/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

Do the rules for wielding multiple weapons(cumulative -20 to hit for each after first)apply for weapon mounts? It sounds kind of ridiculous that if I were to unload all I have in my Reaper, I'd take a -20, -40 and -60 for three of the guns.

If you're trying to use them all at once, I think so. Weapon mounts don't have a lot of extensive rules, but you should probably get a penalty when you try and attack with like, four different guns all at once, even if all you need to do to "pull" the trigger is think about it.

But aren't those weapon mounts? They're not even using hands, so why should it have a non-dominant limb penalty?

I'd have to double check, but isn't is a, like, multiple attack penalty period, not just an off-hand one?

I mean, it makes sense, as I don't think RAW has a limit to buying weapon mounts. Should you just be able to pay a few thousand credits and be like "yeah, no, I can attack with 6 assault rifles on full auto every Complex Action, no big"?

It's -10, actually.

Keep in mind you're still trying to aim 4 separate weapons at once. My rule of thumb is ambidextrous allows you to aim one extra weapon without penalty every time you take it.

What if it's not your dominant mount?

Shoop.

Best location for a more grounded, Neuromancery type of game?

Mars? Luna? Jovian Junta?

Mars.

But you're never going to get grounded the way you want.

Why not?

The hardcore transhumanist stuff is everywhere in the setting. Mars isn't really an exception. The Jovians are a military republic whose very existence is structured around protectionism and pushing away at the rest of Transhumanity, so you can't even go there to get away from all the out there stuff.

I don't really want to push out the transhumanist stuff.

Maybe grounded wasn't the best word; I meant more something lower-scale, focused around skilled-but-down-on-their-luck PCs and a single sprawling city/location instead of hab-hopping super agents in space.

If you want to stop hab hopping then just keep the plot on one place. Problem solved.

I think it depends highly on what is meant by "grounded". Like, you're not going to hit something which is exactly like Neuromancer, because the setting of Neuromancer is more like a period which could easily be 50-100 years before EP proper (keeping in mind the setting itself has only been like really hitting it's transhuman tech for like 20-30 years). Or, to look at it another way "cyperpunk" games like Shadowrun or CP2020 are Snowcrash, Eclipse Phase is the Diamond Age.

On the other hand, if you want to stick to the more thematic elements of a novel like Neuromancer, like said with they yeah, easily this can be done. Freelance mercs and hackers embroiled in shady corp dealings and research and stuff, that's all bread and butter for the Inner System.

If you want to literally be Neuromancer, (or something which would be akin to say, the recent Deus Ex titles or Blade Runner), Luna is your best bet with their more conservative stance on technology, their obvious prejudice against synthetics, a lot of hold over from Earth cultures, especially nationalist ones.

But Mars is better suited for just a "yeah, we're freelance troubleshooters" type game, with the heavy influence of the Planetary Consortium in the city-states and the way that economy works - with your very obvious underclass and overclass and the image of social mobility, etc.

Thanks, that's very helpful.

What about chargen? I'm thinking about having the PCs start considerably less competent than a Sentinel, but I'm not sure just lowering the amount of CP they get is the way to go. I'm afraid it could break the system. Are there any guidelines in the books about generating PCs at different skill levels?

Other than "you can adjust this up or down as needed"? Not so much.

I'd look at transhuman's options for random Life Path generation or the Package System. It's probably easiest to futz with, like the 10 PP system for packages, and the customization is narrower for like, super crazy boost to rep, credits, traits, etc. If the players pick narrow focuses with their packages, they can still end up at, like, max 80 skill points in a couple things, but in that case they're likely to end up overlapping a lot and having very narrow focus which I think in this game is just as "bad" as having low skills in general.

If you don't want to go like, full Dark Heresy "yeah, you're just going to fail half your rolls", I'd say you might just want to set some ground rules like "Okay, nobody take any 5 PP packages" and "nobody raise a skill over 60, if you hit +60 with like a bonus or a package either switch to a similar skill or the points are lost" etc. You might play around with building a few characters yourself to get the feel of it.

Alright, thanks. I guess I'll do that, play around a bit with it and see what feels best.

No. As per the Morph Creation Rules, the max SOM for a small morph is 25.

Instead of the "points are lost" nonsense, pick packages and then replicate them using the regular rules. Basically, use packages as a guideline.

You know that's how the rules for packages work, right, just with the 80 cap normally? If you get like 100+ before adjustment you'll be reduced to 80 and cannot go better than 80, which is easy to hit if you say, take the right packages which give you like 40 each in Persuasion or something. I think you could do that with like, 3 PP.

