Official News page 2

SELF-IMPROVEMENT AND BODILY ENHANCEMENT

by Hazed

Your nano-chameleon suit can change your complete appearance, so you can look like who or what you want. But it's purely a cosmetic change: making others think you are a 20-foot tall ogre doesn't actually give you the strength of an ogre! Unless you were really born very, very strong then it is only going to be an illusion. In other words, you are stuck with the physical attributes that you started out with.

Until now.

A new range of services are available to allow you to increase the maximum value of your four stats: stamina, strength, dexterity and intelligence. Each stat point costs 1 slithy tove. There's an upper limit of 150 on each stat, and a daily limit that restricts you to one stat improvement (of any of the stats) each day.

The command in all four cases is the same: 'BUY statname', where 'statname' is either stamina, strength, dexterity or intelligence. The method by which the stat improvement is offered is different in each case. You can find the people or organizations offering the services here:

• Stamina enhancement is offered by the purveyors of all business services on the Magellan spacestation, Rotary Offices. Talk to Blythe about stamina for the details.
• Strength can be increased on the Doris asteroid, where the biolabs facility, being unregulated by the Galactic Administration, can offer a more upfront service in their automated booth.
• Dexterity boosts are performed as a sideline by the scientists in the genetics lab of Earth's mini-zoo - ask about dexterity for the details.
• Intelligence can be lifted by paying a droid who has figured out how to operate some ancient alien machinery, deep in the Mercury caves.

Admittedly, right now the only significant stat is stamina, but the others will become meaningful eventually. Intelligence will be crucial when ship fighting returns, and high dexterity and strength may be requirements for certain puzzles in the future - and don't forget that when Technocrats can write their own events, they can add puzzles to their planets and they may well want to put restrictions of this kind on who can undertake them.

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