/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

Yeah, there is good reasons that a good number of GM's I've seen go with 'You can usually find any body you bought at chargen' (If for no other reason than to avoid permanently losing chargen points whenever the GM wants the group to go on a road trip.)

The way the game typically goes is you get sent on missions for Firewall wherever you're needed. Unless that happens to be on the same planet/station or in an extremely nearby one, that almost certainly means you're egocasting. Once there, you're stuck with whatever morph is available, maybe a few pieces of equipment available through Firewall contacts. Beyond that you're usually on your own.

Because of this, one of the biggest pieces of advice given to new players is not to invest much CP in morphs and physical items. Skills, software and blueprints are things you can take with you.

You GM may of course not run it this way. Just ignoring the interesting things about the setting and running around on Mars seems to be particularly popular on /epg/, and gatecrashing is another way that gameplay can go.

I also think it's a bit odd to be making a character without having been told where in the system the game is being set (if it is indeed localized at all).

>You GM may of course not run it this way. Just ignoring the interesting things about the setting and running around on Mars seems to be particularly popular on /epg/, and gatecrashing is another way that gameplay can go.

I can understand why. It does a lot to unfuck the mechanical issues of the game.

>How fast are in-system transports, anyway?
Slow, months or years to travel between worlds rather than hours or days. Unless your morph has a lot of dangerous/ expensive mods it's going to be far cheaper and quicker to arrange for a morph built to your spec at your destination and egocast

Noob trying to make a game to run here. So travel between places even in the inner planets takes a long time? I guess I never considered that there isn't really FTL travel or anything. So I guess the sentinels are generally just uploaded to a provided sleeve at a nearby location to the objective instead of chilling on a ship until they get there?

Im just preserving opsec by not telling the players to which deathtrap they are being sent to.

What is a good list of spare morphs to leave lying around when one of your players inevitably needs a replacement? Im thinking pods and some synths are cheap to have around.

Which mechanical issues? Resleeving? Resource limitations?

The fact that physical resources come out of the same pool in Chargen as stuff that does actually stick with you.

A guy who makes a pure infomorph and spends all his points on skills is an objectively better character than someone who wanted to make a combatant and actually bought a Fury at chargen. Even, likely, within the area of combat as that's a hefty chunk of your points gone for nothing.

>Just ignoring the interesting things about the setting
I don't think you're the one to really judge what is interesting in the setting and state it as fact, user.

There's tons of interesting stuff you can do that doesn't involve constant morph-hopping or ego-casting; I personally consider that one of the less interesting things of the setting, and prefer more "down to Earth" things (no pun intended). Had tons of fun in a game set entirely on Luna, investigating X-Risks.

If you're playing Firewall, depending on your server, you're usually going to have specific areas of operation and investigatory niches, anyway (it even refers specifically to this in the books). Makes no sense to send a guy on Luna ego-casting to Mars to investigate something unless it relates to something he's doing on Luna or he's got some special skill that another Server is missing.

Unless there's an urgency, you could always go into cold storage and take a transport. I imagine that's usually cheaper than new morphs and egocasting, but obviously much slower. Is there any info about specific travel times and speeds anywhere? The differences have to be pretty big between, say, Luna to Mars compared to Luna to Jupiter, and many times that to Saturn/Titan.

>also think it's a bit odd to be making a character without having been told where in the system the game is being set (if it is indeed localized at all).

Nah, we've got the general premise, so I assume that we'll be out and about in the system, so character creation doesn't need to relate to our location much in this case. Can't wait to take four weeks to get to a space station only to discover that someone else got there first. I'm so excited!

That infomorph can spend money on server time in a useless location just as easily as that combat character can focus on skills rather than equipment.

Why would someone spend resources on creation for server-time?

Why would you spend resources on creation for guns and furies?

>buying server time
>buying GOOD server time
>when a Ghostrider Module to stick in another party member is [Low]
Really gets your cybernoggin joggin.

Because you can't actually do combat without a body or gun?

