Greetings sailors,

At the next boot, a new set of ship armada code will move from a selective
Alpha testing into public Beta testing. "What is new?" you might ask,
or even "What is an armada?":

+Armadas are a bit more like player parties, except for ships. Ships may join
an armada and communicate as a team, in order to coordinate attack efforts.

+Armada code has been redone with some aspects, in preparation of v2.0, which
will be explained later. Public testing is needed in order to work out some
kinks beforehand.

+Armadas now have 7 functional commands, some with limited execution
privileges: create, invite, join, leave, kick, rename, status. Most should be
self-explanatory, and at least 'rename' and 'status' are new.

+The 'status' command will become a valuable tool in coordinating efforts. The
display is as follows for each ship: Ship name(colored by alignment), Distance
(from your ship), Status (Sinking, sailing, fighting, etc), Formation
(FLG=Flagship, FRM=Within 10 of flagship, UNK=Out of Range), Location
(Continent and Coordinates), and a full three-tiered hit point bar.

+Armadas 2.0 will feature Armada-movement (party following), as well as support
for some future goodies you'll soon be made aware of. Additionally, the armada
channels will be stripped and replaced with a single armada channel (with
accompanying report channel).

My ears are open to hear your feedback, input, and ideas. You can either drop
me a tell or send me a mudmail, and I'll get back to you when I get a chance.
I've been getting a lot of feedback as of late, and I appreciate it.

Additionally, I will require a few dedicated testers to help finish testing the
new boarders. If you plan to be very active in ship combat over the next few
weeks, see me and we'll see if you're a viable candidate.

Cheers and happy sailing,

-- Lord Tarken Aurelius, the Sage