Galactic News Service

The Galactic News Service (or GNS) is an In Character news system that provides information to the rest of the player base about certain events around the galaxy. Galactic news can be distinguished in two main parts: the GNS Posts and the Flashnews.

GNS Posts

These are posts made by the players themselves. Articles submitted through this method can feature, but are not limited to:

• Changes to a faction leadership.
• Death or attempted assassination of key faction figures.
• Mock military battles or wars.
• In game sporting events.
• Faction productivity changes.

Only factions can post to the GNS, and then only from within a Capital ship or inside a powered facility. It requires a payment of 200,000 credits to submit an article. After submission, the article may be assessed by the current Galactic Government who have the right to approve or reject any article.

Articles may also be hacked into the GNS system. Any player with sufficient permissions to post may attempt to hack a news article into the GNS system and avoid the potential censorship of the current Galactic Government. This will also cost money. The higher the hacker's Computer Operations skill, the greater the chances of success. If successful the post will be published on the GNS. However, a second test is performed to see if their identity can be concealed. If successful their name and location will be omitted from the GNS; otherwise, their location and identity will be published along with it and all members of the Galactic Government with sufficient permissions will also know the hacker's location.

Flashnews

These are short events that are automatically generated by the server when certain things take place. These include:

• Planet Control changes
• Faction leadership changes
• New faction created
• Faction dissolution

How to Write Good News

First and foremost, it is important to say that posting to the GNS is a privilege and not a right. Any post not abiding by the guidelines below will be deleted and no compensation will be paid. It is up to anyone posting on the GNS to inform themselves about the rules.

Having made clear the above, there are some technical requirements to be followed.

• Articles must not include more than 4 (four) images.
• Images cannot be more than 400 pixels wide and 50kb in size.
• Formatting is done through the usual HTML tags.

There are also other requirements to be followed. These are common sense guidelines.

• All topics should be made from the point of view of a reporter in front of a camera or as a newspaper reporter writing an article.
• Topics must not be written as a commercial or a personal opinion.
• If you wish for your character to play a major role or issue a speech, you may have the reporter quote or interview your character, but reference should still be made to the proper format of the news.
• It is NOT possible to recruit new members or advertise one's auction or sale offers.
• It IS possible to refer to a service provided that it is set up as a news story akin to "Golden Fish Enterprises posts new record in droid production" and the content should follow the same format.
• Topics detailing major events can be:
  1. either based on database-affecting actions taken in the game (ie: if you actually took over a planet), or
  2. actions said to occur outside the limited abilities of the game-client.
• Topics that are not relevant to any database-affecting actions require the permission of any faction leader/owner whose faction's actions you choose to godmode. In other words, you cannot claim to have recently destroyed a dozen Star Destroyers without first getting permissions to assume such a claim from the Emperor.

Some articles are made up with a main topic, giving the most important news, and a right sidebar, used to list short news or ancillary information about the main topic. Should you opt for having a side bar, the limit of 4 images is valid for the main topic, but inside the sidebar you can add logos or small images. Overall, the aesthetic must be pleasant to the eye.

How to Post a GNS

A link "Post on GNS" appears under the Comlink section of the menus on the right hand side of your screen. Clicking it will open a page. Specify the title of your article and then write the text in the "Body" box.

The preview option in the GNS interface is not very reliable. Some use to toggle back and forth the Source and Format editor screen, noticing if special characters are converted in gibberish every time.

Some others use alternative methods to check whether the post is properly formatted:

1. use the SWC Forums preview, by adding a mock post and pasting the GNS article inside. Then, click on Preview and check the results. Remember not to click on Submit: you just want to check if the article is well displayed, you don't want to post anything in the forum.
2. send a DM to yourself. What you see in the DM is what you get when the GNS will be eventually published.

The only problem with the methods above is that DMs and forum posts "understand" less formatting tags than the GNS interface, and final appearance can vary greatly.

Choosing the correct news category and deciding whether to hack the Galactic Network or not are the last two options to set before submitting your post.

To post a GNS:

• you must be in a faction and have the correct 'Post News' privilege level. Mind that there are four categories of GNS news, and you must have the corresponding privilege level.
• you must be inside a ship (super capital ship, capital ship, frigate, or corvette), a space station, or a powered facility.
• If inside a ship, you must not be travelling.
• You are either:
  1. the pilot, commander, owner of the ship, space station or facility, or
  2. your faction is the owner of the ship, space station or facility.