With the round three-quarters complete, it's time for a status update. I fear this could be a rather long post.
On the 17th of March we will be removing vacation mode. We'll also remove some of the bigger planets from c200 that are deemed to be "hiding" there until the end of the round. If you feel that you have a valid reason for being in vacation mode in the last week, please contact myself at appocomaster@planetarion.com or one of us via support at http://game.planetarion.com/support.pl as soon as possible.

On Friday 24th March (the last day of the round), events are as follows:

21:00 - Ticks stop (this tick WILL occur)
21:55 - AllComp count in #Planetarion on irc.netgamers.org, with 2 credits to the winning tag.
22:00 - End of Round Ceremony. As in previous rounds, the End of Round ceremony will have comments from the top planets (the top 3 planets are awarded 1 credit each), and the top galaxy and alliance (who are both awarded 5 credits). The 6 planets holding onto the 6 respective golden roids for the longest period also gain a free credit.

On Saturday, 25th March havoc starts at 21:00. The following will occur after the EoRC:
- ticker speed set to 15 minutes
- 300 million of each resource to be distributed (amounts will be changed per race),
- 3k roids (changing per race),
- 20 wave amplifiers, 0 wave distorters, 10 of each other construction.
- XP will NOT be reset
- Fleets will be reset (as in all ships will be removed) to allow race changes to be enabled.
Havoc will last until 21:00 GMT on Friday, 31st of March.

Stat/beta testing will start during havoc, on http://beta.planetarion.com , and will occur until ~2nd April. Stats are not currently finalised and may well be developed from one of the recent rounds. If anyone wants to contact me with a set that they think might be suitable for next round they are welcome to, but I make NO promises I'll read them / comment on them / suggest fixes to them / use them next round.

On Wednesday, 29th March at 21:00 we'll be running a Creators Hour to take questions on next round and (almost) anything else you have a question about.

Contrary to previous rounds, we'll be having a very small downtime between rounds. Round 17 signups will start on Monday 3rd April, and ticks will begin on Friday 14th April at 21:00 GMT, for 8 weeks. Round 17 WILL be a paid round. If you wish to submit a name, please e-mail roundname@planetarion.com before Wednesday, 29th March with your submission.

Alliance limits have yet to be finalised, but will probably be closer to this rounds setup than last rounds setup.

Changes for next round.
This round, there has been an issue with the XP and value balance. Because of that, the following PROVISIONAL changes will be made for next round:
- stats will be modified (see above). They should have a SLIGHTLY more defensive emphasis.
- the Score formula will be changed to Score = Value + 700*(XP^(3/4)).
- XP for defence will be introduced in the form of a small bonus for sending defence fleets and a bonus for landing defending on a planet who is being attacked. This will not amount to a life or death change to most people, but those that defend will probably gain 100k-200k score or so over the round.
- fake defence might be added.

Although these changes are all against attacking, they're not as large as they seem. There's more of an issue with everyone worrying it will lead to stagnation and everyone deciding not to attack.

Other changes for next round will include the removal of the "no exile" limit on buddy packs and making sure that only free planets are auto exiled again. Confirmation of the above changes, as well as other changes, will be announced nearer round start.

PAN
With regards to PAN and other code development, many seem unsure as to what's going to happen. I'll now try to update the announcement made at the beginning of this round as best I can to explain what's happening.
The basic points are as follows:
-We've recruited some PHP coders. They're in the process of being NDAed, and will be overseen by Kloopy, although they'll take over the majority of new coding.
-They've planned and are about to start coding the passport system, which should be functional for next round.
-A new combat engine is also being coded, and might replace our current one for Round 17.
-After Round 17, the objective is to recode the rest of the game.
Good luck for the rest of the round!