/epg/

So is the next edition moving the plot forward or are we forver stuck decade after the end of the world?

I feel this variation of the EX-Virus would have been more horrifying if they used a human as the model. Imagine vomiting tiny, fucked-up versions of yourself. Nasty.

Is the nuclear battery part of the hand laser description a typo or can nuclear batteries actually be recharged? I'm under the impression that they'd need new nuclear material to be recharged.

A nuclear battery is basically self-charging in terms of electricity, it's constantly putting out more energy for a very long period of time, so you build back up your shots over time. The "nuclear" part doesn't recharge, that's just how it builds power.

I thought it was implied that it did from the text. Only reason they were little crabs was that the infected host was a Nova Crab. So if a humanoid was infected the little offspring would be humanoid scale models of their originator as well.

youtu.be/Ru21bZ3B8KY

The skirk variant only affects certain morph types, like octopodes and novacrabs.

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I've played a single short campaign of EP over IRC and it was fun as hell. Played a novacrab AI/nanotech scientist with a neotenic alpha clone riding on his back. They had to constantly sync up their minds or they would deviate into separate characters. He had massive separation anxiety with the two bodies which was interesting to play when it comes up. Campaign ended with a titan AI taking over the neotenic temporarily and having it gun down the novacrab 'main' body. Queue mental breakdown. Other players thought it was "cheap" and terrible but I loved it from an RP perspective.

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>The PC is the one on the left.

... explain? No, I don't know anything about EP.

Flexbots are shape-altering, modular robot bodies with a variety of possible configurations and unique additions, such as the form seen there with multiple limbs in a very flexible arrangement, and if you want to get into the fiddlyness of perfecting your Flexbot build you can really do a lot with just the rough concept.

So given that PCs tend to be the one to take their time and figure out such things and they like to be less generic, if the image was an example of play, the player character would probably be the multi-armed robot combat monster, not the generic spaceman who is only using one gun.

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Goddamnit, now I want an EP anime

Basically this. You can form Voltron with the rest of your party as well

This looks funny. What is it from?

Mr. Clice

>You can form Voltron with the rest of your party as well
You mean with your numerous alpha forks, right?

With a 4.5 billion year half-life I hope you don't need that target lock in a hurry

And technically blazing swords are a thing.

Don't think they 1HKO exsurgents though.

There are people who don't retcon those out?

I mean, why would you? If a player is crazy enough to want to carry a plasma sword, let him. They aren't necessarily damage optimal and the book outright says that it's a pretty nuts thing to try, if it breaks you can easily get a catastrophic failure.

But hey, sometimes you just need the cleansing power of star juice on your side.

Hard SF flavored autism

Have to be real autistic, it's a plasma cutter with a vertical grip and a c-frame so it can magnetically hold the plasma in place. It's not that nuts along with, y'know, man portable lasers, railguns, plasma weapons, etc.

It's just a really shitty idea because that c-frame is the only thing keeping you armed and not accidentally slamming a magnetically accelerated bolt of plasma into your hand, or torso, or the wall, etc.

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Thank you.

Weird question. Would it be possible to implant puppet socks into your cyberlimbs, so in case the regular nerve connection is damaged, you could control it via radio?

It's actually pretty fucking nuts, not that plasma rifles aren't

>shit phase

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Do you guys know of any good 2nd edition actual play podcasts?

2E isn't out yet, but I'm pretty sure RPPR has run a game or two with the quick start/beta

Oh cool, thank you.
And damn they've got a lot of episodes on eclipse phase, nice.

Most of their Eclipse Phase content is first edition.

That said, the "Know Evil" campaign is basically mandatory for me to recommend to anyone mentioning anything about Eclipse Phase.

Is there much difference between 1st and 2nd? I have no group to play EP, so i didn't really bother to read. Is it kind of individual changes here and there or complete overhaul?

Really though, most of the written content is setting stuff that isn't version-specific

Game is very poorly written, most of the humanoid morphs are worthless.

That's pretty realistic though

human body is pretty solid design for a bipedal walker.

All that tells you is how shitty bipedal walkers are.

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Super useful in microgravity

...with prehensile feet.

Sticking prehensile feet on a human and calling it a micrograv morph is like putting tire chains on a prius and calling it a snowmobile

Okay. What is "micrograv morph" as you see it? Flying squid?

That's certainly better than a humanoid. Novacrabs, swarmanoids, reapers, and others all perform better as well.

