EP breaks up computers into essentially three cathegories of increasing computational power: peripherals, personal computers, and servers. How much do they cost?
Personal computers seem to have a Low cost. This is the cost of an Ecto, as well as that of a ghostrider module (which can support an infomorph). Mesh Inserts are also explicitly PC-level, and cost Moderate, but they include other gear.
One can then assume that peripherals have a Trivial cost.
But what about servers? We know that they can run simulspace programs, and a month-long subscription to a simulspace has a Moderate cost. Based on this, I'd say that a server has a High cost (based on the EP standard of pricing a replenishable source of some item one cost cathegory above the item itself - see e.g. blueprints and drug glands), but it's a very wild guess.
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How much does a server cost?
Fri, 2010-09-10 20:47
#1
babayaga
How much does a server cost?
root@How much does a server cost?[hr] The sidebar on page 237 of the core book implies that Mainframes are simply not allowed in most places, except for very specific uses such as controlling the life support systems in habitats. There are specific and heavy security measures take to insure these computer systems are not accessible, and are made fail-safe with other security measures (which are unnamed). An approximation I used was to look at what bonuses you can get from a server as a piece of gear. Good quality gear can give up to a +30 bonus on actions taken using the gear, so I set that as the lower bounds for a server. This can be accomplished by using a cyberbrain and three ghostrider modules where the forks inside have the appropriate skills. This doesn't match the statement that a server can run a large number of forks, so I added onto this basic setup using the 2+ access jacks that come standard with a cyberbrain. Cyberbrains have a Moderate cost, and ghostrider modules have a Low cost. The math is easier if you get 4 Ghostrider modules per cyberbrain (2,000 credits per "module", or 2 CP per "module"), and everything gets cheaper in the long run if you spend the High resources for a Specialized Hive that produces cyberbrains and again for one that produces ghostrider modules. That way you spend 10 CP at character gen, and when someone asks how much computing power you have in order to run a server, the answer is "more than enough". Of course, you'll get killed for creating a seed AI, but nothing is free.@-rep +1|c-rep +1|g-rep +1|r-rep +1]root@How much does a server cost?[hr] My reason for statting a server like that comes from my belief that the standard unit of processing might as well be a fork, but that's not supported by the game much. Gear bonuses are discussed on p296, and range from -30 to +30 depending on quality. As you pointed out, that takes nearly TITAN computing power, which is generally a no-no. However, using the Teamwork rules on p117, you can get the same bonuses by running 4 forks that are using Teamwork. 1 on the cyberbrain, and 3 in the ghostrider modules. The cyberbrain also comes with 2+ access jacks, so they can be configured like any computer network, treating each cyberbrain+3 ghostriders as a single computing node. It's a way for players to get a large "server" that does what they want by the game mechanics without approaching TITAN technology and all of the problems associated with that. I also like it because it's the base unit of the Entelechy Network, which is a criminal multiplicity that Arenamontanus gave me the idea of writing in his "Merging me, myself, and I" thread.@-rep +1|c-rep +1|g-rep +1|r-rep +1]