Fabbers are supposed to provide only a limited set of functions, i.e. tools, medicines, ect. Is this a hardware restriction or a software restriction? Desktop Cornucopia Machines are super expensive, and I'd rather just by a fabber for my character and hack it, but if it can only make certain things, its utility is limited. Would it be possible to make a fabber that can build a larger Cornucopia machine?
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Fabbers
Sat, 2015-11-21 10:34
#1
ringring
Fabbers
Sat, 2015-11-21 12:04
#2
NimbleJack3
tl;dr: Fabbers are limited by
[b]tl;dr: Fabbers are limited by hardware.[/b]
DMCs are bigger and contain a far larger array of tools and feedstock storage to provide an almost unlimited fabrication palette, while fabbers simply contain the tools and matierials to construct things from their specialisation.
For example:[list][*]Makers store organic compounds and disposable packaging in a highly sterile environment to prevent contamination. The most energetic operation they perform is probably frying and don't need high-quality power supplies.
[*]Weapon fabbers store inert metals, a few organic compounds and acids for propellant, and semiconductors. They might need to be able to weld or sinter, requiring high-amperage current and a correspondingly powerful supply.
[/list]
Both have specific advantages, disadvantages and design requirements. Fitting an all-in-one into a backpack is impossible. I hope that helped!
Sat, 2015-11-21 14:04
#3
DivineWrath
I have toyed with the idea of
I have toyed with the idea of an unlimited fabber, but I found that there were problems with the idea.
The first problem is that the big ticket items produced by a small fabber would have to be assembled by hand. Desktop CM can produce anything that could fit inside it with 1 production run, but anything bigger would have to be fabbed in pieces and assembled by hand. This will also likely require skill checks to put anything complex together. The same would be true of the smaller fabbers, but they are much smaller than Desktop CMs, therefore this would come up more often and would require require many more pieces to be made. How more often this would happen and how many more pieces required would be determined by how wide the difference of size is between the 2 devices.
The second problem is that I'm pretty sure that the Desktop CM can process mass faster than its smaller cousin. There is more mass processing mass. Even if a fabber could produce the same goods as a Desktop CM, it shouldn't be able to keep up.
Third, the smaller fabber is more portable so some mass would have to be set aside to make it more durable. You don't want some important to break.
All things considered, you might find that there is a point where you are literally better off using your small unlimited fabber to make a Desktop CM than to make desired goods from it directly. So even if you could pull it off, there are many reason why you wouldn't want to do so.
Sat, 2015-11-21 18:09
#4
ringring
Fabbing a CM
Thanks Nimblejack.
In regards to my other question, what I meant was, could you make a specialized fabber built specifically for making a bigger, multi-purpose, Desktop Cornucopia Machine by assembling the CM piecemeal?
Sat, 2015-11-21 20:31
#5
ShadowDragon8685
Absolutely, but that would be
Absolutely, but that would be complicated. You can get those specialized nanohives that do exactly that: build one thing and only one thing, and name that thing as "Cornucopia Machine."
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Sat, 2015-11-21 23:03
#6
NimbleJack3
ShadowDragon8685 wrote
While that's a perfectly valid solution, people in EP tend to get a bit funny about nanobots that build things which can build other things. When you go through immigration screening on a hab, you're going to have to either hide the nanohive (which [i]never[/i] goes well) or divulge to security that yes, the swarm source in your backpack is designed to turn things into unrestricted multi-fabrication workbenches.
Best case scenario, the anarchist collective gives you a funny look and waves you on with a small word that if you threaten the hab you're going out the airlock.
Worst case, the local ruling hypercorp confiscates it for daring to give the masses free access to nanofabrication. Then they confiscate everything else you own. Then they confiscate your morph if they're feeling antagonistic.
This problem also extends to Fabbers that make DMCs - it's slightly less taboo because a swarm isn't involved, but you're going to run into problems on habs where cornucopias are restricted.
Sat, 2015-11-21 23:07
#7
Trappedinwikipedia
I don't think a fabber could,
I don't think a fabber could, I don't believe they can handle (complex) nanotechnology. (Which is why it mentions the Jovians using them) A protean hive could do that though, but they are more expensive and specific.
Sat, 2015-11-21 23:10
#8
NimbleJack3
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:I
I'm looking through EP Core and it doesn't say anything about DCMs or Fabbers not being able to make nanobots.
Sat, 2015-11-21 23:12
#9
Trappedinwikipedia
CMs can, but there isn't any
CMs can, but there isn't any nanotechnology beyond circuitry in the list of common things fabbers can make. It leads me to believe that are are limited to "low resolution" objects.
Sat, 2015-11-21 23:20
#10
NimbleJack3
It mentions being able to
It mentions being able to fabricate drugs and medicine, which can have extremely specific molecular arrangement. Unless they somehow store every single medicinal compound that a transhuman could need, it sounds like a medical fabricator is a high-resolution machine.
Sat, 2015-11-21 23:38
#11
DivineWrath
ringring wrote:In regards to
I'm sure I answered that in a broad sense, but let me go specific.
