THE MONTH IN BRIEF
The month of October started with a momentous announcement - after years of work, the Interstellar Link opened up again. Initially there were two new star systems available - Arctica and Rigel 4. Aliens who had been trapped in Sol ever since the constant shift closed down the link many years ago made plans to travel back to their home worlds and see if any of their friends and relatives are still alive.
Armstrong Cuthbert started to offer cargo jobs to planets outside of the Solar System, with AC offices automatically opening up on all landing pads, although Akaturi couriers were not required to use the link to make their deliveries. AC also changed the way jobs are handled, so they now vanish from the workboard after a while if nobody wants to do them.
The Fed II Workbench was released - a set of Windows programs that let you design the maps for your planet, and specify messages such as a customized no-movement message. Along with the Workbench came a detailed manual written by Hazed, explaining how to use the software, and what you could and could not do, as well as what was required to make your planet files compatible with the game. Of course, nobody bothered to read it...
Mac users who were disappointed not to have a version of the Workbench they could use, were mollified by the addition of commands that allowed location names and descriptions to be changed from within the game. They could then save the commands so they would stick, or leave the maps to revert to their old state at reset.
As the month progressed, more out-of-Sol planets were added - first those designed by the test team and then those belonging to players who had reserved a planet name. Catspaws was the first player to have her star system rolled out.
The month ended with Halloween, and Diesel did what she always does given any excuse - she threw a party. There was also a special Halloween Scavenger Hunt event, where players were given clues leading them to hidden objects secreted all over the Solar System.
INTERSTELLAR LINK REOPENS
After many years of patient work, the Galactic Administration's scientists, in conjunction with the Imperial Navy, the Magellan Society, and independent corporations Armstrong Cuthbert and TC&B, are pleased to announce that the Interstellar Link is now in operation again.
Actually, it has been open for some months, but enormous amounts of power were needed to keep it stable, and even so there was considerable risk in using it, so travel through hyperspace has been restricted to the military and explorers from the Magellan Society. Now, finally, the link has been stablized, and contact has been made with two extra-Sol systems.
The process of linking up with the Interstellar Links in other systems is a slow and cumbersome one, so access to other systems will be restricted for a while. You can expect to see new destinations come available one by one over the next week or so. In the long run, the boffins from the Galactic Administration will implement something like the old protocols that let new systems be added to the list of possible destinations automatically.
One organization that is not happy to see the link reopened is Customs and Excise. Until now, they have had the monopoly on levying duties and taxes on goods being moved around, but they will not be allowed to operate outside of Sol. They have lodged a complaint with the Galactic Administration, and we understand they have hired a lobbying firm with the intent to get the law changed so that they can patrol outside of Sol, but it is unlikely they will succeed, since Inter-Galactic law gives POs a great deal of autonomy, and it has always been their job to patrol their spaceways and deal with smugglers appropriately.
COMMANDERS AND THE WORKBOARD
Armstrong Cuthbert are now offering jobs to and from the out-of-Sol planets, as well as in Sol, and this gives Commanders one more thing to think about - they cannot travel through hyperspace until they have paid off their loans because the finance company is worried about people absconding with their ships!
Several players have pleaded with us to make Armstrong Cuthbert only show jobs that a player can actually carry, to stop Commanders from accidentally accepting out-of-Sol jobs and then having to void them and incur the fine. But we have refused.
Is it because we are mean? Is it because we enjoy watching people make mistakes? Is it because we just don't care about the hard work new players have to put in to learn all about how things work?
No, it's none of the above.
Yes, we do understand that there is already a long list of things for a newbod to learn, and we've just added one more thing to the learning curve. But Fed is a game, and it is intended to be a challenge. There should be decisions to be made, and risks incurred if you make the wrong decisions. If we made it impossible to do anything wrong, it would just be boring.
No newbod comes into the game knowing how things work; they have to learn. There are three ways that new players usually find out how to do jobs. They can read the manual, they can use the help messages in the game, and they can ask players to explain things to them.
