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Fabbers & Hives: Limits?

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Thu, 2011-01-27 00:40
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Clunker Clunker's picture
Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
A few quick questions came to mind as I was gearing up my 'test-the-chargen' npc character: Fabbers: p. 328 on the pdf. Description states that they are specialized, and more portable. Does this mean should have a "Robotics" fabber, & a seperate "Industrial" fabber? In other words, "choose the Hardware skill this fabber produces stuff for", I'm thinking? See, some of the NPCs seem to have just "Fabber" as gear, without listing the Fabber's "Specialty", so this got me questioning. General Hives/Specialized Hives: Same page. Description says that both produce either any Swarm desired (General Hive), or one in particular (Specialized Hive). General Hives seem to only need programming/blueprints; Specialized Hives seem to require one to purchase the specific swarm the S. Hive will be producing. Does this 'purchase' of the specific swarm supposed to represent the 'blueprint/template" of the Specific Hive, so that it "knows" which swarm to produce/maintain? Otherwise, I'm not sure why one couldn't simply buy a Specialized "Fixer" Hive, for example, and then just let it 'warm up' for an hour or two to make its' first Swarm... Ideas/opinions?
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Thu, 2011-01-27 12:28
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Yes, fabbers are more limited. Normally they'll only use a limited selection of feedstocks, produce a certain size products, and/or focus on a particular skill. So your medical bay will probably have a pharm fabber and perhaps a small tool fabber. I don't know if you can have a fabber which goes on to make a protean swarm or something. I wouldn't stress too much about it though. Those crazy players... they're going to get their hands on a protean swarm sooner or later so don't even worry about it.
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Fri, 2011-01-28 01:38
Clunker Clunker's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Yes, fabbers are more limited. Normally they'll only use a limited selection of feedstocks, produce a certain size products, and/or focus on a particular skill. So your medical bay will probably have a pharm fabber and perhaps a small tool fabber.
Ah, ok - so Fabbers ARE supposed to list what 'type' of thing they make; good to know. I've no problems with Protean Swarms at all - my question was: "When purchasing a Specialized Hive, why does one have to buy the Swarm it makes? Specialized Hives MAKE the swarm, right?" See, I was making an NPC AGI who is kinda a combination of a Synthmorph Activist and Indentured Infugee rescuer. "He" carries with him a selection of Specialized Hives, each programmed with a Protean Swarm. Each Swarm is programmed to 'build' a particular synthmorph out of random junk that the infugee might be able to scrabble together. So, he secretly helps infugees jump their contracts, giving them superior/non-lemony synthmorphs that he provides, and he never has to carry around those morphs with him. I was simply seeing if there was any reason besides 'game balance' why a Specialized Hive had to be purchased WITH the Swarm it produces. Protean Swarms are costly at chargen!
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Fri, 2011-01-28 08:42
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Ah, gotcha. I think it's to represent that a fabber which just makes say silverware is going to be less expensive than one that makes... something special. So rather than breaking it up into 'fabber type A, fabber type B', etc., they just wrap the costs in like that. (But I'm speaking without the book right in front of me.)
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Fri, 2011-01-28 11:48
nikleonard nikleonard's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
In any case, a specialized hive programmed to fabricate Protean swarms only fabricates proteans with a single building template or the protean swarm itself is programmable to make Protean Swarms with different templates (with a standard programming:Nanoswarm skill test)? And, stretching that to the limit, a protean swarm can be programmed to create a hive (having the templates of the hives)? (Not directly a swarm, because the manual states that transhuman nanotech can't self-replicate). In my point of view, a specialized nanohive (proteans) can build any protean nanoswarm, with any template loaded in them. It can be programmed to build other hive, but the building times will add (3-4 hours for a single hive, 5+ hours for a generic hive). The advantage v/s a DCM are cost (Moderate + High v/s Expensive) and portability, but the swarms are pretty new technology and less available than DCM's or Fabbers.
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Sat, 2011-01-29 01:37
Clunker Clunker's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Didn't even occur to me that a Specialized Hive might be 'swappable' in terms of swarm-template; something to consider. However, back to the latter of the original question: Why does one need to also buy the desired swarm a specialized hive makes? Is that purchase supposed to represent the blueprint/template of the swarm produced by the Specialized Hive, itself?
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Sat, 2011-01-29 08:17
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
I think the size is different, too. The I'm picturing it, a fabber is about the size of a coffee machine, maybe a microwave oven, while the Cornucopia Machine would be about the size of a showerbooth (think the Store booth in Dead Space) et un fabricator like a workbench. (goodness, does that game provide great visual ideas for EP or what?!) on the hives, I'm curious. Let's say I want to buy one, and go to a store to buy one. what am I going to see on the shelves? In the boxes?