Actually yeah, I'd probably say the Takko is one of the best morphs for micrograv. No biological functions to worry about so can survive hard vacuum no problem. 8 mechanically controlled limbs which can provide multiple points of firm anchorage in an array of positions while still leaving limbs free for utility (moreso because the ends of Takko tentacles are probably easy to attach tools to/within being mechanical), Small size makes navigating cramped habitat conditions and infrastructure trivial. Also I believe the Takko has a gas jet system in place of where the ink would be released from an octopus, so it can even propel itself well in open space. I kind of want to use a Takko for my next character now

Or a sphere actually.

Drug glands are available in cyberware form and thus can be used by synthmorphs. What can they possibly use it for? Being a junky's best friend? Internal liquid thermite production?

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Why not your current character?

Almost all of the drugs are also available as narcoalgorithms. Personally I'd house rule it that the intrinsically physical/biological ones can't like Bringit, but stuff like Drive and Klar make a lot of sense as narcoalgorithms. That said, why the fuck would you have a "gland". You only need to buy a narcoalgorithm once to keep using it forever. Just copy and paste that shit

I know resleeving is a big thing in EP but I think most people would have long since settled on a morph type that they consider best for whatever their purposes are and would usually only resleeve into the same type of morph. My character would have little interest in the Takko for various reasons. But making a new character with that morph in mind gives me a reason to try an uplift character which i haven't tried yet.

So you're saying that with a small modification it can also be a 1 shot gun?

Yes, almost assuredly. It's a plasma cutter on a loop.

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Playing a sentient sphere sounds fun

>Just copy and paste that shit
Maybe if you live in a place where the only available stuff is DRMed and they really enforce that shit.

Really? Why not pick a morph that best suits the current mission?

Aside from personal preference and a sense of physical identity? Availability is one factor, not every place will have every morph you need on hand. Relatedly is reliability, how well can you really trust a morph you just picked up from some random dude you've never met in some hab far from your homeground? Thirdly is the issue of integration and alienation penalties, if you fuck up or get unlucky with the integration roll thats like a -30 or something to all actions while in that morph. good luck being useful on the mission with that hanging over you. If the mission isn't incredibly time-sensitive why not just travel physically. The longest likely journey 9from mercury to neptune) is like 3 months. If you're staying within your half of the system you're looking at a maximum of like 2 weeks for inner system and maybe 1 month for outer. That's not bad at all, gives you time to prepare and train for the mission, fabricate supplies etc.

>Availability is one factor, not every place will have every morph you need on hand
On the other hand, not every place will have the morph you want, which is another reason for variety to occur.

>Goddamnit, now I want an EP hentai
FTFY

You missed my point. Instead of egocasting and changing morph, why not travel physically in the morph you're most comfortable/proficient/experienced in?

Because that takes way longer, costs way more, and can create all kinds of additional problems

2 weeks isn't all that long if something isn't time sensitive. Also, egocasting and long haul space travel are both listed as [Expensive], so cost isn't higher at all. Also, any @-rep would pretty much guarantee you could hitch a ride on a scum barge for free so actually it's likely to end up cheaper than egocasting. Then after you egocast, you're gonna be paying for a new morph, and not to mention all the equipment and mods you need, if they are even available at that locale. Are you beginning to see the point yet?

What would it take for to introduce a narcoalgorithm into a synthmorph?

In my last session, the GM gave my character (snakebot) DDR just by successfully shooting him with a hack-bullet I guess...

Didn't want to be a dick, so I went along with it-- having mental speed to overcome it immediately helped. But it seemed like he was not being true to the universe or system so that he could introduce his lolrandom "and now your character has to dance uncontrollably in the middle of a firefight"

Wondering whether this is totally legit. Can bullets hack in EP?

As a follow up question, what is the value of mental speed? I was told it was a must have for hacker characters, but then found that hacking took too long for it to matter

You know however long hacking takes you? It now takes you 1/3 of the time because you can get 3x as much mental shit done as other people.

I think I'm doing my math right there.

Well, there's Jamming bullets, and I'm pretty sure the active jammer has to roll Interface for that, so... yeah? Maybe? If your GM says they can then they can, that's how it is. But other people beside him have used bullets to deliver DDR before.

Thanks for the info.

Mental speed seems a little overrated then. Maybe I'm missing something or my group just isn't playing in an intense enough way that it makes a difference.