You are, however, encouraged to switch where those skill points would go if the points give you no benefit.

Hereditary nanoware is a thing IIRC in the players guide random gen.

Called silver blood. Typically something children of oligarchs have.

Well, I mean, that could just be an update on the phrase "born with a silver spoon in your mouth", to indicate you come from an affluent background. It's an idiom, not necessarily literal.

It's a play on blue blood, moron.

>I'm the moron
>Not the guy who doesn't remember what the book actually says

Silver blood is much more pithy, anyway.

I mean, it is, but that's kind of a short, conversational slang - which, I guess is kind of the definition of pithy, but the point is that it's intended to be so.

The ones in the book are longer and more descriptive or illustrative when simple definitions won't do.

How does Transhumanity's Fate handle gear?

Things like granades, armor, and shit, that are pretty important in core EP?

I assume it just incorporates both sayings in one.

"Silver blood runs through your veins," then. At least "silver blood" could still be used as a phrase elsewhere. The one they have is just clunky.

Just use a system that doesn't suck.

>system that doesn't suck

Where do you think we are?

In a thread with a game that's been converted to at least five other systems.

I mean, it's an extant idiom. Well, a variation of it. "Born with a silver spoon in your mouth" isn't exactly common, but it's a thing. This is taking that turn of phrase and updating it because I'm sure actual silver spoons are going to be largely obsolete and unheard of by 10 AF and considering this is lifepath, largely not as impressive.

Silver is much more likely to be more valuable for solar power, water purification and other medicinal uses since it's anti-bacterial and anti-fungal.

It's literally only ever been converted to Fate, officially.

>officially
Where do you think we are?

And Savage Worlds and GURPs, unofficially.

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Transhuman Akatsuki

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What would you do if you find out that you are now an indentured prostitute?

Neotenics are SOM 20 though, not 25.

Is this from the books?

Name my band Veeky Forums

Do my job as an indentured prostitute against my will. Moron.

I mean, do I have a choice?

I can do my job, or go back to cold storage. Guess I'm sucking dick for a living.

Therefore, it's a -5 penalty. QED

wat?

Can someone help me wrap my head around spimes? How exactly do they work? They are always recording, like security cameras? Or are they more like a window that you can look through to the rest of the hab?

Technically, I think a spime is just any object which possesses an ability to record/observe itself. But part of this characteristic is that they track themselves physically in space so yeah, we should assume they're always recording data. If it isn't set up as a security device though, this data might be very limited.

That's what I'm afraid of, how can you do espionage if you're always watched vy microscopic cameras.

Well, a couple key things to remember here.

What actually are the spimes? It can be any object which can record and report on itself, but what object actually need to do a data check on itself? What data do they need to record. Sure, somebody with some serious modelling software might be able to chart something unusual going on just from atmospheric pressure sensors in the floor tiles, but most people wouldn't notice.

Second, are spimes actually equipped with cameras or other broad sensors? Sure, you can make them small, but that doesn't mean a camera would be in an ideal place to actually see anything. Spime on a door might have a camera, public utilities might have cameras, but if there's nothing to gain by it, many will probably have other sensor system.

>how can you do espionage if you're always watched vy microscopic cameras.

Also, answered your own question. The always watching cameras can be how you do espionage.

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>but what object actually need to do a data check on itself? What data do they need to record.

They don't need to check on themselves, they need to check on their surroundings. That's how spimes work when they are utilized for security.

>Second, are spimes actually equipped with cameras or other broad sensors?

Yes they are. It says so in the core book and goes into even more detail in the Panopticon.

>The always watching cameras can be how you do espionage.

Not when you need to do hands on work.

I should have specified "the" spimes, to refer to the specific ones that may be around you. Spime is actually a very broad word by the time you get around to EP's era. With medical sensors and lifelogging, individual transhumans are basically spimes. A spime is an object where you can track or research its entire history in time and space. You can use spime integration for security purposes, but that's not a universal quality of a spime. Even core just describes it as a self-ware, location aware object.

Now, if you want to just curl into a ball and cry "waah, the panopticon is too strong!" go for it, but seriously, it's not like an impenetrable wall. The book says most objects you interact with have audio-visual sensors, but quite frankly that data will not always be of practical use. The serious sensor shit like flat cams or quantum dot displays can be pretty pricy compared to basic technology - so you're limited to conventional spectrum devices which will be small. And even if they're cheap enough to be in most objects, they will not be useful in all objects. If there's a spime quality to your air-handling system, the tiny microphones will probably not be very useful while the system pushes around air.

