Egocasting can take more than 70 hours, but if you hope to get yourself sleeved on the other side of a galaxy quicker than 3 months or any longer laborious space trips, you need to do it. But some egos want a specific touch. But what if you like your ghost morph to have bioweave armour and vacuum sealing so she can easily move through vacuum areas? What if your hacker has a specialised array of head cyber to make him the best at his job? How about a rare morph like an uplift? Then add personal touches again, maybe bioweave vacuum sealing, medichines, and neurachem. Also, apply the concept again to synthmorphs. Your combat synth has two Cyberlegs (Plus for the +10 to somatics) with grip feet, and the limber morph trait.
If you can egocast in say, 70 hours from the inner system to the outer system, and you want to be sleeved into something with a personal touch, how can you do it? I mean, I'm under the impression it can take over a year to grow a biomorph. I'm unsure about times to build synthmorphs. How could your personalized morph be ready in time for you to egocast in?
Which for one thing, got me thinking about nanofabricating cornucopia machines and the healing vat technology. Would it be wrong to have the two combined, so the bodybank could get a farcasted message with morph specs and throw the morph type, ghost, octomorph, menton, whatever into the vat and have that hardened skeleton mod, prehensile tail or sensor suite nanofabricated in via the vat? Am I mad? Nanofabricators don't take a year and a half, do they? Neither do healing vats, right?
Thoughts evoked? Opinions? Ideas?
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Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion of cornucopia vats.
Fri, 2009-12-11 09:39
#1
Sir_Psycho
Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion of cornucopia vats.
Fri, 2009-12-11 14:10
#2
remade
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Nanobots aren't good in growing living matter (for now at least) - that is why bodies take months to grow. It would be logical, than only less intrusive modifications of living matter were possible in 70 hours. Try a synth.
Fri, 2009-12-11 21:32
#3
Sir_Psycho
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
They can grow food, right? Wine, chicken maybe? And nanobots must be pretty good at biological matter considering they are what carve your ego into your new morph's brain.
Sat, 2009-12-12 04:23
#4
remade
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Food isn't difficult to made - you even don't need nanobots to create never-living food. And wine tasters claim, that nano built wine tastes slightly different.
Nanobots would have trouble with building living human body - not only it have to be grown with great precision, additionaly it may be hard to keep half-built parts alive. I don't say that quick body building technology is impossible in EC world, it is just not coherent with 10 year AF state of technology.
Sun, 2009-12-13 00:01
#5
Ramidel
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Note that your personalizing can be done while you wait to finish egocasting. Stuff like cybering, biowaring and sculpting a morph? That's something you order so you have a morph on arrival.
Custom biomorphs are for people with too much time on their hands. Most people take a morph off the rack, often a used morph, then personalize with the extras.
Tue, 2010-02-23 14:59
#6
Scottbert
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Healing vats _can_ regrow lost parts of a living body, and they can also alter a living body. There's a comment in the morph section about using healing vats to customiz morphs being 'dangerous' but this isn't elaborated or mentioned in the rules.
Tue, 2010-02-23 23:50
#7
Bloodwork
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Healing vats are used to implant, well, implants. So..
Send a message saying what you want and the body bank on the other end gets you a stock standard ghost/fury/exalt/sylph/whatever morph, implants your gear in a matter of hours, you egocast there and you're ready to roll.
The only limitations are if you need it absolutley immediately or if the destination has a morph shortage of what you want.
Odds are Firewall is footing the bill for the stock morph and you are paying for the extras. If not playing a Firewall game, your GM should either keep you at a more local location or make you more reliant on skills and gear than implants.
—
That which doesn't kill you usually succeeds on the second attempt.
Wed, 2010-02-24 02:29
#8
Nietzchean Slim...
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
If you aren't in a hurry, then once you've sleeved into a new morph, pop yourself into a healing vat. It can give you every implant in the book from bio- to cyber- to nano-ware over the course of a few hours or days, depending on how much modification you want. It's right there on page 327, Healing Vat table - minor stuff only takes an hour, major stuff takes 12 hours, entirely new limbs and extremely radical changes to mass takes up to 3 days. And hey, if you're spending 12 hours anyways just working on installing some neurochems in your brain why not add a tail, or skinflex, and some grip pads while you're at it? Just rent the healing vat itself instead of buying the implants and it'll be pretty cheap, too.
Wed, 2010-02-24 02:51
#9
Scottbert
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
The vat description says 'Most are used as a safe and easy way to perform bodysculpting or to install implants or bioware.'