Yes you can. The skill you would probably use (I think) for the assembly of a Desktop CM is Hardware [Industrial]. I suggest that you take extra precautions with assembly. With nano-tech, I would recommend you do what ever gets the job done right. Take extra time for bonuses if you must.
ShadowDragon's solution won't work for all situations. Extreme environmental conditions can outright destroy nanoswarms. Like the surface of Venus. A specialized fabber should be capable of giving good protection to the important fabrication systems and produced goods (more so if it was specifically built for the environment).
Sat, 2015-11-21 23:50
#12
DivineWrath
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:I
I think the devices are often made more cheaply than what they could be. And restricted to an extent (some more than other). And more specialized so they can work faster on the stuff they are supposed to make.
Sun, 2015-11-22 10:30
#13
ringring
Fabber Cost
So what would the CM fabber cost then? Would it just have the same cost and have you charged for the blueprints? I'd imagine the fabber itself would likely be incorporated into the design. I agree that hardware (industrial) is probably the correct skill. Also, what sort of materials would it require? How hard would it be to smuggle through customs or make in a CM?
Sun, 2015-11-22 11:08
#14
NimbleJack3
I'd imagine that a fabber
I'd imagine that a fabber which makes DCMs (which is what I'm assuming you're asking about) wouldn't cost any more than normal. A DCM blueprint would be the regular One Category Higher as well.
As for smuggling an assembled DCM fabber through inner system customs - that's going to be tricky. Hab security is going to notice that your fabber doesn't seem to make anything usual, and they're going to ask questions. Unless you can disguise the specialisation, it'll draw attention and that's when they rifle through your files and potentially find the forbidden unlocked DCM blueprints.
Using a DCM to make fabber that makes DCMs smells like unnecessary complication but I guess it'd be just like making any other fabber.
Sun, 2015-11-22 15:08
#15
DivineWrath
Makers create food. They are
Makers create food. They are priced [Low] to [Moderate] depending on the quality of the food. Therefore, you might want to price a small CM machine at [High], one step up over [Moderate] priced fabbers. Or keep it at [Moderate] (or moderate +50%) since the quality doesn't change much, only the variety of goods it can produce.
Mon, 2015-11-23 14:32
#16
ringring
Self Assembling Fabber
I suppose that might be a fun challenge for an anarchist research collective, to come up with a self assembling fabber that is able to disguise itself and sneak through customs, the assemble itself out of raw materials and general feedstock into a cornucopia machine.
You could make a fortune selling them, or a statement by giving them to those who need them. Either way, super illegal anywhere in the inner system.
Mon, 2015-11-23 18:37
#17
Madwand
It's not really that hard to
It's not really that hard to smuggle most things past security. A synth (with skin) to appear human-like, and internal storage to store whatever you want will evade almost any security. Add faraday cages as desired for additional protection. If that isn't enough, embed a protean swarm into the metal bones of the synth. The swarm, when triggered via the appropriate signal, will build your DCM out of whatever scraps you can collect, even the body of the synth if desired. That would be impossible to detect without deconstructing the synth at the atomic level. You can do the same with a normal human body too, it's just that getting the swarm out of it might be a bit more painful.
All this stuff about paranoid security being able to detect almost anything is pretty much bunk. Security is just there to catch the easy stuff. Real smugglers (or more legitimate couriers) have any number of ways to hide their booty that just cannot be realistically detected.
Here's another trick: use a can of that spray repair swarm. At the bottom of the can (underneath the normal repair swarm) put a protean swarm. Basically impossible to detect without emptying the can. You can embed a protean swarm inside pretty much any physical object undetectably.
Mon, 2015-11-23 19:38
#18
Trappedinwikipedia
A x or gamma ray camera
A x or gamma ray camera defeats hiding stuff in a synth, regardless of whether or not there is a faraday cage in the synth or not "You've got an implanted faraday cage, which, under security clause 17 allows us to force a mandatory resleeve while we analyze it". An implanted swarm could, and should, be baked out when a morph is decontaminated as a public health risk, as a rogue nanoswarm isn't something anyone wants in. It's not so much about stopping anarchists from sneaking in proteans, but stopping Creeper and TITAN swarms from sneaking in with subverted hosts.
Of course, it's not like you can just walk into a hab in the inner system (or most of the outer system), so airport style security is pretty meaningless. No one is going to let people bring small physical objects without serious vetting, it's not a thing culturally for most people (thanks to common nanofabrication), and in a post TITAN world even the most insane security measures start looking pretty reasonable.
The security you're talking about beating is profoundly unparanoid by AF10 standards. Really paranoid security wouldn't allow objects which haven't been melted/vaporized, then condensed into feedstock in, and would do some extreme ego searching as well. Extremely paranoid places might hope to reduce everything to a quark-gluon plasma to kill exsurgent femtotech before allowing it in, though I think that's somewhat beyond the EP tech base.