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Another way to think about the thing with spimes. Humans are also self-aware, environmentally aware agents. But eyewitness testimony is one of the weakest forms of evidence out there.

While free of many of the things which makes people unreliable, there is still a core point that just because the spime has the power to observe and recall it's surroundings does not mean this power will yield useful results. The scary thing about the panopticon is in what you do with all that raw data. Pattern searches, pattern analysis and pattern mapping - which are things people have to initiate.

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That's a pretty cool idea actually, instead of having one window to let the sun in you have many. Doesn't seem like a good use of space though.

Same use of volume as if you were one window/one base - but I believe more structurally sound.

And actually, the original concept for the O'Neill Cylinder is 3 windows.

I remember the book saying there was only one window at the very end and a smart mirror to reflect the light on the opposite end.

>Divide that wall into six equal segments, three of which are gigantic windows. Cap both ends to enclose the volume. Install three large mirrors to reflect natural sunlight through the windows, as needed.

Quoting from Panopticon on the O'Neill cylinder. Though this section does note that a cylinder may alter its surface area by disregarding windows entirely to use endcap mirrors, suntubes or artificial lighting. However, you can already keep a shitload of people in a cylinder (I mean, diameter is half a kilometer, length a maximum of 35 kilometers) this usually isn't worth it unless you're very deep outsystem where the sun is no help anyway.

Xiphos, BTW, doesn't look like that because it's a Hamilton cylinder in orbit around Uranus. This means it's heavily stitched together with active nanos and smart materials, and is really frickin' far so as that gathering light through giant windows is probably in efficient.

It's a shitty system that encourages furries.

can't deny that logic

ECLIPSE PHASE = FURFAGS CONFIRMED

People keep saying the setting is hardcore transhumanist stuff, but how true is that, really? The majority of people in the setting occupy splicers, which are bodies that are literally just regular humans with minor genetic tweaks. Most of them lead fairly unexamined lives and don't go around mindlessly forking themselves or doing other bizarre transhumanist stuff.

A lot of the batshit insane over the top gonzo transhuman shit is from PCs it seems like.

Such a waste of sexts. That said, it's kind of odd that with all of the weird shit floating around in the setting there's no mention if furries are still a thing, even when the subject matter seems tailor made for them. Or am I forgetting something?

Well, for one the vast majority of the people in the setting died at least once, in the Fall. Unless you're on Jupiter, people in their birth bodies are an exception, not the rule.

Well, this is something that's kind of debatable, and not necessarily precise in the game. While the numbers do skew that most people are only really in Splicers or Exalt class morphs, the other side isn't nonexistant. While it's not gonzo level, even Mars is awash in some of the game's basic transhumanist principles.

The population went from 6 million to 200 million post-Fall. A big chunk of those people are not physical refugees. Anybody who is or was an indenture post-Fall has been resleeved. Big, visible portions of the population of major martian cities, upwards of 1/5ths or 1/4ths are in Synths or Pods. Averaging it out there could be as many as 5% of all people on Mars active in infomorph form - which is quite a lot of people. If this is "hardcore" or not probably depends on your viewpoint, but it does mean that a very big number of people in the setting are directly familiar with the basic transhuman technology of the setting.

Seems too mundane to mention, really. I think there was a "beast" pod in the morph book. That would do.

Does anyone actually understand nanotechnology? I wanted a villain to have two bush robot arms that could fold into themselves to mimic normal cyber. Is that plausible? Would he be instantly found out at normal checkpoints and security spimes?

Nanodetectors and nanoscopic vision would reveal that there are nanos in his arms, provided they are unshielded of course. Other than that, I can't say, though investing in Synthetic Mask should mostly waive the issue of detection through the most common means.

That's true, but those elements are all still somewhat muted in comparison.

Nanofabricators are around on Mars, but they're restricted as all hell. Capitalism is the dominant force. There's no weird space station shenanigans; Mars has a terrestrial environment, with actual cities and roads. You do have pods and synthmorphs, but those aren't especially difficult to grok for new players: "pods are cyborgs. Synths are robot bodies". The occasional exotic morph can show up from time to time but they're hardly mainstream.

Basically yeah, transhumanism is a thing on Mars, but it's not rampant and totally off the rails, and I'd argue it's very much one of the more "grounded" parts of the setting. People accept transhumanism there because it helped them survive the Fall, not necessarily because they wholeheartedly embrace it.

Oh yeah also the planet has Space Las Vegas right next to a stargate, and an entire TITAN zone to explore and be afraid of. Basically Mars is a fucking awesome place to set games.