Yet, the sidebar in the morph brokerage section says 'While it is possible to put an existing morph in a healing vat and alter its genetics with metamorphing nanovirii in a matter of days, these procedures are difficult and prone to disaster. In many cases, it is preferred to simply grow the desired clone from scratch, though even with accelerated growth this takes from 1.5 to 2 years (or 6 months to 1 year in the case of pods).'
So apparently healing vats are either safe and easy, or difficult and prone to disaster. What determines this?
Wed, 2010-02-24 03:17
#10
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Growing food and a living body are two different matters. Nanofabricators cannot create something that isn't inert. A nanofabricated computer still needs to be turned on, and a nanofabricated body is just a corpse. You need them alive to put them to use, you know?
My guess is that the biggest limitation to the crafting of new morphs is the brain. It's a very complex organ, and it might not be something that healing vats are able to rebuild well. This would explain why a healing vat can grow a body from a severed head, but not grow a head for a decapitated corpse.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Wed, 2010-02-24 07:10
#11
Bloodwork
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
That's referring to custom genetics rather than implants.
—
That which doesn't kill you usually succeeds on the second attempt.
Fri, 2010-02-26 22:47
#12
Jimson
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
I haven't had a chance to play yet, but I do play on running Glory in the next few months. I'll be running it for brand new players, but I feel like I'll be screwing them if they pour all this money into their initial morph with bio/cyber/nano mods, plus custom weapons and then end up egocasting around the solar system and losing all their hard work at character creation. I see by a lot of your post, you can request your new morph that you'll be resleeving into after egocasting to include these mods. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that going to cost a character $/rep? And what about any custom weapons they have?
Sat, 2010-02-27 00:26
#13
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Not likely. Much like with modern jobs requiring travel, the expenses are often paid by the employer as a means to encourage employees to not look for less-expensive jobs. More importantly, Firewall has connections. It likely has the means to create equivalent morphs on the other side of an ego-cast, so that agents will be in the body they are most comfortable in. Comfortable agents means successful agents, and successful agents means successful Firewall endeavors.
That said, such morphs would not simply be given away for free. Chances are they are loaners, and you are likely expected to either return them or die in them.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Sat, 2010-02-27 06:25
#14
Arenamontanus
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Also, you can of course sell your morph when you leave and buy a new one where you arrive. This has the drawback that the resale-value of a morph might be lower.
One approach a (rich) character in my game uses is to rent out his Titan morph. When he is not on Titan it is rented out by a reputable morph agency to other people. Why keep morphs on ice when they can be making money? OK, for a bunch of reasons: there might be contractual limitations of how far in advance you can jump in and take back your morph, you might worry about it being misused or stolen, and oldfashioned quesiness thinking about all the things your tenant could be doing with your body...
—
Sat, 2010-02-27 07:56
#15
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Morphs are always in high demand, so re-selling carries little loss. You have to pay a 10% premium prior to selling for a physical exam and finder's fee, but will otherwise get full price for the sale.
As for renting out, it does have its uses as a second income. One of the characters in my team makes a living "pimping" the multitude of pleasure pods she owns at a rental shop. She gets good money she can use on her offtime, and her contract includes a cleaning clause with the shop that holds them, so she doesn't have to worry about "stains" if she ever wants them back.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Tue, 2010-03-02 20:56
#16
Jimson
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
In your (everyone who's reading this) games, do you players egocast a lot? I read through Glory (once so far), and I guess I wasn't expecting the players to bouncing around that much in the world. I really love the idea, just wasn't expecting it is all.
Tue, 2010-03-02 23:56
#17
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Egocasting is the de facto standard for travel in the system. It is fast, safe and effective. Ships can be blown up traveling at sub-light speeds, but data transfer (with checksumming) is guaranteed and moves at the speed of light. That isn't to say that there aren't risks of some sort, but otherwise it is perfect, especially if you can trust the transferrer.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Wed, 2010-03-10 01:19
#18
Jimson
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Sorry for beating a dead horse, but I guess I'm not seeing the point of investing a lot of money into a morph if you'll end up dumping it from time to time while traveling around Sol for Firewall. Unless a typical "campaign" doesn't have the PC's bouncing all over.
