/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

>How do you utilize a disease or plague in EP,
by not doing it:
>in typical disease disaster movie fashion

Those movies are always terrible anyway. Nothing of value is lost.

Okay, but if your follow up is "disease is for Luddites and flesh bags - biomorphs and physical instances are so primitive" we're gonna start another shitfit.

Exsurgency and nanoplagues sort of supplant conventional diseases in terms of how they play out narratively, in my opinion. With a "generic" plague I would feel the need to point out that it's somehow a Very Special Thing, due to the ubiquity of implants and medtech and such. Something like a virus designed to target a specific type of morph, or some gross superparasite made with transhuman tech. Another way to do it would be to actually consider what implants such as basic biomods, medichines or toxin filters do, instad of "panacea magic", and then address these limitations by introducing something they cannot handle.

That said, I don't find scenarios centered around a plague very compelling unless it's a "get out of here ASAP" sort of scenario. I'd probably use it to supplement other things I have going on as a GM. Like having the villain throw a biological agent at them as a setback, and while they're trying to figure things out I completely inconspicuously present them with an option to bypass it entirely by going synth. Because I have a raging hardon for slowly indoctrinating my players into exhumanism.

I will say, last thread we did have a couple of interesting ideas for sickness and diseases which would fall under the "Pathogens" category in the gear chapter (which is pretty slim and so far nothing else has really been added).

In addition to just genemoding conventional bacteria and virii so they exceed expectations of Basic Biomods (something we know happens, it's mentioned in Sunward) some specimens which do different things. I quite liked one user's ideas about the virus causing some kind of junk data input that puts a backdoor in the cranial computer through the medical sensors, or syndromes you get from bacteria biomods attacks doing horizontal gene transfer so your biomods end up a little mutated and need to be patched.

Beneficial or "not technically harmful" microbes is another interesting area. The polymer eating one was mentioned, of course (though that's not strictly original - Solemn did it first and better). Another idea is a waste-disposal microbe which if it happens to contaminate biomorphs regularly (leaky or faulty water recycling system for instance) it might cause a reaction similar to food poisoning or an allergy as it attacks your food and waste before your own body can properly process it.

Here's another idea which would not technically be a traditional sickness, but works similar to one - bacteria which are created to produce hormones or chemicals in the body which can make you more open and affectionate - a literal love sickness. Not necessarily harmful by any means, but an interesting bit of fluff to come across - not stopped by Basic Biomods because they just seem like perfectly cromulent smart microbe just like all the other shit in the biomod package.

That is not my followup. My followup is that basic biomods will take care of 99% of problems. If you're a luddite without basic biomods, you're going to have a bad time. Even in the 1% case there's tons of technology to identify and isolate problems, and habs make it really hard to spread illnesses by accident.

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Try posting discussion not the same images again and again and again.

I think Eclipse Phase should go into more detail about environmental hazards for synthmorphs, it's not really clear to me what limitations they have, because RAW they're basically better than biomorphs (though often more expensive for what you get). Stuff like how long they last without needing a recharge or similar would be nice as well. I've tried to do a bit on my own but I'm not really sure where to start.

>all of these posts are me
>the OP is also me
>as is the question in the second post

I can only do so much man. I do not yet possess multitasking implants.

As for the question, power is kind of... generalized? Much like computing, internal power is generally assumed most of the time, unless you're in nowhere for a long time - for which there are several options to handle (Re: GatecrashingI don't know if batteries have generic rules you could pull from for Synths - I do not recall them.

Several environmental conditions do also have effects on synthetics though

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Firewall needs like, one more syllable to properly sync up with "Who you gonna call?"

Because when there's something weird, and it don't look good, who you should call is your nearest proxy.

>Who you gonna call?
Definitely not some secret organization that will psychosurgery any knowledge of it out of me

Well, /epg/?

Why would I ever go to that horrid place?

Have you read Cthulhutech? It's a cool idea, but it was done very badly. It has no legitimately interesting ideas in it, and they're probably tied on game mechanics.

Well, it doesn't matter who you call, some organization matching that description has the line tapped.

>organizations*

Let me rephrase. The premise is cool, but it contains no legitimately interesting ideas examined in the way they are in EP.

Cthulhutech tries very hard to do everything, is full of fetishes and references, and is shittier for it.

Eclipse Phase tries very hard to do everything, is full of fetishes and references, and is better for it. Probably because it's mechanics are dirt simple at heart and the game actually lets you play whatever the fuck simultaneously. Also, the first hit is always free.

I've always loved the fact that the EP team made the case that open sourcing is a potentially effective business model, put its money where its mout is, and succeeded.

It's a pity that the devs then pissed away all the goodwill it earned them by being insufferable SJW douches who told people who disagreed with them politically to "fire themselves as fans".

Wasn't that just one person?

I was just reading through random parts of X-Risks and I noticed this, it might be an interesting alternative.

And part two. I think this could fill the movie plague role quite nicely, actually. Set it on Mars or Venus or Luna, as stated earlier, and it would be interesting.

Exhumans a hell of thing

How many exhumans are in that picture?

Probably technically one - the parasite/juvenile forms of Defilers aren't actually sentient.

Of every clade or one example clade?

Exhumans are way too varied to reliably say things about more than one clade. Rorties always come in groups for example.

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Rorties come in groups or ARE groups?

yes

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Luckily, when argonauts finally come out, we'll have some new art to post.

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>all the goodwill

lel

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I guess that lower gravity means that ground pressure is reduced, but this still bothers me.

Making their game free to use is pretty based, user.

Actual Dreadnoughts can also vector thrust and some other mobility, I think.