Mental Speed is basically one of the only ways you can hack in combat.

a brute-force hack takes 1 minute as opposed to 10, but it leaves a system log (not a huge deal if you're in a fight). An Action Turn is like, 3 seconds, so a Brute Force hack takes 20 turns. When performing task actions, extra Complex Actions mean you get stuff done faster. Neurachem for SPD 2? 10 turns. Mental Speed giving you two bonus Mental actions each Action? Means it takes like 3 turns and then a single complex Action out of the bunch.

Traits, good rolls or other mods can mean you can push this down further, though I think the maximum amount of reduction is always 90%, so your minimum is 2 Action Turns. But it's been a while since I had to do the precise math.

Also all other shit you do is faster. Need to give orders to drones or give computer commands? You've got like 3x the commands to give, or can do so while shooting, running, etc. And you get a big reduction in other task actions, like researching, programming, w/e.

Jamming communications with a bullet is a lot different from hacking a cyberbrain which cannot be done without access to their access jacks.

Even in the unlikely event that an existential threat can wait two weeks, that's a long time to be away from your day job.

Unless the bullet plugs itself into a port that bypasses some security features I'm unclear on what it would do that a radio couldn't.

M8 do you think all firewall ops are "shit has hit the fan get in there for damage control right fucking now"? Most of their work is about preventing things from getting to that stage, which means careful information gathering, subtle manipulation etc. Not charging in and fucking things up in the fastest way possible

Just because a job doesn't involve shooting doesn't mean it isn't time sensitive.

And jobs though. Also, darkcasting is pretty much the only way to get to a hab secretly.

Also do you think firewall is a day job? Assets get called in as and when they are needed. If you were doing firewall shit all the time that would be the fastest way to get project OZMA to notice you or really just any attentive individuals. You need to maintain your cover as whatever the hell you're supposed to be outside of your firewall business and you can't do that if you're spending every waking moment fighting x-threats. Spending a few days in space on the way to a mission is great for giving you an opportunity to work on your cover amongst other things.

Firewall has a stealth landing pod for habitats not on planetary bodies.

Pretty sure you can hack wirelessly if they leave their wireless on, which they probably do to get access to the Mesh.

If it was only possible via Access Jacks, cyberbrain hacking would be so hard there would be no point in specific rules for it.

SeeAlso, never heard of a stowaway? Anyway, the best way to hide is in plain sight. Book a valid ticket with valid reasons for passage to the mission destination, but do so while using a fake ego ID, fake brainprint, fake meshID and using skeletal disguise+skinflex+sex switch to completely alter yourself. Nobody would be any the wiser

That means you'd need like a week of downtime on sight to pull off all that physical shit. At least a few days.

>physical shit
You mean the skeletal disguise etc? Skeletal disguise and skinflex literally take 20 minutes to do their business. Sex switch does take two weeks though yeah. But skeletal disguise and skinflex ought to be enough if you're short on time, especially with all the digital ID stuff faked and also with a nanotat ID flux

I felt like those were longer.

That seems a little weird. I guess there's internal shit but still, we can alter your bone structure for differences in frame and gait via nanotech magic in like no time, but to make a dick pop out of a vagina you need a week.

I think the sex switch is such a time issue due to hormonal balances and stuff that your body needs to acclimate to.

Whereas extending a bone by adding a little calcite or reducing it by shaving a little away is pretty easy in comparison to fine tuning hormone balances

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At best that only obscures where you came from, and those things are probably as expensive as travelling by antimatter courier

The primary mineral in bone is apatite

Isn't that the point though? Firewall assets need day jobs and can't afford to take months off from those to do a job. Hence egocasting as a matter of practicality.

The more you know. Point still stands.

You seem to think that a job requires you to be in a specific place? A great amount of work is easily conducted on the move and I expect firewall agents would choose those sorts of jobs as their cover. For instance, my current character fills a hacker/infilitrator role and their cover would obviously be as a programmer. Programming software is a task action with a hefty timeframe so a space journey is a good way to get some work done. If you really need to knuckle down you can always fork yourself and leave yourself behind to do some extra work. Really there are so many solutions to this problem that it's barely worth mentioning

>You seem to think that a job requires you to be in a specific place?
Often, but not always. Workers aboard spacecraft may certainly run into bandwidth issues and light speed delays if nothing else. Still doesn't limit all remote-access jobs, but it limits quite a few of them.

>and I expect firewall agents would choose those sorts of jobs as their cover.
Doing this as a rule is a security risk for the organization.

>If you really need to knuckle down you can always fork yourself and leave yourself behind to do some extra work.
Even if you have a good workaround that's not a strong argument in favor of physical travel over egocasting.