Hello readers, Dot Matrix here, putting down my paintbrush and bringing you another special bulletin. But first, you wouldn't believe what I found when I took up the rather worn carpet in Hazed's office. Underneath were the most gorgeous wooden floorboards made from some sort of oak, I think - they are perfectly smooth, except for where bits of carpet underlay have stuck to them, and all I need to do is scrub them down, give them a light sanding, and then apply several coats of varnish and Hazed will have a floor to be proud of.
Anyway, on with the bulletin, which concerns two new builds going in today and one tomorrow.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Before we get down to the important stuff in this bulletin, Hazed asked me to say "Happy Christmas" to all Fedders. Have an enjoyable day, whatever you are doing, and don't forget to pop into Santa's grotto on Earth and get a toy to play with.
BUILD HOUSING FOR YOUR WORKERS
The first of today's builds is housing estates (also known as projects). These provide minimal basic housing for your poorest workers in the worst parts of your towns and cities with few, if any, social amenities. Still, it gives the workthings a roof over their heads so they have nothing to complain about.
Housing estates are one of those builds that don't give you any positive benefit - but failure to build them makes bad things happen. At resource level, you need three housing estates, and for each one you are lacking, your economy will suffer a 5% drop in efficiency.
At industrial level, you need six housing estates, but in order to support more than three estates you need to have at least two railways. After all, those only room in the inner cities for a certain number of housing estates; after that you have to build suburbs, which need public transport connections so your workers can commute to their jobs.
The command is 'BUILD HOUSING' and you will be able to do that after today's reset. Details are in the Idiot's Guide at http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/guide/builds/housing1.html.
However, the negative effect of not having the housing estates won't be turned on right away, to give you a chance to build some - that will start on New Year's Day.
KEEP YOUR POPULATION IN ORDER
If you want to stop dissatisfaction, you can build all the stuff that keeps your populace contented - the bread and circuses that rulers have traditionally used to calm the masses - or you can do something a bit more direct. Riot police squads will suppress dissent, not caring if people are happy, just wanting to stop them from causing trouble.
Unlike the local community police forces, the primary task of these goon squads is to protect the state against those citizens who might object to the state's activities. They also provide security for property owners when there is industrial unrest. They are very brutal, but very effective.
Each riot police squad that you build reduces disaffection by 2%, up to a maximum of 20% - but it has a side-effect of reducing efficiency by 1% because the populace, forbidden from rioting, resort to more passive means of opposition such as go-slows and work-to-rules.
The command is 'BUILD RIOTPOLICE' and can be built on resource planets and above. You'll be able to do this after today's reset. See the Idiot's Guide at http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/guide/builds/security2.html for the details.
TEACH YOUR KIDS HOW TO MINE
Going in at tomorrow's reset will be the School of Mining build. This education build will provide the mining engineers needed to improve the productivity of the resources sector, by increasing the efficiency of all resource commodities by 5%.
You can only build one school of mining, and you will need a minimum of four basic schools to sustain its intake of students. The mining school can be built at resource or industrial levels, and ceases to have any effect at biological level.
The command is 'BUILD MINING' and you can read about it in the Guide at http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/guide/builds/education3.html.
CONNECTION OUTAGE TOMORROW NIGHT
Net Access, who run the data center where the Fed2 computer lives and who link us to the internet, plan to do some maintenance on their connection equipment around midnight (eastern time) tomorrow night - that's Tuesday December 26. Although Fed will keep on running, there will probably be a connection outage which means you won't be able to log on, and anybody playing will get punted.
They expect the outage to last about twenty minutes, and it could happen any time between midnight and one in the morning.
Pity the poor engineers who have to go out and do this at such an unreasonable hour, the day after Christmas day. I sure hope they won't have hangovers!
Still, at least they aren't stuck in the office today of all days, like I am, forced to issue a bulletin on a day when everybody else is enjoying a festive meal with their loved ones. Oh, not that I am complaining, because Hazed's wish is my every command! And I'll keep myself occupied for the rest of the day varnishing the floor. That's going to take me a while, so I don't plan to issue a bulletin tomorrow - that's why I've mentioned the build that is going in tomorrow, today.
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