Given that most folks needs for physical items, is dramatically shorten with things like entropics taking care of the need for a TV and computer and smart clothing taking care of the need for a wardrobe...
What a multiroom apartment look like?
I think it'd be rather plain, visually. Like the walls would have AR enhancers, to decorate the rooms how the occupants wanted. There would probably be a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, and then a combined dining room and living room? Like maybe a coffee table would extend and raise itself to be a dinner table?
I cant imagine there would be things like desks, or book shelves. There defiantly wouldnt be a TV or the like. As I'd imagine it, you'd just synch your entropics on the same video feed. And things like an office, probably wouldn't be a thing either, as that can all be handle by your Muse, and filing paper work with an AR keyboard.
Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.
What would a multiroom apartment looked like?
Mon, 2015-05-11 06:01
#1
What would a multiroom apartment looked like?
Mon, 2015-05-11 10:15
#2
Storage is King
I feel like transhuman apartments are built around storage, both in terms of how morph-based features are built and in terms of how you can tell the quality of someone's living conditions by the space they have.
Most of the modern features of buildings can be handled with very little space. In gravity, apartments likely tend to be a little larger (for a bed, table, etc), though analogues exist for microgravity (they can, however, be built on any surface. In microgravity, you'll probably see living spaces that optimize surface space, since that's where you have stuff like faucets, power outlets (if required; most places have wireless charging, but you might find a few holdouts or utility sockets for industrial-grade gear that eats a ton of juice), restraints for stuff, and the like. Nicer apartments have smart material partitions, which mimic rooms, while crappier ones may have little more than a pop-up privacy screen for the shower/toilet area. Microgravity apartments likely don't have multiple rooms by default except for some light partitions and perhaps a more permanently divided bathroom, to save the effort of having to build/tear down rooms in microgravity.
In gravity, however, things look more traditional. I would imagine that most rooms are fairly tall where they can be; most EP locations with gravity have less than Earth, and it ensures optimal morph compatibility. Smart surfaces are common, but unlike in microgravity where they are used to form the room, they are used to form furniture like counters, seats, and so forth that can adapt to their users in real time. In many places, hook-ins to power, water, and other utilities can be routed through buildings, allowing users to access these through both fixed and smart routing points (basically, faucets everywhere). On occasion these may double as firefighting systems. The quality of these surfaces, including the shapes and textures they can mimic, depends on the complexity of nanotechnology available, and the amount the owner was willing to shill out for them.
Storage in these high-tech apartments is automatic. Clothes can be cleaned, pressed, and stored by the apartment itself, and although a dedicated closet may exist they may also just be hidden behind a panel. Food and fabber stock can be stored out of sight and mind, though it may also be stored publicly (such as in a refrigerator) if space is less of a concern. Smart storage allows for optimal space usage without any clutter, and can keep individual stored objects apart from each other. Access to stored materials can be made public or kept private, likely with overrides possible for security forces. Display cases for valued possessions can be created on the fly, and fake showcases (for safely stowed or purely digital content) can be made as well. Images, video, and data can be projected and interacted with via gesture. AR and microdust can be used to create effective holograms, and the floor and ceiling likely have a couple feet of give, allowing for the creation of ornamental and functional shifts in design, such as a vaulted ceiling or room for a shallow pool of water.
In many places, windows are likely replaced with smart display surfaces. This handles most light fixtures as well, as the people in an apartment can set up an emulated skylight or simply tell the displays to light up the room. These can be set to exotic patterns for those who enjoy them, and doubtless make parties more fun. People who like windows can set these up to both get views out of the apartment, and, in more strictly defined locations, into the apartment from the outside. AR allows for emulation of this feature in habitats where it is not possible, though lighting can limit optimal results.
