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Protean Nanoswarms

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Tue, 2012-02-21 14:44

NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture

Protean Nanoswarms

Are they broken? I mean, they can produce anything given materials. They have a cost of High. I mean, I could buy some, and fart out a few GEVs or something on an metallic asteroid... and then sell them... I know this is similar to the technique in which Hamilton habitats are fabricated now.

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As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.

Tue, 2012-02-21 14:53

Decimator

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

Welcome to post-scarcity!

Tue, 2012-02-21 14:57

NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

Decimator wrote:
Welcome to post-scarcity!

I want a courier boat ; D There is only one person on our team capable of piloting one though...

—

As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.

Tue, 2012-02-21 22:45

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

NewAgeOfPower wrote:
Are they broken?

Yes! wait... No. this is Eclipse Phase. It's a transhumanist ROLE play game, not a class/level pseudo-board-game. For the most part, the system and rules are unconcerned with game balance and character power level. So "miracle tech" in the hands of characters right out of the box is not an issue of broken. However... Yes! Protean swarms can break your game if you're the GM and you're not well immersed in the setting that includes "Miracle Tech". Forget that your player has a Protean Swarm, or overlook what it's capable of, and how quickly they can work, your adventure can go to hell pretty quick. Also, Don't let your characters bamboozle you if you're a GM. Even though proteans are Miraculous in their described operation doesn't mean they can do Anything a player wants. (by corollary, if you're a player don't be an asshat when using proteans and their ilk.) The example in the OP is using a metallic asteroid for feedstock for a protean swarm to produce GEV's. A metallic asteroid is extremely unlikely to have ALL of the elements needed for a protean swarm to produce an item of that complexity. The GM can use the feedstock issue to require the player to obtain refined feedstocks for items with high complexity. The other limiting factor is the programming of the swarm. Proteans are just a free floating fabber. page 329; "[They're] able to create a single, specific, pre-programed device... (much like a specialized nanofabricator)" The impication is that a character will need [i]both[/i] a protian swarm with a cost of 'high' [i]and[/i] the programming--blueprints-- with a cost of 'one cost category higher than item cost' There's also the issue of the "single, specific, device" being "Pre-programed" itself. There should be some cost in that. If one of my players told me that they would like to have a; GEV (cost: expensive x 4) with it's attendant AI, (cost: High) healing vat, (Cost: High) 4 CM's (Cost, expensive x4) metallic hydrogen engines (probably can't even be manufactured outside without a massive plant) For the price of a protean swarm (high) and some Lunar regolith (free) I would laugh in their face until they abased themselves before me, put ashes in their hair and agreed to wear sackcloth for a week.

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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.

Wed, 2012-02-22 00:13

NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

OneTrikPony wrote:
If one of my players told me that they would like to have a; GEV (cost: expensive x 4) with it's attendant AI, (cost: High) healing vat, (Cost: High) 4 CM's (Cost, expensive x4) metallic hydrogen engines (probably can't even be manufactured outside without a massive plant) For the price of a protean swarm (high) and some Lunar regolith (free) I would laugh in their face until they abased themselves before me, put ashes in their hair and agreed to wear sackcloth for a week.

LOL!!! Thanks for the logical and thorough reply! I am a player/sometimes GM (not in EP though), and I haven't yet tried to bamboozle my GM... having known what they have to put up with (I was GMing, and my player's had a really good Engiseer when playing WH40k RPG, and managed to accelerate their cruiser to a significant fraction of C... they were outrunning fighters...) I do have an Programming skill of 80, Academics: Nanotech at 65, Profession: Engineering at 50, so I could probably crank out halfway decent blueprints myself... I'd consider putting ashes in my hair if it would get me a custom Courier Boat...

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As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.

Wed, 2012-02-22 22:48

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

If I had a character with those skills in my group I'd definitely let them USE them. I love Egghead characters but so much of what they do is handled by long-term extended test actions and much of what they do happens behind the scenes. So, YES if a character like that wants to build himself a Courier ship I'd say "Go for it." because I can build whole adventures around that. "heh, now go steal yourslef 100 tons of anti matter. ;) " I wouldn't even mind much if a combat character uses protean swarms to carry his Super-Duper Exo-armor and Sniper rail-rifle around in his pocket. But, I'd probably make them pay list cost for prints + the swarms.

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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.

Thu, 2012-02-23 04:51

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

The real fun of course starts when a habitat nanodetector notices an unregistered nanoswarm scavenging materials. Full red alert, pump out the guardians and rouse the militia! "Oh, you were just making a gun... don't scare us that way, or your rep will suffer."

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Thu, 2012-02-23 22:57

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

Arenamontanus wrote:
"Oh, you were just making a gun...

LOL! That's a very good example of how crazy-scary this stuff is. I can't imagine my local authorities saying that. Here, you can go to prison for making a dry ice bomb. Although; I had always thought of the effects of an assembler swarm as fairly localized, (iirc it's a 10 meter cube by RAW), so that's one more reason that you'd probably have to 'feed' the swarm as opposed to letting them 'graze'. As a GM how would you adjudicate the chance of detection or the chance that the swarm would wander into a detector?

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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.

Sat, 2012-02-25 00:03

NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture

Re: Protean Nanoswarms

OneTrikPony wrote:
If I had a character with those skills in my group I'd definitely let them USE them. I love Egghead characters but so much of what they do is handled by long-term extended test actions and much of what they do happens behind the scenes. So, YES if a character like that wants to build himself a Courier ship I'd say "Go for it." because I can build whole adventures around that. "heh, now go steal yourslef 100 tons of anti matter. ;) " I wouldn't even mind much if a combat character uses protean swarms to carry his Super-Duper Exo-armor and Sniper rail-rifle around in his pocket. But, I'd probably make them pay list cost for prints + the swarms.