The manual has been updated so that it makes it clear that Commanders have to be selective about the jobs they accept. The help messages have also been updated, so if you type 'HELP WORK' the information includes the warning about not picking jobs from outside of Sol.
So that just leaves information from players, and all you need to do is remember that there is one more thing to tell newbods about.
So just how are newbods supposed to know which planets are in Sol, anyway?
There's two ways. They can look at the Sol map (scroll down to see the asteroid belt) or they can type 'DI SYSTEM SOL' to see a list of all the planets in the Solar System.
PANAMANIAN SHIPS
Ever since humankind took its first steps out of the Solar System to the vast reaches of the Galaxy, ships bought from Jarrow Shipyard on Earth have had Panamanian registry. Before the constant shift closed the Interstellar Link and put a stop to our exploration and colonization of other star systems, shipyards on out-of-Sol planets took care of the registration process too, so any vessel bought on a player-planet was registered to that planet.
Now that we are able to travel through the link once again, it is possible to buy a ship from a planet other than Earth. However, ships bought from other worlds are still showing as registered in Panama. This has been the subject of complaints from our new crop of planet-owners, who were all looking forward to seeing ships emblazoned with their planet name as the home port.
We sent a newsdroid along to the Galactic Administration's Bureau of Ship Registrations to find out why ships were still being registered to Panama, even though they were purchased outside the Solar System. It took our droid a while to find anyone who would give us any information (for some reason, bureaucrats are a bit shy about talking to the press; I can't think why. Do they imagine we are going to misquote them or something?) but eventually our droid did come across a charming young secretary who wasn't as close-mouthed as her colleagues. It took her down the road to Godot's Snack Bar and, over a plate of alien seafood, asked her to explain what's going on with ship registrations.
"It's about the benefits that a planet gains from having ships registered to it," she said. "The ship becomes, in effect, part of the planet's merchant fleet, and that means money for the PO. Only a small amount for one ship, but the bigger the merchant fleet, the more it builds up. It can come to quite a sizeable amount." She paused to suck the spicy sauce off a tentacle, making a rather disgusting slurping noise as she did so.
"As well as the money, there's the power and the political influence that come with having ships registered to a planet. It's all very valuable. Which is why, of course, the Galactic Administration is very reluctant to surrender this power back to planet-owners. Nobody wants to voluntarily give up that kind of political influence. Or the groats." She turned her attention back to her plate, just in time to stop some kind of bright green crustacean from scuttling off the side of her plate, by impaling it with her fork.
We asked if the GA would ever allow ship registration to be undertaken by other planets.
"Well, I sincerely doubt they will - not officially, anyway," she replied, as she mopped up the crustacean's green ichor with a hunk of bread. "Of course, you know how things work in our wonderful bureaucracy. You can usually find somebody who will accept a bribe in return from some illicit service. So it wouldn't surprise me if a few slithies started changing hands in return for slipping POs the right to register their own ships. Just you wait."
With that, she cracked open the crustacean and devoured its shiny green flesh, leaving just the discarded shell on the plate.
So that's what our droid learnt: for now, all ships are registered to Panama, and officially that is how things will stay. But it is likely that in the not-too-distant future, POs will be able to get that privilege by deploying a few bribes in the right places. We'll keep a probing eye on the situation and let you know when you should have your slithy toves ready.
STAR CHAMBER: TERRAFORMING YOUR PLANET
by Freya
Planets, we've got planets - and more planets every day. So this seems to be a good time to talk about player planets.
In the good old Solar System, the Galactic Administration reigns supreme. They don't just run the customs ships, they set a stable tax rate and enforce social rules on all the planets. While some may bemoan the heavy hand of Big Government, this does mean a relatively safe and stable life for everyone. But once you fly through the Interstellar Link you are in a whole 'nother place. This is the frontier and it can be a wild and very strange place if you are not careful.
Planet owners are free, for the most part, to terraform their planets as they please. They can also change them without warning, making them quite dangerous or confusing to unwary explorers. While the Galactic Administration won't tolerate any so called dead-dead planets, death is a very real possibility on these new worlds. Traveler - be warned, tread carefully. On the other hand, these planets have a wide range of themes and fantasies to offer for your exploring pleasure.