On the other hand, you have Jovian living and other low-tech solutions, like you might see in some scum barges. While their microgravity environments look pretty similar to others', you see much more simple living spaces akin to modern-day designs. They are usually pressed for space, and you may even see microgravity features, like sleep cocoons on walls, carry over into spaces where they are used because of their efficiency rather than a particular need for them. Rooms tend to be more clearly defined than they are in microgravity, where access to building materials permits. Access to utilities may be limited heavily, if the habitat lacks appropriate infrastructure, and would only be available in the form of permanent fixtures. Whereas smart material integrated buildings tend to have "lax" security (everything is documented relatively well, and the building can be ordered to seal itself off by an authorized user, never mind the fact that the materials are highly intrusion resistant), many of these structures have intrusion deterrents or countermeasures, such as visible/audible alarms, physical access restrictions (cages on windows, and bars or chains on doors), and external motion sensor lighting (where space allows, unlikely in tight urban environments). In addition, things like fire extinguishers and vacsuits would be placed inside the apartment (the latter only for habs that have a risk of hostile environment exposure [e.g. vacuum]). As in modern day dwellings, storage space is clearly defined, and a lot of appliances take up space, though many of them have been consolidated. Where smart materials are commonly used, laundry may not be a concern, which saves space either from individual apartments or from whole apartment complexes. The largest innovations from the present day come in the form of automation; lights automatically dim and brighten to user preferences (though they are still stuck in fixtures which may have a limited rotation/extension capability), vehicles and large gear can be stowed in racks and garages outside, and ALI may be used as pseudo-valets, and stocks of household goods can be replenished automatically.
Tue, 2015-05-12 21:46
#3
That is a great break down,
That is a great break down, SquireNed.
I'd imagine that you could probably see the occupants default setting, when you're doing a B&E, by doing some hacking into the domicile mesh.
Hrm. How would that mesh network be organized. If it was an apartment complex, or condo, there would be one admin account for the group of domiciles, then a moderator account for each domicile occupant?
And if it free standing domicile, then there would just be the administrator level, then maybe moderator accounts per individual rooms? Like giving your room mate control over a room.
Wed, 2015-05-13 00:56
#4
A couple thoughts I had -
A couple thoughts I had -
Common/shared room apartment setups, with private rooms and common kitchen/living areas, are probably very, very common, especially in middling-value habitats. Saves on space and is much more economical compared with self-sufficient single-family apartments. Most apartment complexes probably further have larger common areas, perhaps where the communal nanofab facilities are. It's honestly not likely to be too cost effective to have personal cornucopia machines in every apartment, and besides, the books repeatedly cite a handmade fashion in multiple regions.
Which brings up the second thought. Smart material things, like shape-morphic bowl/plates, utensils, etc. are the new plastic plates. Durable, cost-effective, but when you want to have a special occasion, you bring out the actual ceramic, glass, crystal, etc. Sure, those might be nanofabriacted in the first place, but having a unique, real thing rather than a shape-adjusted or AR-skinned set of dinnerware (or art or clothing or whatever) is a very real desire. For that matter, a lot of artisans probably make a very nice living making limited-run objects, complete with spime certificates of authenticity (with complete provenance logs by coordinates over time) to separate them from the nanofabbed copies. Sentimentality and nostalgia are huge markets post-Fall.
...So most unskinned apartments are like Tim Burton movies. Mostly stark and plain but with very striking individual points of color or complexity.
And yes, refrigerators. Because any self-sustaining habitat geared for biomorphs will grow its own food, and even maker-printed ingredients are worth storing as leftovers or in preparation for making food later. And because self-chilling beer bottles cost more. Though most "sinks" are probably sonic cleaners rather than water, thinking on it -- definitely in microgravity habitats.
As for the mesh, having the ability to define the local mesh/AR and control the apartment is governed by your renter's contract, which is on file and governed by the complex's AI on the basic level, I'd wager. Depending on the local culture, you may have complete authority to modify your apartment's public (i.e. anyone who walks in sees it by default) and any private skins, or you may have to choose from a set few in more restrictive (or designer) locations. You can probably also define permissions on a case-by-case basis...or more accurately, your muse will do so for you based on you and your friends' interactions, lifelog, rep, etc.