Compared to, say, Extropia, where I gotta explain shit like how anarcho-capitalism and mutualism and all that shit works to new players, and where there's way more weird shit going on there. Or, Titan where the most interesting thing about anything there is Iaeptus...which isn't even on Titan.

I mean, Fractal Digits is a thing, so yeah, it's plausible. As are mimic morphs.

Detection is a big of a grey area, but since they look like normal arms, that would probably act like masking, so it depends on how good your Sensor AI or technician is. Theoretically, stuff like T-Ray or even X-ray backscatter wouldn't necessarily penetrate the interior of the implant if they made what looks like a hard metal shell on the outside. But somebody who knows more about radiation/detection systems might be able to clarify. If the nano scale components are visible on the outside, a nanoscopic vision could see them, but most spimes are audio/visual.

The issue of detection would mostly run on people with Hardware: Implants or various Knowledge skills to recognize incongruities in the arms.

Nanodetectors wouldn't necessarily. They require an air-intake and would need the arms to actually have exposed nanorobots which could be pulled into the detector to work, and it might easily fail to detect such a small density.

Like I said, it depends on what you call "hardcore". To some, the fact that huge sections of the Martian population not only are aware of but have experienced the setting's ability to transcend death and alter or outright switch physical bodies - or abandon them all together - pretty "hardcore". It's not crazy, it's not extreme, and yeah, Mars is pretty grounded, but it's still a point of perspective.

And political philosophy doesn't inherently relate to how "hardcore transhuman" a thing is.

>Or, Titan where the most interesting thing about anything there is Iaeptus...which isn't even on Titan.

I mean, I love Iapetus but if that's the only thing you got for Titan, brother you lack imagination or knowledge. Titan is awash in all kinds of shady conspiracy bullshit you can sink your teeth into, with options growing more and more each book. And the perfect setting for any icy horror you might want, since Iapetus would mostly be sub-surface.

Plus, the people who named the features on Titan were huge nerds. The geography is awash in names from LoTR and Dune.

Well I actually read through Titan's entry in Rimward because of your post and I suppose Titan wouldn't be a bad place to set a game, I guess. I never really read the entry too much (other than the parts near that fucking illustration of Momo von Satan and the Cock because it caught my eye) because I kinda assumed it would be just as cringy and presumptuous to read as the Autonomist Alliance section at the back of the book. Lo and behold, I guess not.

I don't usually set games anywhere near autonomist places unless they're exsurgent hives, on an exoplanet, or fringe survivalist/isolationist habs, but I guess Titan might get a proper visit next time I run something.

Did somebody mention our lord and savior, Momo Von Satan?

Something I should point out, there's kind of a similar plot point in Into the White, Rimward's opening fiction.

Use of fractal limbs for nefarious purposes will probably leave obvious forensic traces. These kinds of traces will lead to an investigation which could scrutinize sensor records and find suspicious flags. When you combine behavioral psych, pattern recognition and relationship mapping, you get analysis functions which are colloquially called "precog", and can end up looking like something out of Psycho-Pass where crime is forecast like weather.

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>It's a Titan thread

It's just.. boring. There's the moose-hulders that are all secretly exsurgent bait, a few isolated stations for more exsurgent bait, miles of utterly empty dunes, and a bit of social unrest bercause some immigrants want to be rich and wonderful capitalists on mars. And crime in the form of the tongs.
SILENCE, COCK. I'M TRYING TO COMMIT JOURNALISM HERE.

I mean, the people of Titan might be boring, but their government is not.

They have no qualms with exhumans, so long as they don't eat Titanian citizens on live TV or anything. In fact, intelligence analysts are often under so much pressure they utilize cognitive enhancement methods which border on the exhuman.

Big chunks of their military intelligence apparatus are aware of Asyncs or are asyncs themselves.

Their politicians regularly undergo long-term memory suppression to prevent being forced to live up to their transparency policies, or are kept in the dark by a networked data analysis AI network nobody is precisely sure who has the keys to.

And that's just the canonical stuff. That's not even getting into the optional shit, like they're backed by an ASI faction of their own, they have access to ancient alien data retelling a Fall-like scenario revealing potential mis-information about the ETI, they're up their eyeballs with the factors or they have direct access to a Bracewell Probe.

Personally, this is why I love Titan. At the end of the day, the Commonwealth's government apparatus is the same as Project OZMA. They're trying to tear down the devil's house with his tools - and I LOVE that shit.

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Huh, that is definitely not a picture of Titan in natural color.

Yet somehow, it might also be relevant.

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I agree with this user, its good to show titan's dispersed, plausibly deniable KGB shit.