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Sun, 2011-02-06 08:49
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Clunker wrote:
Does this 'purchase' of the specific swarm supposed to represent the 'blueprint/template" of the Specific Hive, so that it "knows" which swarm to produce/maintain? Otherwise, I'm not sure why one couldn't simply buy a Specialized "Fixer" Hive, for example, and then just let it 'warm up' for an hour or two to make its' first Swarm...
The price of the swarm is included because when you're buying a Specialized Nanohive, you're buying the swarm, and then buying the nanohive to keep it from dying.
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Sun, 2011-02-06 12:17
Clunker Clunker's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Hold one moment: Does this mean that Specialized Hives only 'maintain' swarms? Wouldn't than mean that if a swarm gets damaged over several incidents, the swarm would be destroyed altogether? From my understanding (which may well be wrong) the only way one 'repairs' a swarm is to replace its destroyed units - IE: produce more of the swarm. On the other hand, if the Spec-Hive CAN repair the swarm, by adding new units, shouldn't that mean it could create the swarm on it's own (albeit at a slow rate)?
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Sun, 2011-02-06 12:37
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
No, they can make more swarms as well; I was just saying that the point of one is to be able to say, "I have a Cleaner Swarm" on your character sheet.
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Sun, 2011-02-06 17:46
Clunker Clunker's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
SO, in regards to the original question I posed about Spec-Hives: technically, one doesn't need to buy a separate swarm for a Spec-Hive; it COULD be bought singly (just the Spec-Hive), and it'd make he swarm, eventually?
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Mon, 2011-02-07 10:11
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
I would tend to rule no on that. My assumption is the cost of the hive listed is a reduced cost. It MUST include the swarm price in order to be a 'fair' price.
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Wed, 2011-02-09 03:26
nick012000 nick012000's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Clunker wrote:
SO, in regards to the original question I posed about Spec-Hives: technically, one doesn't need to buy a separate swarm for a Spec-Hive; it COULD be bought singly (just the Spec-Hive), and it'd make he swarm, eventually?
No. Buying the Hive buys the Swarm. Buying the Swarm buys the Hive. They're a package deal.
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Fri, 2011-02-18 11:10
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Clunker wrote:
Hold one moment: Does this mean that Specialized Hives only 'maintain' swarms? Wouldn't than mean that if a swarm gets damaged over several incidents, the swarm would be destroyed altogether? From my understanding (which may well be wrong) the only way one 'repairs' a swarm is to replace its destroyed units - IE: produce more of the swarm. On the other hand, if the Spec-Hive CAN repair the swarm, by adding new units, shouldn't that mean it could create the swarm on it's own (albeit at a slow rate)?
No, it means that the cost of a spec-hive is equal to the base cost plus the cost of whatever nanoswarm it is designed to create or maintain. When you buy a specialized hive with that cost, it does not come with a premade swarm. Think of the cost as the cost for built-in firmware blueprints that cannot be modified.
nick012000 wrote:
No. Buying the Hive buys the Swarm. Buying the Swarm buys the Hive. They're a package deal.
Well, you can buy a swarm without a hive. It just doesn't have a permanent effect. A swarm of cleaner-bots without a hive will last you a couple weeks before the bots burn themselves out.
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Sun, 2011-02-20 06:04
crizh crizh's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
Quincey Forder wrote:
on the hives, I'm curious. Let's say I want to buy one, and go to a store to buy one. what am I going to see on the shelves? In the boxes?
I quite like an organic aesthetic. For a General Hive imagine something about the size of an American Football that looks like an egg from Alien but made from metal and composites. But then you could go with just about anything in EP. You could design it to look like an ornate clockwork Faberge egg for instance or the Hellraiser cube thing.
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Sun, 2011-02-20 07:31
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Fabbers & Hives: Limits?
crizh wrote:
Quincey Forder wrote:
on the hives, I'm curious. Let's say I want to buy one, and go to a store to buy one. what am I going to see on the shelves? In the boxes?
I quite like an organic aesthetic. For a General Hive imagine something about the size of an American Football that looks like an egg from Alien but made from metal and composites. But then you could go with just about anything in EP. You could design it to look like an ornate clockwork Faberge egg for instance or the Hellraiser cube thing.
Since objects are typically customized when fabricated for their consumers, they can look like anything that fits in - a nicely crafted Japanese lacquer box with a motif suggesting the swarm use, a semiprecious rock set in the stone walls of an apartment, an Arabic oil lamp with a tactile interface, a Victorian porcelain urn depicting cornucopias, a modernist painting where the fields of colour denote system status, a stuffed moose head on the wall, a glass-and-bronze nanobaroque device with cherubs, scroll-work and ocassional emissions of "steam", a small syncretist altar with figurines representing different subsystems... In more functionalist environments I expect the general hive to look like a little plastic box covered with warning stickers ("Active nanosystem", "Airborne utility nanites: do not block emission gate", "Tamper proofed as per PC directive 55-6-364368", "Do not use unless certification and validation symbols are clearly visible") and linked to the feedstock distribution system of the environment with a plastic tube.
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