Web Fed News Yearbooks - April 2002

CHANNEL NUMBER ONE

It's the Help Channel. It's where new players are tuned as soon as they move out of the Meeting Room. It's where Navigators hang out ready to help them. It's also the channel some players like to tune to, for a variety of reasons. Nothing wrong with that, so long as they remember what channel one is for, and they stick to the rules about its use.

To make sure there is no confusion about what is and is not allowed on channel one, here's an explanation of those rules.

Chatting on Channel One

If there are no new players - that is, GroundHogs or Commanders - tuned to channel one, then other players can chat on the channel, whether to the Navigator or amongst themselves. However, the Navigator on duty may find the chatter disruptive, even if there is nobody on the channel needing help, and he or she can ask the players to quiet down or to leave the channel completely. The reason is that just because there's no official helping going on on channel one, it doesn't mean the Navigator isn't working, helping someone by TB. Chatter on channel one can be distracting and if it makes it hard for the Nav to do his or her job, then it has to stop.

Any chat on channel one must always be such that it won't overwhelm a new player who suddenly logs on. The chat must be "squeaky-clean", with nothing that even approaches breaking the rules. Talk about sex, innuendo, or anything contentious - even if it would be allowed on channel nine - should be kept off channel one.

The level of chatter on channel one should never get to the point where it causes scroll. If new players gets swamped by XTs, they may miss seeing helpful messages from the game or from the Navigator.

AFK

Sitting on channel one silently can also be a problem, if you are away from your keyboard. You might wonder how somebody who is not doing anything can be a problem - well, here's why!

A new player who knows that channel one is the help channel would reasonably expect anybody tuned to the channel to help them. It is very discouraging for them to send a message asking for help and get no reply. Or, even worse, to get one of those macro ansaphone "I am not available" messages.

It is better for there to be nobody on channel one at all, so the newbods know they are on their own and should type Help or go read the manual.

Helping Newbods

It's the Navigator's job to help new players to get started, and to answer questions about the game from all players. The only person who should offer help is the Navigator on duty. Other players must refrain from jumping in to answer questions. It is confusing for a player to get answers from more than one place, and Navigators have got the definitive facts at their fingertips (or equivalent).

If there is no Navigator on duty, and you see a newbod who looks lost, then by all means go and help them to get started. But if there's a Navigator there, leave it to them.

If you do enjoy helping new players, then you could apply to become a Navigator yourself. You'll find details, together with an application form, at http://www.ibgames.net/federation/fedinfo/nav.html.

THE COST OF BEING A BARON

For reasons I won't go into, I recently had occasion to wonder just how much it costs to get to Baron. I don't mean in real life, how much the Fed subscription costs; I mean in the game, how many groats do you need?

Of course, I could have turned to the Fed manual and used a calculator to figure it out for myself, but I thought, why go to all that effort when I can get someone else to do it for me? So I tuned to Fed's greatest information resource, Channel 9.

Sure enough, one of the suckers on the channel... I mean, one of the very helpful Fedders, Snowstar, agreed to do the sums for me, leaving me to get on with the important business of being a demi-goddess (propping up the bar in CDs is hard work, you know!)

I had only had time for a few of my favorite pink frothy drinks, when Snowstar rushed into Chez Diesel and handed me the envelope, upon the back of which she had scribbled her calculations. I hereby reproduce them exactly, so if you disagree with her workings out, shout at her not at me.

Note that this is the cost simply to make it to Baron; it doesn't include the builds to get everyone's fave toy, a teleporter.