That said, attaching (shielded) swarms to small asteroids and throwing them into mars intersecting orbits seems pretty hard to stop, depending on how good the solar system wide security panopticon is. If I was an anarchist looking to sneak in CM's, I'd do it with obfuscated data, find a Martian CM with weak firmware, and crack that. A lot harder to stop a neutrino broadcast than a piece of matter.
The reason I suspect fabbers can't make nanotechnology is that nothing they are said to make is as complicated. We can make nanometer-scale transistors and custom medical molecules, but the kind of nanotechnology EP commonly uses is vastly beyond modern capabilities. It makes me think that the cheaper (and therefor simpler?) assemblers aren't capable of the same precision that advanced models can do. Sort of like 3d printers today, the cheap ones are very capable, but lack the precision and multi-use functions of more expensive designs.
Mon, 2015-11-23 20:58
#19
SquireNed
Trappedinwikipedia wrote:A x
One thing that is important to remember is that there are things like heirlooms and such. While it's theoretically a little scummy, you could say that you've got a heirloom, say, clock, and hope and pray the parts pass scrutiny. I'd think it'd be easier to get in a CM that looks like something it should be.
Another option that a lot of people don't necessarily think of is the "legitimate smuggler" route. Much like real-world airports, most habitats probably have a few people that get in and out with minimum scrutiny. These people pass from an insecure area into a secure area based on trust. Asteroid miners, researchers, and anyone else with frequent exits and returns would probably get fast tracked unless they are doing things that have an exposure risk. Getting something into their possession means less heavy scrutiny, and if you're smuggling self-fabricating components you only need to win the smuggling game once.
Another thing to consider is that there are places in the inner system that take a more lax approach to security as a sort of psychological defense against the horror of the TITANs, basically pretending that they're gone. While they probably will spot a lot of things regardless, you could always find a backdoor. Keep in mind that a lot of the information on TITANs is somewhat classified or outright unknown, and that we have a better look at it than most in-universe people do. This may include security personnel of a habitat, if they're (un?)lucky.
Alternatively, just bribe or pay off the security forces. If you've got decent rep and they're secretly aligned with your affinity group, it may be possible, especially if you're forthcoming and your goal matches your agenda. I'd still suggest sending a fork, but honestly it wouldn't surprise me if some disgruntled minimum-wage security worker (as they always are) doesn't mind the idea of being able to fabricate anything he wants instead of working for The Man. Slipping people their own copy of the nanites/blueprints/hardware probably works wonders.
Tue, 2015-11-24 20:49
#20
Madwand
The kind of smuggling
The kind of smuggling countermeasures Trappedinwikipedia is talking about are completely unrealistic. Physically destroying every object and morph that go through security, then invasively scanning every ego? No. That's not a security checkpoint. That's equivalent to only allowing ego's on board your station. You just aren't going to get physical visitors that way. That's fine, a lot of places are going to only have ego-only visitors. The places *I* am talking about are the ones where there is a security checkpoint past which it is possible to get a morph and some baggage.
For these kinds of checkpoints, there is just no stopping a determined smuggler. Eclipse Phase does not have magic, undefeatable scanners. X-ray and gamma ray scanners can be defeated in any number of ways. They cannot detect inactive nanoscale objects (i.e. swarms). The only way to detect these is to sample them (via nanodetectors, which have a 40% success rate). The most reliable way of stopping smugglers is to know who you are letting in, i.e. check their reputation. Reputation is *extremely* important to determining if a person is reliable in the EP universe. Normal security measures will have to do for at least catching stupid, everyday smugglers (which many exsurgent threats often tend to be, as the infected don't tend to behave fully rationally).
Wed, 2015-11-25 22:59
#21
Trappedinwikipedia
I'm referring to genuinely
I'm referring to genuinely paranoid security, which I think is possible, though perhaps not super common. Remember that most people don't travel physically, as it takes a very long time and is often more expensive than an egocast. Typically people don't bring any luggage as well, as nanofabrication allows for the replacement of practically anything. Most EP people don't sweat their physical possessions, as they are so easily replaced. Similarly, there is little to no need to trade anything beyond feedstock for fabbers, which will be "melted" anyway. I doubt a hab would have that kind of security for normal local travelers, but it seems quite plausible for long distance trips and visitors from beyond a secured zone for the hab. Adding to this is that most people in EP don't travel very far, which is important in the "cultural islands" that have formed across the solar system. I'd imagine that paranoid post-fall security policies were is fact part of the reason those islands formed so quickly.
IE, moving between habs in the Planetary Consortium would be less scrutinized, but travelers from Extropia, or other outer system places would likely be subjected to fairly extreme security in the name of security (and the preservation of the status quo). I'd imaging there to be a "threat scale" depending on where physical objects are coming from, with places like Iapetus at the top of the list.
Of course, it seems that a lot of places don't have security that tight, or scum swarms would have a lot more trouble finding ports. TBH scum are probably one of the bigger exsurgent vectors, simply because they travel the solar system so much, and mingle more than unmanned freighters for example.