Public areas are controlled either by the landlord-equivalent or consensus amongst the tenants, according to the particular agreement and regs. In the latter, it's all the fun of squabbling over the remote or bickering about the state of the place before bringing an S.O. over just like we have, only with the whole room rapidly flipping "channels." Sure, you can use private skins to make it look like whatever, but that has its disadvantages. Like when your roommate walks through the houseplant only you can see.
Wed, 2015-05-13 10:15
#5
Oh God Space condo
Oh God Space condo communities are going to be hell...
Wed, 2015-05-13 13:13
#6
Well, one thing we're
Well, one thing we're forgetting here is that Panopticon and others mention how ubiquitous small fabricators and disassemblers are. If you're at all middle class, you don't need storage for a lot of things - as most people are assumed to operate by fabricating what they need and disassembling what they're not using to recover the feedstock.
You don't need a closet, you have a clothing fabricator with a catalog database in it. You throw your old outfit in, break it down, get it back. And no waste of water to wash, no weird sonic sci-fi thing. You do probably have a small storage bin for some outfits you really like - but you'd have to actually pay or trade for the excess feedstock besides what you get. And if you buy smart clothes, you don't even really need other clothes. Same goes for common utensils and tools. You don't need a silverware rack, you have a fabricator. And when you're done, break 'em down, it'll even recycle the biomass to reuse in the maker. And before anybody goes "But it takes an hour!", that's bullshit. That's a mechanical abstraction based on a second abstraction (Cost Levels) so players making a bunch of tools and guns have a time-frame without doing advanced math or tables use. A Car doesn't literally take the same amount of time to fab as a Plasma Rifle, to reuse an example I've given before. Something simple like small shapes of all one plastic can't take that long. If you actually own ceramic dishes and metallic utensils, those are clearly Earth Relics and it would be sacrilegious to desecrate them by [i]eating[/i] off such valuable items (Or, if you're decently wealthy, you might afford an artisanal replica, but authenticity is a valued commodity, that means price increase. If it's GSP or fine dining china, you should for for the GSP).
Now, obviously, this doesn't apply everywhere. The ubiquity of publi-fab is a keystone for most polities, but not all. These places will have physical storage and access to actual cleaning materials. This probably clutters their living spaces up a little.
—
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog
http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
Wed, 2015-05-13 13:31
#7
That's all true, if you want
That's all true, if you want to live on the nanofab equivalent of paper plates.
Anything that cheap to produce and spin up is going to be just that: cheap. It's miracle tech to us now, but so were plastics back in the 50s. And there's no getting around thermodynamics: it costs mass and energy to print things AND break them down. Which means that it costs habitat resources. The higher up your material's compenents are on the periodic table, the more expensive it is to produce. Ergo, it's not free magic whatever-printing.
And the wording in Panopticon covers public nanofabricators (p. 84). Maybe the hyperelites have dedicated nanofabbers for their closets for clothing, but makers, fabbers, and CMs aren't cheap, particularly if you want anything of quality coming out. I just can't believe that the technology is so miraculous that it's cheaper and more economical to break down and build back up your dinnerware than it is to scrub it down the old fashioned way. Certainly nothing of any substantial material or anything unique.
Besides, the book flat-out states that there are accomodations like closets and drawers for storage: "A bed,
washroom, kitchenette, folding desk, in-wall drawers, and a small closet are standard accommodations." (Pan 69)
Wed, 2015-05-13 13:42
#8
What about places like the
What about places like the LLA who are paranoid about nanotechnology, would they be inclined to have storage lockers/sites?
