spaceship for a high fuel capacity, low cargo capacity (20t) ship from Cumulus, thereby adding to his Registry.

When the Akaturi jobs were duly completed by Cloudbase, Supermayman retook control of his alt to tackle the highly enjoyable Merchant rank. However, here lies the first error - Cloudbase forgot to mention the change in ship specification, and Professormay headed off to the nearest exchange with over 300k in his bank account. Some 5 minutes later, Professormay noticed he had no money in his account and had NOT noticed that EVERY one of his acquisitions had been delivered straight to Schrodinger's Warehouse! So there he was, owner of a Harrier Class spaceship, with a maximum cargo space of 20t and no cash.

Cloudbase, realizing that he had a major role in this sorry debacle, approached the demi-goddess Hazed, full of remorse, and after a severe talking to from the mighty deity, and being relieved of a suitable bribe, the demi-divine one lent Professormay enough groats to allow him to replace his ship with one that would carry a 75t cargo.

You would think (or hope) that this would be a happy ending to a sad tale of woe, but no, the situation managed to spiral to even deeper depths of tragedy. Armed with a wadful of cash, a very grateful Professormay headed off to Superland to buy his new ship (with a cargo carrying capability). Five minutes later after some tricky calculations, he was the proud owner of a brand new Harrier Class spaceship, with a cargo capacity of 35t (YES - THIRTY FIVE!). This is, as all of us know, 40t short of being able to carry a commodity for trading in Fed exchanges. And once again NO CASH.

So poor old Professormay had to go cap in hand to the demi-goddess once more, this time having to admit his error on open comms and not only receiving the derision of the great one herself, but also of all the other occupants in Fed Dataspace. The ever benevolent Hazed relieved his plight once again, and in return Supermayman now has to provide Hazed with a lifetime's supply of chocolate.

So the morals of the story are, 1) never shirk your responsibilities by getting another player to complete a rank for you, 2) always look at the screen to see that what you think you have done is actually what is happening, 3) don't trade your ship before you reach the rank of Merchant (unless you want to run the risk of following these sorry footsteps) and 4) learn to count before buying your new spaceship.


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