Wed, 2010-03-10 02:17
#19
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
The obvious answer is "because your character isn't simply a Firewall agent". The less-obvious answer is that you aren't necessarily forced to egocast. Most Firewall missions will be triggered within your area (Firewall always activates the agents that can respond the quickest, and you are not their only agents). Egocasting will primarily occur if your skills and talents are needed elsewhere, and Firewall does not have other agents with similar capabilities any closer. Really, it's up to the playgroup to decide what style of campaign they actually plan to play. Talk it over with your GM if you want to keep your primary morph for every mission. Some won't be the same as you, and will like the experience of jumping from body to body.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Wed, 2010-03-10 13:58
#20
killj0y
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Putting a lot of money into an expensive uber customized morph is not a great idea if you're going to be out stopping terrorists.
To an extent you can get any kind of morph you need at any location it just won't be quite as unique. With a healing vat and a standard morph you can add any mesh inserts that you might need for the job at hand and when you're done egocast back to home and reoccupy your own body for tooling around on your own turf.
If you have the rep or the credits you could have each place where you're likely to go store a copy of your custom morph so you're never without a familiar body but I imagine this would get expensive if you needed one in the inner system, one on extropia, one on the Kuiper belt etc.
Thu, 2010-03-11 00:33
#21
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Why not? Soldiers put a lot of money into an expensive uber-customized weapon. Racers put a lot of money into an expensive uber-customized car. They do so knowing the risk involved, and you know why? People don't plan to fail, and customizing may very well be the key to success.
Besides, remember how Firewall works. They have dozens of sentinels in every location. Most of the time, you're going to be working in your neighborhood, because they will likely activate different sentinels if they have a mission elsewhere. On the rare chance they still need you, they will either be footing the bill for your transport, or they'll be prepping a morph for you to cast into. For the most part, however, you should be fine with your own morph, and have plenty of incentive for boosting it up.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Thu, 2010-03-11 08:55
#22
Byzantine Laser
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
These were my thoughts on it when I first thought about this problem months ago. I was making an outer system character who liked using rather heavily customized synthmorphs and expected to travel a lot (and had issues with sleeving into biomorphs), so I had her keeping one in storage on Mars in case she ever needed to egocast out that way. And from a GM perspective, having the players keep something that dear to them far away is just begging for something interesting to happen...
Thu, 2010-03-11 13:15
#23
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Not really. Preventing interesting things from happening is the primary reason people purchase body bank accounts.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Thu, 2010-03-11 13:18
#24
killj0y
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
*shrug* yeah and should your expensive horribly customized "oh my god please mr. Gm can I have a" morph toddle off into the black and get killed by explosive decompression you're stuck using whatever is availible for 18 months until they can clone a new one.
It's a risk, so unless the genetic enhancements are absolutely necessary it might be better to run a morph with just the basics and mesh inserts.
Mind you I don't know how expensive or rare some of this stuff is. Is there anything in the book that you would allow somone to have that you wouldn't allow them to find in an off the rack morph?
Thu, 2010-03-11 15:46
#25
Decivre
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Most implants are not too rare or unlikely, though some might raise eyebrows (poison glands immediately come to mind), but most can be gotten anywhere. However, I think it fair to note that most people will not be doing massive amounts of customization, but rather getting a few specific implants according to the tasks they expect the morph to do. I know that I spent 1500 credit on implants for a body I fully intend to replace eventually. Why did I do it? Because those implants are what I need for the tasks that I do. They were essential, so I took them. I'll likely have to buy them again later on (or use my rep to get them again) for my future replacement body.
Think of it like this: there are some things in any setting that may end up being disposable, whether you blow a lot of money or not. Fake IDs are high costed items, which would render them pretty unwastable to most... yet criminals probably go through them like candy drops. The same is true for morphs. Just because someone is likely to die doesn't mean they aren't going to need to spend a lot of money on a body. Especially if you're a Firewall agent, and the fate of humanity is on the line. A really expensive custom morph is an acceptable cost to stave off extinction.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Thu, 2010-03-11 16:52
#26
killj0y
Re: Egocasting, Morphs, Personal touches, and the discussion ...
Based on the healing vat listing you should be able to take an off the rack morph and have any mesh inserts install in almost no time at all.
So the only thing you might have a problem with is getting a particular morph like a Futura or a Reaper at any given location or getting some specific genetic modification that might otherwise not be normal.
I don't know enough about morphology yet to say what is and isn't rare but it's looking more and more like you can get just about anything you need so long as it isn't in the wrong place at the wrong time (Exalt in Jovian Junta for instance)