The game has a serious issue with PCs not ending up remotely of similar value. The less you spend on resources, the better you are as losing all your resources is not only possible it's the systems main form of sending you places.

They really, really should have made them separate pools or made buying something in chargen buying access to a supply of them (So you can get them basically anywhere while other people need to organise it individually)

>spending CP on a gun
>when you won't be here tomorrow

A nice server has way more processing capability than a ghostrider module.

Any gear (not augments/enhancements) a AGI/infolife/synthmorph should grab on creation that can be easily considered integrated either into software or hardware?

Can honestly not immediately think of that much equipment that would be beneficial or reasonable. I'm the kind of player that usually grabs stuff like flashlights and quarter staffs and extra bags and marbles and zip ties, but none of that is really relevant when you're a small-sized floating synthmorph with integrated sensors and gear.

Not like I can carry a backpack.

>spending CP on a gun
>when you won't be here tomorrow

And thus you run right into my complaints about the serious mechanical issues. Someone building a PC with, at chargen, the tools they need to do a task now...is a bad idea.

A smart PC starts with no gear and gets it after chargen as it doesn't cost you character points. Skills are the main thing that will stay with you when you travel.

To be fair, you could just screw on some saddlebags.

Here's the thing though. You can spend CP on things like networking that let you have cool stuff on location.

Look at some software, especially if noone else bought a TacNet, and a few bots you can jam. Gnats and Servitors are pretty cheap and you can send them into dangerous situations as walking 10' poles.

There's also spare rep and credits, in case you think of something later.

This is why I actually like the way 2e's playtest does gear. It gives you enough equipment that you can do your job, but doesn't let you sink a lot of expendable resources on something that's going to disappear. Shame they don't have something similar for morphs, but that's what playtesting is for.

Because they're necessary if you actually want to run and gun, and because they're really, really fucking expensive, to the point where if you spend everything you have on creation on other things - as the Infomorph can usually afford to do - you're not likely to see a Fury anytime soon, or, like, ever, for all you know.

And even if you get it later, you're likely to just lose it, or maybe have to abandon it on Mars or on Luna or somewhere else, if you're in a game with lots of resleeving.

Server time is just something you buy wherever you happen to be, as needed for that duration. It's not something you get on creation because you practically have to, nor is it something that you pay for beyond what is necessary.

An Infomorph buying tons of server time on creation and then ending up somewhere else right afterward, or potentially session to session depending on the GM and the story, is something that never really happens unless we're talking about a special brand of retarded.

Someone getting themselves a Fury or honestly anything other than whatever free morph they have access to is something that happens routinely, both during and after character creation. It doesn't even happen to be a top-of-the-line Morph or anything, it applies to anything, it's just that it gets worse the higher you go.

>Because they're necessary if you actually want to run and gun, and because they're really, really fucking expensive, to the point where if you spend everything you have on creation on other things - as the Infomorph can usually afford to do - you're not likely to see a Fury anytime soon, or, like, ever, for all you know.
If the GM doesn't give you any resources then that's not not a mechanical issue with the game. That's either a bad GM, a GM running a game the player isn't interested in, or a player who doesn't understand that he's still the best at combat if everyone gets a pistol.

>To be fair, you could just screw on some saddlebags.
Well, yeah, I guess, but that might interfere with my aerodynamics. And I wouldn't be as pretty.

>Here's the thing though. You can spend CP on things like networking that let you have cool stuff on location.
True, but also, we're using Packages for creation, and Gearhead gave me 60k to spend. I've burned 33k on augments/enhancements already, so I've got some cash left for potential gear before I'd dig into the CP I have left after taking a Morph and my Traits.

>Look at some software, especially if noone else bought a TacNet, and a few bots you can jam. Gnats and Servitors are pretty cheap and you can send them into dangerous situations as walking 10' poles.

Thanks, I'll check it out. Especially Programs are a good idea, considering what I am, and could conceivably be considered as coming with me wherever I go, as long as I end up sleeving into a synthmorph again (or have proper equipment).

