Stumpers are funny in Eclipse Phase, given there's already more advanced tech out there, but I'd be happy to give them a shot. [b]Stumpers[/b] Stumpers are an older technology by the time of 10 AF, but their simplicity, low resource requirements, and open source nature has made them a favourite tool of guerillas and those seeking privacy on a budget, especially on terrestrial planets like Mars and many exo-worlds. Stumpers are sold either as prepackaged groups or "Stumper Boxes", which are simple nanofabbers loaded with long-duration nuclear batteries. A Stumper Box is a cube approximately half a cubic metre on a side, which is buried underground and turned on. It then produces stumpers, which harvest material and construct tunnel networks out to a preset size in number and area. Horror stories still exist from "friends of a friend" and pre-Fall rednecks who neglected to include limits on the colonies and found themselves lost in a crawling horde. A stumper swarm's stats are largely dependent on its size, but it benefits from the same rules as nanoswarms (minimal damage from all but area attacks, and EMP vulnerability) due to not being a consolidated entity. Its Durability is equivalent to roughly 1 point per bot in the swarm, and it lost damage at a rate of around 1 point every five minutes. Anyone caught in the swarm's radius that is identified by it (see identification below) takes 1d10 damage a turn, and this increases by 1d10 a turn (1d10 first turn, 2d10 the next, 3d10 after that, etc.) as more and more bots find the target. The computing power within a given stumper is infinitesimal by modern standards. A given stumper has less computing and sensory capacity than the ubiquitous spimes found in most habitats, but this adds to its effectiveness; less material per unit means more units produced. This also costs them a great deal in terms of usability, however. The bots target any heat source within a given tolerance that enters their area of protection. This means that, when you mine the area, you better be damn sure you'll never want to return there (or will at least be able to send a robot to set them off at your leisure). While a Stumper Box can be reprogrammed or deactivated later, the swarm it's created since that time will lay in wait, looking for something to destroy. [b]Condensed version[/b] Stumper Swarm Damage: 1d10 + (Rounds of Exposure * 1d10) Durability: (Swarm size) Advantages: Swarm composition Disadvantages: No mesh connections, limited sensors