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Wed, 2015-05-13 13:46
#9
I want to say yes, but with a
I want to say yes, but with a heavy caveat. Luna in particular is a fashion hotspot, so if anything smartfabrics and designer homes are going to be very common, and smart materials do cut down on the need for duplicate things, particularly the self-cleaning sort. So you'd have the same kind of public storage facilities as elsewhere in the system (having worked in one briefly, there's no way transhumanity has run out of random crap they want to stuff in a box even with nanofabrication), but probably some more of them proportionately.
Wed, 2015-05-13 14:13
#10
Luna's limitations on
Luna's limitations on Nanotech I think are restricted to the advanced materials like say, free-floating nanoswarms and some advanced nanoware. The conventional nanotech in a box like healing vats, makers and specialized fabricators are out in the public, though they would not allow open source tech and blanket CMs into the public ecosystem. Remember the LLA censors many Argonaut broadcasts of open source blueprints. If people didn't have feasible access to fabrication they probably wouldn't need to try so hard. Of course, those probably being limited to certain public sites (I/E, you don't go to Sears and bumble through the whole store of displays, you probably flip through digital catalogs and have a fab or a CM print your materials and either pick it up in person or have it delivered). Disassembly probably isn't in your kitchen or storage closet, it's centralized in your building or some other function - like on the street. In public. To that effect, you would need storage spaces to hold all your crap (especially since Luna is probably a hub for a lot of the Earth nostalgia kitsch/authentic culture) between any recycling.
(I would also point out that while EP does pay some mention to the intricacies of powering a habitat, in general power is considered an arbitrary resource - much like storage space or computing power for non-Ego issues. Power is similarly ephemeral and tends to be assumed. Space is by it's very definition physical)
—
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog
http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
Wed, 2015-05-13 14:18
#11
So on Mars, people have
So on Mars, people have disassemblers for their garbage and used products, while on Luna, you can print new dishes and foodstuff to cook, but you put your garbage into a public recycling system, which is tapped for Feedstock by the fabbers, like a Utility system?
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Wed, 2015-05-13 17:51
#12
Short and Long Answers
The short answer is going to be 'it depends'. Asking what a multiroom apartment in EP looks like is sort of like asking what a multiroom apartment on Earth looks like, only worse.
As an example, let's look at an apartment for someone on Luna. Luna is restrictive on "public nanotechnology" to the point that Lunar clothes designers have to come up with various tricks so they can compete with Titanian clothes designers who are able to incorporate specialized hives into the clothing. Luna is part of the inner system and is still a cash oriented society with an abundance of space, water, power, and a 1/6th gravity. As a result I would imagine that people on Luna use a fair amount of storage. Having to have new clothes fabricated every single day is going to be a hassle (since you have to wait for them to arrive) not to mention expensive. With the large supplies of water and power and the 1/6th gravity washing clothes and dishes isn't a huge issue, so expect people on Luna to have closets and cupboards on par with today.
On the other hand someone living on a Titanian habitat will have a very different apartment. Water is far more limited not to mention the fact that it is much more difficult to use for cleaning in microgravity. Space is much tighter but access to Cornucopia Machines and Makers with open source blueprints is much more prevalent. While I agree with UnitOmega that the times listed are abstractions I think they still indicate that you are often looking at a lot more time than 'push a button and get what you want' so there will still be some storage requirements but they will be far less than those on Luna. I would imagine that 'dishes' would be smart materials and when not in use they would be configured to take an efficient shape such as a very flat disk with three small 'legs' to provide a small amount of separation between disks. Then they could be stored in a very small 'cupboard'. While they sit there a swarm of specialized nanodissasemblers would break down any food-based compounds for recycling so it would be a combination of storage and 'dishwasher'. Likewise a person might keep a couple of sets of smartclothes to avoid the hassle of waiting 30 minutes each day for their fabber to create a new set. When not worn the clothes would sit in a 'closet' with an active nanoswarm that cleans them of any dirt (and that sends that 'dirt' for recycling).
—
My artificially intelligent spaceship is psychic. Your argument it invalid.