With the freedoms of the new frontier there are a very few hard rules the Galactic Administration will enforce. As mentioned previously, dead-dead planets won't be tolerated. Also subject to zero tolerance will be planets which break the rules of Federation II DataSpace. The GA has some heavy duty equipment to enforce these rules now as well. In the distant past, Ming's officials used to politely ask planet owners, "Please change your planet, it would be so kind of you," and then they would patiently wait, and nag, and plead, etc. This would go on and on in a ridiculous struggle to enforce a basic standard. But much time and technological development has come and gone since those distant days. Now, it's "let the planet owner beware". If a planet owner terraforms an asteroid or stock planet in a way that violates the basic rules of Federation II DataSpace, the GA heavy duty machinery will simply re-terraform the planet back to its original stock state and the planet owner will lose terraforming rights until they promote to the next higher rank. The ability to terraform a planet is a serious privilege and responsible behaviour is expected without exception.
GEEK TOY: PIZZA BOX LAPTOP CASE
So you're travelling on the train or waiting in an airport lounge, with your nice designer laptop bag slung over your shoulder, and you might as well have put a sticker on it saying "computer inside: steal me now". So what you need is something to carry your laptop in that isn't so... obvious.
What you need, in fact, is the PowerPizza box. It's a pizza box that has been converted into a laptop box - it's anti-shock and waterproof, lined with 10mm of protective foam, and it costs only £12.99 (plus p&p).
Go here for more details.
REAL LIFE NEWS: SCIENTISTS SOLVE TOAST SOLDIER PROBLEM
Americans may not know what toast soldiers are, so before I tell you just how scientists have solved the problem, let me explain... the great British breakfast sometimes consists of a soft-boiled egg, with the top sliced off to reveal the runny yolk inside. Strips of toast are then dunked into the yellow stuff, and the strips are known as toast soldiers. I don't know why, but here are some speculations:
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Barbarella, "cos of humpty dumpty hehe"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Barbarella, "the soldiers couldnt put him together again"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Barbarella, "so now they got egg on there face hehe"
Your comm unit crackles with a message from Nightdroid, "I always assumed they were called that due to their human-like aspect ratio, their tendancy to be all lined up in a row, and their inevitable death for the cause ;)"
Anyway, now you understand the terminology, I can proceed with the story...
A British engineer has calculated the ideal width for a toast soldier. Mike Minton says they should be 22mm wide (that's 0.87 inches). He explained, "There has always been a danger of cutting your soldiers too fat or too thin. If they are too fat then obviously they can't fit into the opened neck of the egg which is infuriating. But if the soldiers are too small then there's the risk of a catastrophic failure after they're dunked into the yolk. The simple act of withdrawing the soldier may cause it to break in half, forcing the person who is eating the egg to resort to a teaspoon."
Which would be a disaster, obviously, resulting in tears around the breakfast table. So thank you, Mike Minton, for solving this problem for us and bringing peace and harmony to the first meal of the day.
REAL LIFE NEWS: DEAD MEN DON'T PAY PARKING FINES
I got a parking ticket last week, and I don't have any excuse not to pay it - I had accidentally parked with my front wheels overlapping a residents-only parking bay, which was foolish. But a parking fine imposed on a 71-year-old man in Melbourne, Australia, is unlikely to be paid, even though his car had exceeded the allowed time in the Croydon Market shopping center car park.
The reason he will get away with it is - he was dead! In fact, he'd been dead for several days when the parking officer ticketed the car. The elderly man had been reported missing nine days ago and was known to be seriously ill. The officer put the ticket on the car's windscreen without noticing that there was a dead body inside.
The Mayor of the relevant suburb came out with a long and convoluted explanation to excuse this lack of observation - the angle at which the car had been parked, and the placing of a flowerbed, seemed to have something to do with it, but frankly we would have thought the smell might have alerted the officer that something was wrong!
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