I just looked it up: 3/15 Walker, 2/10 Vectored Thrust

While vectored thrust is all well and good, and could certainly help in low-gravity, we're talking chemical rockets or cold gas rockets. It's going to be extremely inefficient, especially in low-to-medium gravity with an appreciable atmosphere.

Plus that's not a picture of a dreadnought

No, but is.

And that looks way better in terms of ground pressure. For one thing it's probably not much bigger than a mid-size sedan, and for another its feet are more reasonably shaped.

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I also imagine that as Rorties seem to care a lot mineral resources that they generally operate on pretty solid ground.

Depends on if they have oxygen to burn or at least gas to compress. In the right atmosphere Rorty Dreadnoughts might be fat attack helicopters.

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The soldiers never look very, umm...official, in the little artwork we see of them. I don't know, maybe I'm just not a fan of skintight uniforms with no helmets.

Also, you guys got a mention on /pol/ earlier.

There are tons of minerals that are found in clays and they don't pick where the gates are

Did pol say nice things?

>oxygen to burn or gas to compress
There's not going to be enough to make skyworthy.

Have you ever seen a Hind?

With armor designed to withstand .50 caliber machinegun fire

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Would the malleable mind trait apply to psychosurgery for the purpose of fork merging, and if so would it stack with ego plasticity?

Also, in jurisdictions where alpha forks are illegal, would they care if a visitor was an alpha fork as long as only the one copy was present in the jurisdiction?

They have winglets and a large rotor. It's also much longer than it is fat.

No. The fact that it exists as a separate trait should tell you that.

Probably, if they knew about it.

>They have winglets and a large rotor. It's also much longer than it is fat.

Perhaps it can reconfigure. Also, 2/10 is half the standard on-foot movement speed.

>Making their game free to use is pretty based, user.

I was mocking him/you for implying that them openly expressing their left-wing political views would cost them much of their fanbase.

There are two; the one in the front and the other stored in the file itself.

>save this image as exhuman.hta

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Note: not an exhuman. Probably. Maybe.

It was in some kind of thread about fictional fascists, they brought up the Junta. 40k was also mentioned in there somewhere. But they had the typical /pol/ opinion you would expect on this game. Let me see if I can find the thread. It was a while ago.

Found it

I'm concerned about his conflation of transhuman and having a cortical stack.

I recently made a character that was a post human hell bent on never dying. He didn't have a cortical stack but had built his body to be redundant in every possible way. He thought that if he died he died for real, regardless of whether or not he was booted up from somewhere else. He had to maintain stream of consciousness at all costs with no breaks. So no egocasting, dying, or body swapping with him being completely put out.

That's an interesting way to play. I've never heard someone do that before, but that definitely sounds like something someone who wasn't convinced on the continuity of conscience question would do. I would also imagine that the person wouldn't be particularly thrilled about taking risks, since they both plan on living forever (unlike the Jovians) but they don't believe in "resurrection" (unlike the rest of transhumanity).

>someone who wasn't convinced on the continuity of conscience
I don't get how this is treated as a question of fact. It's clearly a question of definition.

I don't get how people think playing a character that doesn't accept the continuity of conscience thing is a good idea for a character. You die, that's it. Can't egocast anywhere. It's like spending all your starting CP on a tricked out custom morph... sure, you can do it, and it makes sense that there are people in the setting who'd opt to do that sort of thing, but it holds the rest of the group and the game to ransom for the sake of your fucking character.

Yeah, I imagine when the game gets going he'll be the most hesitant to do stuff. He kinda gets roped into the whole mess with Firewall because it's going on in the Brink near his hab. It depends on how the GM decides to justify it, but it's probably going to come to Firewall literally putting a gun to his head. Maybe dangling a nice enough carrot.

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Also not an Exhuman - maybe.

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Yeah, you do need to either be playing a solo game (which doesn't really work so well with Eclipse Phase) or have everyone be on board with the mortality (like a Jovian squad or religious group or something)

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I have never played a single second of Eclipse Phase in my entire life, but I was looking for a winged power armored suit that looks bird-like for a PC pic, and while browsing Veeky Forums I just saw this and I just need to thank you for posting this.

Depends on mode of play too. But for a game where either you are hanging out in one place like Mars or otherwise avoiding egocasting like a gatecrashing game it would be more viable. But if it's a straight-up firewall across the solar system game it would be a major dick move

>want to avoid resleeving
>gatecrash

>I have never played a single second of Eclipse Phase in my entire life

You'll fit right in here

Heck, I've never played a single solitary roleplaying game yet I love hanging out here

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So, assuming the TITAN's are gone for good, what do you think will happen to everyone in the solar system in the long term, given say 50 years, then 200 years, then 1,000 years, and so on.

Will really much of anything change? From what I've read so far, while individual actions can have huge effects (like say, some terrorist blowing up a habitat), the factions are all really balanced against each other in such a way that whoever makes a move loses, so it's a permanent cold war.

>permanent cold war.

Absolutely not. The Jovians in particular are rapidly falling behind on technology and soon their large fleet will not suffice.

Okay, but what are they gonna do to adapt? And who's gonna make a move on them? I think it'd be naive to think they'll just be crushed without adopting new strategies and tactics, not when they know the gravity of the situation. Besides, we already know they are okay with spec ops being all geared up, it's not that far of a stretch for them to start using alpha forks and maybe even AGI's (since as the Fall moves farther and farther away AI and transhuman paranoia will likely decrease).

Let's talk about other groups too though. I can't really see much happening to the MC, the LLA seems pretty stable and unless some internal instability occurs the PC and LLA should be set for a while now. I don't think they are running short of egos to cast into robots either. The AA seems pretty stable, but I could definitely see the occasional accident gone horribly wrong causing problems in the future.