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THE BEST USE OF STOCK PLANETS

by Hazed

When you link a planet into Fed2 DataSpace you are giving yourself a whole area that is your very own, which you can shape as you please (subject to the game rules, of course). Fed was a pioneer in allowing players to use their creativity to add chunks to the game, and even today I don't think there is any other game that lets you do as much with your own section. When we allow you to write events for your planet, you'll be able to be even more creative and make wonderful thinks happen.

Not everybody is creative, we understand that. That's why we came up with the stock planets which you can link into the game after making only minimal changes to set the planet and system names. Once upon a time, there were no stock planets; we used to insist that everybody design a planet of their own. The result was some truly god-awful planets, littered with typos, with confusing movements and terrible descriptions.

Stock planets mean that those who have no interest, or no ability, or no time, can get to Founder rank without having to sweat over the workbench for days or weeks. However, given that you have to make a few changes to the basic stock planet files to customize the names, why not make a few changes to some of the locations as well? Yes, you can have one of those ubiquitous water worlds with the boring white sand beaches and the tedious rolling surf, but at least install your own personalized bar, or change the name of the exchange!

Don't forget you can always change the name or description of your locations in the game once the planet has been linked, using the two change commands:

• 'CHANGE NAME new_name' where 'new_name' is what you want the name of the location to change to, for example change name Big Bertha's Bar
• 'CHANGE DESC new_desc' where 'new_desc' is what you want the description of the location to change to, for example: change desc The room is decorated with memorabilia from Big Bertha's childhood. There's a picture of her being crowned Junior Miss Cargon, together with the sash she wore for the competition, and another picture which shows her shaking hands with the Emperor Ming! Bertha herself stands behind the bar ready to serve you drinks or to reminisce about her past glories.

To make the changes permanent, you need to use the 'SAVE MAP' command - otherwise the map reverts to its original state at reset. Which means you can make temporary alterations for a party.

You could even transform that all-too-familiar white sand beach into something different. Even black sand would make a nice change!

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