I also just realized that my entire character is basically a fancy gnat or servitor. I could attach a few gnats to myself via fiber-wire and send them around corners or on ahead. Not sure I want to do that, but it's a fun idea. I'd probably end up giving them names and treating them as pets.

>True, but also, we're using Packages for creation, and Gearhead gave me 60k to spend.
You don't have to spend it right away, and you can spend it on things like fabber blueprints (still highly recommended even if you're on Mars).

>If the GM doesn't give you any resources then that's not not a mechanical issue with the game.

It's an issue with the game when the game expects the GM to hand out extra resources to balance things out just because character creation is completely unbalanced.

By your logic, everyone should be expected to make an Infomorph on creation, regardless of what character they're making, and then the GM should facilitate the in-game acquisition of relevant gear, equipment, and morphs. It makes no sense, in relation to the options that the game actually gives you.

Yeah, I'm considering just saving it at the moment, unless something stands out as useful for what I'm doing. Might give me a head start on getting operational again once the GM brains me.

>especially if noone else bought a TacNet
Based on how TacNets are described on pg. 205, everyone that wants to be a part of the TacNet needs the TacNet program ("participants in the network"), unless I'm missing something.

That said and especially given the ridiculous number of sensors I intend to have (Radar, Lidar, Echolocation, Electrical Sense, Radiation Sense, Enhanced Vision, Enhanced Hearing, T-Ray Emitter, 360-degree Vision), I don't think anyone could be a better TacNet-Hub.

I guess it's possible that I alone could at least feed my information to the AR-interfaces of others, even if they're missing TacNets of their own.

Keep on minmaxing, pal.

And how is this different from any game that has loot?

Because in D&D, loot doesn't come from the same pool of resources as your stat points and class levels. There is also good reasons a lot of games let you buy a wealth level and then get cash from that wealth level. The wealth level is a permanent feature even if it affects starting dosh.

>Because in D&D, loot doesn't come from the same pool of resources as your stat points and class levels

A) It doesn't have to in EP either
B) Why is that a balance issue?

>There is also good reasons a lot of games let you buy a wealth level and then get cash from that wealth level.
You know EP has rep, right?

>A) It doesn't have to in EP either

At Chargen, however it does.

>B) Why is that a balance issue?

Becuase it's spending permanent resources on a very (Especially in EP. In D&D you could at least expect to keep the same masterwork sword and upgrade it along your career) impermanent resource rather than permanent resources.

>You know EP has rep, right?

Rep is also an in-game resource. Do you expect your first session to be 'Everyone uses favors to get bodies'?

>At Chargen, however it does.
So don't do it then. D&D doesn't even give you the option to be wealthier at chargen.

Typically Firewall has a morph ready for you at the destination, though you might spend rep to get a nicer one.

>there's a trap option?
>just don't take it lmao
All we need is scantily clad furbait and we'll be the mirror image of /pfg/.

And it would smarter if Eclipse Phase didn't do that. It's a gigantic trap option.

The better option would have been something like 'X points for character, Y points on Firewall Requisition'. Y is stuff that firewall can always have for you. So the gunbunny will be able to spend a large chunk of it to have a Fury ready on any mission that involves egocasting somewhere or the hacker will always have the tools he needs for said hacking.

Well it's not a trap option if your zonestalking or something. Did it occur to you that it might be there for that reason?

>Well it's not a trap option if your zonestalking or something.

Honestly, with how easy fabrication of object is it's honestly a trap even then. Spending chargen points on the fabricator to make your other items is better than buying the items themselves.

Can anyone think of a game with no trap options?

There are very few with no trap options (D&D 4e is likely one of the lowest as it's got a very high optimisation floor and a low ceiling).

A lot of them are a lot smaller in the trap options than EP though. Especially since EP's trap runs counter to how most RPGs train people 'Get all my stuff done in chargen' vs 'Buying pants is a first session thing'.

