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New player questions

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Fri, 2012-01-13 13:20

lbeaumanior lbeaumanior's picture

New player questions

Hi, I have just gotten the EP books, and I am amazed (it is the game I was hoping for a LOOOOONG time ago), but a lot of questions spring to mind: 1. How does work the equipment/implants that resemble a Positive trait? I. e. 1.1 If I have a Hyper-Linguist implant, do I retain in my Ego the knowledge of the languages learned while using the implant? 1.2. If I have an Eidetic Memory implant, memories acquired while using the implant, are always crystal clear in my Ego? 2. Why would anyone (besides role play, or coolness factor) invest in Morph Positive traits? Ego traits are forever, Morph traits are simply gone when you re-sleeve. 3. The Hyper Linguist trait. How does it work the part "The character can also learn any human language in one day simply by constant immersive exposure to it"? Does it mean that you can expend more than 5 Rez points per month and don't need to expend a week studying first? Or you get an automatic 60 in the Languague skill? 4. There are male Fury morphs? 5. Breeding among different types of biomorphs is possible? I.e: Futuras with Furies, Exalts with Remade, etc, etc 6. How are the Jovians threatening or impressive? They are (self) technologically limited, and in this setting Technology is everything: How can their scientists (if they have any) keep up with Mentons or Remades with an average of 30 COG? EDIT: added some questions that I felt also worth considering

Fri, 2012-01-13 15:21

Tyrnis

Re: New player questions

lbeaumanior wrote:
Hi, I have just gotten the EP books, and I am amazed (it is the game I was hoping for a LOOOOONG time ago), but a lot of questions spring to mind: 1. How does work the equipment/implants that resemble a Positive trait? I. e. 1.1 If I have a Hyper-Linguist implant, do I retain in my Ego the knowledge of the languages learned while using the implant? 1.2. If I have an Eidetic Memory implant, memories acquired while using the implant, are always crystal clear in my Ego? 2. Why would anyone (besides role play, or coolness factor) invest in Morph Positive traits? Ego traits are forever, Morph traits are simply gone when you re-sleeve. 3. The Hyper Linguist trait. How does it work the part "The character can also learn any human language in one day simply by constant immersive exposure to it"? Does it mean that you can expend more than 5 Rez points per month and don't need to expend a week studying first? Or you get an automatic 60 in the Languague skill? 4. There are male Fury morphs? 5. Breeding among different types of biomorphs is possible? I.e: Futuras with Furies, Exalts with Remade, etc, etc

1.1. Yes, because you've paid rez for your language skills -- you'd just lose the flexibility to learn the languages more quickly than normal if you lost the implant. 1.2. Not if you resleeve in a body without the implant. Then your memory is back to being the same as any other transhuman's. 2. Because mechanical optimization isn't always appropriate in a given game or for a given character, mostly. By the same logic, why doesn't every character who spends more than 17 points on languages get the hyper-linguist trait, since after that point you're better off to have done so? Really, though, it boils down to what's fun for you and your gaming group. Finding ways to optimize your character isn't a bad thing so long as everyone in the group is doing it at roughly the same level. 3. A free and automatic 60 in the language would be rather overpowered for an already potent positive trait. I'd stick with the explicitly stated 1/3 time and experience cost, but would allow the first five point increase to come at the end of the first day (and since I don't deal with fractional Rez, they'd actually be able to get a 6 point boost if they spent 2 rez.) So they don't get fluency in the language at the end of a day, but they'd get an improvement that it would take most people a month of dedicated effort to acquire. It says they can learn the language in a day, not that they become fluent in it that quickly. 4. Yes. The description of the Fury morph indicates that they "tend" to be biologically female, which suggests a majority are female, but not all of them. 5. The short answer is that we simply don't know. If you use the search function, you'll find a number of threads where this is discussed.

