Zyx wrote:

I have a few nit-picky questions regarding nanotech/swarms: Swarmoids seem to have a few cheap advantages that I don't know how to rule on, the first being the extent to which the swarm can break up-- can a swarmoid morph send one or two of its microbots off to spy? (is there no limit on how far away any single bot can go from the swarm?)

No, there is a limit. The swarmanoid uses distributed computing to run your mind over the entire swarm. This only works if radio contact is maintained throughout the morph. For this reason, the individual parts of a swarmanoid must stay within contact range. This gives them the potential to split up in urban environments, where they can piggyback on the bandwidth of other transmitters... but in the boondocks, they probably cannot separate so easily or so far. Furthermore, a location that is intentionally made to restrict radio broadcasts would further hinder the swarmanoid's ability to separate. That said, a swarmanoid would likely be far less effective when separated, so I would apply temporary wound modifiers to most actions done while separated.

Zyx wrote:

The second advantage deals with forking-- if a character with a swarmoid morph makes a beta fork say, can they send their fork off with a quarter of the swarm to go do stuff, instantly splitting their morph? The rule stopping this would seem to be the limit of one ego per cyberbrain, but if the swarmoid had a ghostrider module and puppetsock say, where the ego could chill and still control part of their morph while their fork does the rest, would it work then?

I normally would rule with a no; a basic swarmanoid would not be able to separate into different sections controlled independently by forks. However, I would allow multiple swarmanoid morphs to act as one massive morph if you modify them with the modular design enhancement. In this case, I would allow individual clusters of the swarmanoid whole to act independently (as they are effectively independent morphs that can merge together to form one morph).

Zyx wrote:

Now, on nanotech, I have a question regarding hives. Their prices seem oddly constructed. A specialized hive is ~5,000 creds. Now, I couldn't figure out based on the description whether or not that hive would be bought already capable of producing a swarm, but 5,000 creds is the same cost as a dissembler swarm, leading me to believe that the specialized hive must come 'blank', aka the actual device is worthless without buying blueprints for it. This gives me a different sort of problem: the blueprints for a dissembler swarm would cost 20,000 creds. This seems prohibitively expensive. Am I getting something wrong or are the prices here simply misconstrued?

No. You need only pay the cost for the hive plus the cost for the swarm it can create. You do not need to purchase the blueprints. But a specialized hive must be purchased with a specific swarm it must be designed for. The general hive is far more expensive to use, as you need blueprints for that, but has the advantage of producing any swarm you want. A specialized hive can only produce one swarm type... ever.

Zyx wrote:

On the line of the prices being misconstrued, there is the odd fact that specialized hives are tossed into robots and vehicles throughout the EP books. One example is the bughunter bot in Panopticon, which comes with a specialized guardian hive. A bughunter bot costs 1,000 creds. A specialized guardian hive, under the system where you buy blueprints and the hive separate, costs 10,000 creds. This leads to the scenario where a player wants to buy a bughunter bot at a shop and use his Hardware [robotics] skill to pop the hive out of it, toss the bot away, and use the hive for his own nefarious purposes. And I find something really wrong with it, but there's nothing I can find in the books to prevent him from enacting that plan.

The guardian hive on the bughunter isn't quite what you might think it is. The bughunter is designed to be constantly surrounded by a guardian swarm, making it capable of eliminating any nanoscopic espionage technologies the bughunter might encounter. It's swarm is likely designed to simply produce a cloud around the bughunter and keep it active at all times... it is not the sort of guardian swarm most people would want to have (unless they want to be constantly covered by a guardian swarm, of course). Also note that costs in Eclipse Phase are best described as a window, rather than a specific price. Moderate cost varies from 500-1499 credits (save for at character creation). Just because the cost rating for that hive is identical to to the bughunter does not mean that the hive is necessarily the same price, or even more expensive.