All CP is a trap. It is a pit. Once you invest it in something, you can't get it back. Be that your morph gets shot up, you get lost in a place with no computers for your sweet infomorph+software, you have to accomplish something in 10 minutes so all your fabricators and blueprints are useless, you spent points on the trait to resleeve better and you never resleeve, or you spend 40 points on Swimming and are on a Desert exoplanet.

>D&D 4e
If I wanted to play WoW I'd do it on the computer.

...

Hell, CP in 'universally useful' skills are still a trap, since Psychosurgery can remove them.

Wow, that must have been a real difficult thing to come up with an insult that creative and new.

It's not really worth the effort to come up with a better one. Who do I need to convince?

The 4e general on Veeky Forums?

Because 4e doesn't really bear any resemblance to WoW that D&D doesn't in the first place.

...

>How fast are in-system transports, anyway? I know there's no FTL, but anything remotely approaching lightspeed would mean a week's travel at most.

That depends on what information you use. I'd recommend to use GURPS Spaceships and Atomic Rockets info over what is written in EP rulebooks.

Overall for the balanced economical approach to travel you want fusion drives. Antimatter allows you to go a little faster but costs are so high you could touch Alpha Centauri. Metallic hydrogen is ok for "Planet-Moon" travel but over interplanetary distances it is too slow (dV is pretty low).

Fusion drive allows you to get from Mercury to Jupiter in around 2-3 months depending on how much fuel you are willing to expend. Though that's not for cold storage ships those move on most economical trajectories and will spend years in space.

I think you meant that for

Fine. One example:

Replacing Vancian magic with powers on cooldown. There are tons of examples including wording, but I'll not be drawn further into this baitfest.

Cooldowns? You mean per/day and per/encounter powers? 4e doesn't have cooldowns or powers recharging in a battle. If a power is expended, it's expended until you have a chance to rest.

>there are tons of examples including wording, but I'll not be drawn further into this baitfest.

You literally started the baitfest with

Literally nothing I said suggests that I min/max.

>And how is this different from any game that has loot?

Starting equipment, race, etc., is usually not gained by spending Creation Points, nor does most games have loss of all your equipment and resources as a game mechanic, nevermind one where only some do, while others keep everything invested.

>So don't do it then.
see Honestly, this is starting to sound like people defending caster supremacy in DnD with "You don't have to play a Wizard just because they're more powerful!".

As a GM, would you allow AGI:s to take Lemon as an Ego Trait?

>Literally nothing I said suggests that I min/max.
You were bitching at the thought of spending 10 or 15 out of 1000 CP on a morph that might not be super useful.

>Starting equipment, race, etc., is usually not gained by spending Creation Points
Okay. That doesn't make it a problem.

>nor does most games have loss of all your equipment and resources as a game mechanic, nevermind one where only some do, while others keep everything invested.
Most games also don't let you just 3D print a new gun or use rep to get one. I won't even go into the fact that this is a covert ops game and that means ditching and acquiring equipment sometimes.

>Honestly, this is starting to sound like people defending caster supremacy in DnD with "You don't have to play a Wizard just because they're more powerful!".

No, it's not. At all. Buying a gun in character creation isn't a class or a party role. You can still be the guy who goes around and shoots things without spending a bunch of CP on gear in character creation, and it's still quite powerful in game terms.

Not without a damned good argument for it.

Doesn't Lemon cause wounds? Pretty sure Infomorphs don't have wounds.

>You were bitching at the thought of spending 10 or 15 out of 1000 CP on a morph that might not be super useful.
No I wasn't. Go back, re-read. Your jimmies seem incredibly rustled over this.

Super rustled. Anything else you want to say or can we discuss something less stupid now?

>Not without a damned good argument for it.
Given that you're evidently retarded, I'm not sure what argument you'd accept. Obviously, the argument would be the same as why you can take it as a Morph Trait for Synthmorphs. C'mon, there's no need to be a little bitch over 10 CP, was there?

>Doesn't Lemon cause wounds? Pretty sure Infomorphs don't have wounds.