Ship permit:	200
Initial ship loan pay-off:	200,000
Imperial ship, minimal options, designed for hauling 600 tons:	906,400
Company:	2,000,000
10 factories @ 6 megs (average cost/indy-level planets):	60,000,000
Required profit to promote to JP:	25,000,000
Required profit to promote to GM:	40,000,000
Stats maxed (40 points per stat at no charge):	600,000,000
5 wares (average of max possible) @ 500,000:	2,500,000
Planet permit:	200
Planet link commods (base price):	7,138,500
Planet link (plus approx. cost for non-Titan warehousing):	117,000,000
Duchy admission fee:	20,000,000
Commods for 40 builds (average of education and energy at base price):	226,822,000
Cost of 40 builds:	16,000,000,000
Social security to meet build population requirements (average of education and energy):	400,000,000
Approximate fuel costs for normal hauling:	25,000,000
Other incidentals (food, spynet reports, insurance for non-fighters):	15,000,000
	_____________
TOTAL GROATS:	17,541,567,300 ============

Phew! That's a lot of groats. It makes me even more thankful that I was born a demi-goddess, and didn't have to work for it.

THE DAY THAT TIME STOOD STILL

Sounds like the title of a cheesy 50's sci-fi B-movie, but it actually happened in Britain a few weeks ago. In fact, time stood so still that some had to be imported from the US.

No, I am not on drugs, neither have I gone mad. How dare you think such things about your demi-goddess!

What happened was, the atomic clock that acts as Britain's official timekeeper, which is run by the Government, had to be taken off the air for more than a week for maintenance work.

The clock is located in Rugby, in England's midlands, where the time signal is created and broadcast 24 hours a day from a radio station. The signal is called MSF. And don't ask what that stands for, because nobody remembers. (No, I am not making this up, honest!). It's used by hundreds of thousands of businesses, broadcasters and self-correcting clocks.

A few weeks back, the steel cables holding up a transmitter mast next to the 250-metre MSF mast began to weaken, and both masts had to be closed down while repairs were made - they would have been too dangerous with power still being sent to the MSF mast.

As the MSF signal went off the air, users began to complain. They had to switch to the American GPS network, which broadcasts a time signal from an atomic clock in its positioning data.

There is no back-up for the MSF mast because previous risk assessments did not foresee that one would ever be needed. Guess they were wrong!

BLURRING THE REALITY BOUNDARIES

We sometimes get problems in Fed where the boundary between real life and in-game stuff blurs. Usually, it is people who bring real-life disputes into the game. The only Fed activities that seep out into real life are, on the whole, good things like relationships and parties.

Fed not being a violent game, I can't remember any serious incidents of unpleasantness being taken into real life. So it's shocking to read reports on the net that gang warfare has erupted in cybercafes in Garden Grove, California. Police say numerous fights have broken out in the parking lots outside the cafes, and in a recent skirmish, a multi-player gaming clan actually took on another clan with baseball bats and wrenches. In a separate incident, a youth was stabbed in the arm.

As a result, the city has passed a ban on new cybercafes. It will stop granting permits, and existing cybercafes must install security cameras and limit hours.

It makes our duchy wars seem very civilized! Although I can't help wondering just how a duchy war could be taken outside the game into real life... would Fedders be loading pickup trucks with livestock, driving to a rival's house, and dumping cattle all over the lawn?

REAL LIFE NEWS: SMART GLASS KEEPS YOU TOPPED UP

At last, a really useful - nay, vital - invention from a Japanese electronics company. You know how, in a restaurant, or a bar with table service, you finish your drink and then cannot catch the eye of a waiter to order another one? Well worry no more, because the smart glass will alert the waiter as soon as you empty it.

The glass uses an adaptation of the radio frequency identification (RFID) tag technology that sets of alarms when it is taken out of a shop. Glasses are tagged electronically by a microchip linked to a think radio-frequency coil its the base - don't worry, it's all dishwasher safe. A coating of a clear conducting material on the glass can detect changes in the level of liquid in the glass. When it reaches a certain level, the signal is picked up by a receiver in the table, alerting staff that the glass needs a refill.

This technology will be a boon to drinkers everywhere, although it doesn't go far enough. For the ultimate in refilling devices, we will have to wait for the real life invention of the teleporter, beaming the refill directly into the glass. Can't wait!