Sat, 2012-01-14 05:50

Elfface

Re: New player questions

1.2: I'd probably state that the enhanced memories are still easier to remember, having been kept fresher by the implant, but 'fade' at the same rate at newly acquired ones after that. 2: It does make less sense at the start, but as well as RP etc. it means there are skeleton rules for making new morphs. Like firearms can have minor variants from manufacturer (Though it would be nice to know how variable they can be for the same cost), as can morphs. Knowing what is legal for a morph helps a lot with this. This is especially true when acquiring a morph in play. You may not have the rez for a trait, but you might be able to get it included by expending rep or creds. as long as it is a legal morph trait, of course. 4: Furies are stated as 'usually' female. I always read this as 'The Exotech Fury(TM) Mk5.5' is always female. The 'Biolab Inc. Warlord(TM) Epsilon' on the other hand, comes in male. 6: The Jovians aren't technologically limited, they just restrict their citizens access to it. A Jovian strike team is going to have heavy armour and assault rifles just like any other. They remote jam combat drones rather than fork, but still fly them in. And, while their stance on augmentation means their scientists aren't as smart, it doesn't stop them from buying, reverse-engineering or stealing the tech from other factions. Plus, a little hypocrisy makes the galaxy go round. A senior Jovian scientist probably IS in a Menton, he just hides it, and re-sleeved via destructive scan or brain transplant, so as to preserve the soul. Finally, remember that the default setting is only ten years after the fall, and people are still picking themselves up. There hasn't been much time for science. Over the next few decades, the jovians may be forced to revise their stance on mental augmentation, or maybe their world-view will win out when a backup facility gets infected by TITAN 2.0, and only bio-conservatives survive the tailored memetic attacks.

Sun, 2012-01-15 02:49

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: New player questions

The Jovian's may not be threatening on an individual basis. The common "they don't have menton scientists" argument is pretty hollow in my opinion. In the first case Flat's have an aptitude maximum of 20 which isn't statistically (dice wize) that much less than a menton's aptitude max of 30. In the second case ability as a scientist is mostly a matter of skill. There's nothing that makes it impossible for a Jovian scientist to have a computer science skill of 99. (the better argument for that is the; "They don't have x60 accelerated simulspace" argument) However; As a Faction the Jovian's are a force to be reckoned with. The have a huge military industrial complex, they have the political will and control to press their population into military service and military supportive roles. They control important "terrain" in the solar system. (That last maybe inferred from the note in the core book that they "tax" anyone using Jupiter for gravity assist. Which must mean that--in the 11 year orbital period of Jupiter and the 30 year orbital period of Saturn--they're aligned in such a way that Jupiter is on the path of much traffic to the outer system circa: 10AF. There are also other, scientific, reasons the Jovian system is important.) In the end, you're right. The Jovians are no joke but they are not a Threat. It's just a simple cold war analogue in which the free world gives the soviet's the stinkeye for their repressive socio-political experiment and they say; "Leave us the fuck alone or we'll keep building ships and missiles and warheads." They are not aggressors.

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Sun, 2012-01-15 06:45

Decivre

Re: New player questions

lbeaumanior wrote:
6. How are the Jovians threatening or impressive? They are (self) technologically limited, and in this setting Technology is everything: How can their scientists (if they have any) keep up with Mentons or Remades with an average of 30 COG?

Mental capacity is a very difficult concept to directly measure, even within the context of a game such as Eclipse Phase. One could gauge that by his contributions to society and science, Isaac Newton was one of the most intelligent men in existence, far surpassing even Einstein (much of whom's work was based on previous scholars and their theories). However, Einstein was at least smart enough to improve on Newton's theories on gravity. Furthermore, while weaker morphs have an aptitude cap, there are no skill caps in Eclipse Phase. As such, a Jovian prodigy can just as easily achieve a 99 in a skill as any transhuman could. As for their tech, it isn't that limited. Even within the books, the only technologies that Jovians seem to completely prohibit are advanced nanotech (free-floating swarms), nanoware and AGI. If you have read into the backstory, this is much of the sort of technology that the TITANs used against the human race, and this is likely a key reason it is so heavily distrusted in the Junta.

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