I wasn't thinking specifically as an Infomorph, of course, but rather as an AGI, meaning that if you were an AGI sleeved into anything other than an Infomorph, you'd take wounds from it.

It's arguably much worse than taking it as a Morph Trait and then just ditching or losing that morph at some point, as an Infomorph optimizer would likely do, but I just thought the idea was interesting and thought I'd ask what people thought about it, since AGI:s are still constructs of a sort; I was just thinking it could be a glitch of some sort, instead of faulty electrical wiring or similar.

>you're evidently retarded

then

>let me just assume that the infomorph isn't an infomorph, then claim that the ego could cause wounds somehow

I'm pretty sure wounds are entirely supposed to be physical damage - even "Neural Damage" as an Ego trait is that the damage is basically done to the Ego sectors of the brain so the effects port with you even in emulation and don't affect the overall health of the morph.

There's already several traits to give an AGI which can make it harder for them to sleeve without going all weird "You die in the game you die in real life".

>I'm pretty sure wounds are entirely supposed to be physical damage
Yes, of course, I was thinking along the ways of programming quirks that resulted in physical damage; servos locking up or trying to go in different directions, voltages suddenly running too high or too low, or cooling suddenly shutting down just long enough for something to just almost catch fire.

Bonus points if it electrifies the chassis or sputters burning oils onto the curtains all of a sudden. Or, in the odd chance the AGI would be sleeved in a meatsuit, suddenly have the legs give out while walking down a flight of stairs, or get a nosebleed and spit blood all over the mark you're trying to deceive.

I've fucked up a lot of hardware in real life with faulty or misconfigured software, so the idea of a Lemon AGI isn't really that much of a stretch for me, I guess.

That doesn't really make sense though, since all of that would be handled by firmware while the ego just does the higher-level coordination.

Yeah, given how AGI have "legacy peripherals" so they can do autonomous nervous functions to breathe - I'm pretty sure that's just Anomalous Mind and if you have an error which doesn't get patched over you just don't sleeve. Or it's just Lemon on the morph because the morph would have to have a flawed or weakened design in order to blow back like that.

AGI aren't just regular exe files, almost all of them are based on biological neural maps or emulation.

And I think you might get software, but I don't think you get brains. You can do some weird psychosomatic stuff but that's still not like, a wound. That'd be neural damage or basically a trauma - your Ego makes you think you're blind, or your leg doesn't work but from a medical standpoint your leg is perfectly fine. No "damage" is done to the cells and tissues there.

What is the best way to strand characters on an exoplanet?
Destroy the blue box or enitre pandora gate?

Probably just the blue box, especially if they can't make it to the designated return appointment. Another option is to send them through with a vehicle then destroy that.

>You can do some weird psychosomatic stuff but that's still not like, a wound. That'd be neural damage or basically a trauma - your Ego makes you think you're blind, or your leg doesn't work but from a medical standpoint your leg is perfectly fine. No "damage" is done to the cells and tissues there.

Well that's basically what I'm talking about; imagine it as neural damage to the biological neural emulation. Neural damage can absolutely cause physical damage if it means getting a seizure or prompting you to suddenly do something you shouldn't be doing at the wrong time, whether you fall down the stairs, blow a blood vessel or punch a wall.

That said, when I originally envisioned this, I wasn't thinking of sleeving into biomorphs, and it's even easier to imagine when considering synthmorphs, again, by losing control over something or doing something backwards at the wrong time.

Anomalous Mind doesn't cover any of that, and is something else altogether, and has your mind be something "dramatically outside the norm of transhumanity", making it hard to do psychosurgery, backups and resleeves. I'm talking about an embedded programming glitch or base computer error in the neural simulation that results in sudden and largely unexpected anomalous behaviour, sometimes resulting in physical damage to the morph in which you're sleeved.

>That doesn't really make sense though, since all of that would be handled by firmware while the ego just does the higher-level coordination.
Source?

>Source?
It's discussed a bit in the section on integration, and I think somewhere else too.