LOL. My character is actually a Combat Ninja, with base 80 Blades, 90 Kinetics, 80 Perception, 80 Fray wearing a modified custom fury nearly maxed out with wetware... I know the best combat morph is the Octopus wielding 3 sniper rifles, but that felt too cheesy. Its just the being of AGI origin, computer skills are half off- giving me the ability to pump my combat skills through the roof and STILL be the best (well, second best, another PC has mental speed and silly amounts of ways to boost COG) Hacker/Programmer/Researcher on the team. Yeah, ARCHER is nearly min/maxed to hell. I wrote a 2 page backstory for my character... then wrote a 3 page backstory for our crazy Lost async who keeps switching names (his roleplay is amazing). Then spent 4 hours arguing politics with my GM when he couldn't understand how the Titanian system worked (hes a bit of a socialist/anarchist something... I'm more of a libertarian...) Then when our GM got around to asking about our motivations, gave him an crazy complex plan for rerouting humanity's destiny... Lol. Needless to say, all the other players had 1-2 paragraph motivations while I made page after page. My GM has already allowed me one week access to a cornucopia machine (storyline based) and I made a pair of custom Mono-Katana (Howard Clark Design) and SMGs (Caldari Precision, one rail, one firearm) so... its been enough. Although, we tend to meet once a week, and sometimes we can't meet, so the campaign is moving pretty slowly.

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As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.

Wed, 2014-09-10 21:42

#10

blackknight blackknight's picture

Protean interpretation?

(apologies for the thread re-sleeving, but didn't see anything more recent on a quick forum search) My thought on reading the Protean description is that (possibly) what was intended is that, when you "buy" the swarm (through whatever type of system/transaction), the single item produced by the swarm is fixed, and can't be changed at all for that swarm. So, you buy a Protean Nanoswarm (Heavy Railgun Pistol) and that's all it produces, ever. If you also want one that produces cool hiking boots, you have to buy a second swarm. Is that how most others interpret this item?

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Sat, 2014-09-13 05:45

#11

Chrontius

I interpreted it as buying a

I interpreted it as buying a cherry-tomato that builds nanomachines that build a particular specific blueprint. Open-air nanofabrication of arbitrary plans requires sanity checking (Can it be made in open air, or will stray oxygen radicals eat critical parts of its logic?) - full stop - followed by nanotech programming checks to re-engineer the dedicated hive to produce a second variety of protean swarm. With an identical dedicated hive, these configurations are interchangeable, but most dedicated hives are internally different due to assumptions made about the purpose of the hive. On the other hand, this means you can totally - with proper prior preparation - make a rack of canned proteans, for exactly what you want. Proteans that make a Unfettered cornucopia machine? Slot A-1, since you need that all the time. Proteans that make guns? They're all on row B, except for seekers, which are on row C along with its ammunition. Vehicles are on D, but none of them come out fueled or charged. Solar power plants are E1, grid batteries E2, and a miniature metallic-hydrogen plant is E3. An antimatter plant is on E4, but requires deployment along the equator with the scout missile, E5, along with a cubic meter of E1 solar-power nano and three times that of E2 high-rate batteries The scout missiles can only carry about 1/100 a cubic meter of payload, however. If they can make the blueprint for themselves, it's safe to assume they have it. IF they have time to crank out bulk proteans, it's safe to say they have it. The time to interfere with this is when proteans are taking their own sweet time to scavenge materials from the surroundings, but you need it now, I think. Nasty idea du juor: Stack a Guardian and Protean swarm. The proteans make Guardians, probably from the scrap of the Guardian-vs-Titan toner war.

Fri, 2014-09-19 14:44

#12

blackknight blackknight's picture

Interpretation?

Doesn't this end up being a cheaper, albeit slower, way to have a cornucopia machine, if you interpret it this way?

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Fri, 2014-09-19 14:52

#13

blackknight blackknight's picture

Time

Actually, looking back at the rules, it's not even slower to actually fab :-/. So, just whatever time lag to reprogram the embedded blueprint. That doesn't make sense to me, that the Protean can do everything a CM can, with just an extra hoop to jump through.

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Sat, 2014-09-20 10:20

#14

ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture

Solution: Get a Protean

Solution: Get a Protean designed to build a desktop CM. Get some kind of rigid bubble which you can pump the air out of. Insert Protean Swarm and feedstock, wait, and presto, you've cooked your own cornucopia machine. Pushing the Envelope: Get a protean swarm which makes a Desktop CM. Use the Desktop CM to produce tools, and then parts to fabricate a much larger industrial nanofabrication system. Go from a cherry tomato and a shitload of feed stock to an industrial nanofabber.

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Mon, 2014-10-06 05:13

#15

Chrontius

Shadowdragon, I'd be totally

Shadowdragon, I'd be totally kosher with that, and now the PCs have something to lose - the business they're operating based on their industrial equipment, for if they're not using it, it's not paying for its maintenance. :D Now they have a safehouse, and something that needs to be carefully defended, and inspectors and cops they need to please or pay off, and Turing help you if someone [i]else[/i] bribes 'em first. ;-)

Mon, 2014-10-06 10:40

#16

LatwPIAT

Being made from tiny fragile

Being made from tiny fragile parts, the Protean nanoswarm would eventually wear out[1], so it wouldn't last forever. It would also have to be supplied with fuel/energy somehow, or it would simply stop working. [1] Cosmic rays, for example, would do nasty things to a nanoswarm. You don't want nanoswarm cancer.

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@-rep +2 C-rep +1