That's like saying that the firmware of the human body isn't in the brain, and that people sleeved in synths can't regulate their functions, much like I can't adjust the fans of my computer or that PLC functions on an assembly line can't be fucked. You're retarded.

No, it's more like saying that when they sleeve you in a fucking octopus they swap some brain stem functions instead of just having it not work.

Even if it's not explicitly stated in those terms - a human who is not an octopus can sleeve into an octopus and still be able to move at all - the necessary like, subconscious and basic motor and autonomic functions are either extant or patched in - though obviously people have harder time with the resleeving itself.

>It's discussed a bit in the section on integration, and I think somewhere else too.
No.

Plus, a lot of autonomic stuff actually is processed outside of the brain.

>mental "patches"

yes

Resleeving integration is about you adapting to the functions and being able to take control. It doesn't change that you're the one in control. Now, "neural damage" for an AGI of this type is obviously subconscious and reflexive, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still there, much like how you can be an Async and preserve the functions that make you an async whether you're in an octomorph or an olympian (afaik).

So basically we're having an argument if an AGI can be loaded with malware to cause random physically harmful failures if sleeved in a body - but which have no impact on digital emulation in a software shell (because software doesn't take damage).

Fucking why?

>mental "patches"

That has nothing to do with what you said, and I have no idea why you'd think that a patched-in functions necessary for your mind to be able to handle the new morph is the same thing as it being pre-existing firmware over which you have no control. If you're just going to pull stuff out of your ass, at least own up to it.

>I have no idea why you'd think that a patched-in functions necessary for your mind to be able to handle the new morph is the same thing as it being pre-existing firmware over which you have no control

You know you have control over what firmware you use, right?

>Fucking why?

I honestly have no idea, I didn't actually expect anyone to have their jimmies rustled over it, and if anyone would have a problem with it, that it would be based on something completely different that I might've missed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It doesn't help that this is in a setting where there's sentient computer virii that reconfigure egos and the synths in which they're sleeved to make them practically self-destruct or worse.

>You know you have control over what firmware you use, right?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Not sure how you could've missed it.

No I mean "fucking why" as in "why the fuck did you ask this retarded question which has no meaningful application". I want to know what you're getting out of this besides insisting that something you made up exists and the (You)s.

Digital infection really does just affect digital things though. It cannot affect any physical aspects unless it's also a nanovirus.

>Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Not sure how you could've missed it.
Cool. So now that we've established that it's not the default assumption when discussing firmware, you'll be happy to point out where I said the firmware in question is pre-installed and outside of user control.

>Cool. So now that we've established that it's not the default assumption when discussing firmware, you'll be happy to point out where I said the firmware in question is pre-installed and outside of user control.
You said it didn't make sense because it was handled by firmware, implying that you're not the one to handle the firmware, while I've been saying that that doesn't matter.

Which, by the way, is still a fact that you pulled straight out of your ass, unless you can actually find something that covers it, because the section on Integration doesn't.

So your thinking is that this lemon glitch somehow fucks up this third party firmware?

>Which, by the way, is still a fact that you pulled straight out of your ass, unless you can actually find something that covers it, because the section on Integration doesn't.

We can call them patches if you want. I just think firmware is a more accurate metaphor. You know how the devs are with technical details.

>why the fuck did you ask this retarded question which has no meaningful application

Because I wanted some input on potential issues that might arise and because it has a potentially meaningful application for the purpose of a character?

It's not that hard to grasp, user, it's pretty much what Veeky Forums is for.

>I want to know what you're getting out of this besides insisting that something you made up exists

No such insistence has been made; I wouldn't have bat an eye at accepting it at my own table, were I the GM, obviously, but it's always nice to get input from others just to see if there's some angle that I've missed or that might cause issues, or that it doesn't make sense in relation to something that has been missed.

Doesn't seem to be any real issue with it, though, mechanically or narratively. Other than it being slightly more penalizing than if it would only be a Morph Trait, but I'm fine with that, obviously.

Have you looked at morphing disorder? It probably makes more sense for what you're trying to do.