Thread death is a disease, and it can be cured. This thread >>45888341 is only experiencing a little bit of Lack.
Today on Eclipse Phase - what campaigns have you had the most success with on Mars, /tg/ ? Politics, crime, fighting x-threats, stalking the zone?
OFFICIAL BOOKS
>Eclipse Phase PDFs
http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs
>Zone Stalkers
http://www.mediafire.com/view/d0hpgo776xpx50p/Eclipse_Phase_Zone_Stalkers.pdf
>Morph Recognition Guide
http://www.mediafire.com/download/j4bjbba89kw8v0y/Eclipse_Phase_Morph_Recognition_Guide_%286098716%29.pdf
>Million Year Echo
http://www.mediafire.com/view/f53f1c5yq777tpk/Million_Year_Echo.pdf
>Firewall (Updated):
http://www.mediafire.com/view/9jg6q9d9kqa59qu/Eclipse_Phase_Firewall_(7029562).pdf
PLAY AIDS:
>Advice for new players and GMs
http://pastebin.com/e0EErN6X
>Online character creator
http://eclipsephase.oook.ch/Creator/version4/index.php
>Eclipse Phase hacking cheet sheet
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?axe1vs35muk4juh
>Eclipse Phase xls Character sheet
https://sites.google.com/site/eclipsephases/home/cabinet
HOMEBREW AND COMMUNITY CONTENT:
>3 new adventures for your use in convenient PDF form
http://awdaberton.wordpress.com/about/
>Various Eclipse Phase fanmade resources, and links to more
http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/
>An Eclipse Phase yearblog full of items, locations, NPCs, and plot hooks
http://www.farcastblog.com
>Community homebrew document
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Gy02gp6-WPQ3SoN_24kLPTUu5EjFO8qh_9pjJSVrrY/edit
>A metric shit ton of additional guns/ammo/weapon mods
http://eclipsephase.com/sites/default/files/UltimatesGuideToCombat10c.pdf
We've had the most success with politics, merc groups, and crime, including the occasional anti-corp terrorist attack.
>>45960251
What's Mars Like in EP?
Are lots of people drawn towards it with the loss of Earth?
>>45960545
Mars is the new "home base" of the human species; it has the largest population centres and the highest population overall. It's also the main theatre of operations for the Planetary Consortium, the largest and wealthiest of the political entities in the system.
Mars was colonised before the Fall, though not massively, and partially terraformed. (You can almost grow trees around the equator now). This made it one of the more popular refugee destinations for the mass of transhumanity escaping the destruction of Earth. Now most of anybody who is anybody is on Mars.
Mars is very culturally divided between the cities and the outback. Mars has a number of highly cosmopolitan, very wealthy cities with the outback being populated primarily by "rednecks".
Then there's the White Zone...
>>45960464
I've been interested in running a Ranger campaign for a while, operating (mostly) on the right side of the law.
It's hard to build something bigger around that, though. There's plenty of 'episodes' worth playing, but I think most players would want some kind of larger conspiracy or something to tangle with.
>>45961274
What we do is play up the Barsoomian and Tharsis League conflicts with the PC and various political games between the three groups. Yes, three, because Bardsoomians encompass everything from anarchist anti-corp extremists who bomb corporate offices, to rednecks who wish the PC would leave them alone, to small-corp Tharsis League activists who want a free Mars run by the city-states.
Also remember that the city-states can and do go to (semi-proxy and doneby mercs) war, which means the Rangers can get caught in the crossfire or in the middle of a conspiracy on a distressingly regular basis.
And all this leaves aside oligarch plots, Oversight/Ozma conspiracies, criminal capers, biker gangs, and trouble with the maker clans and rednecks.
>>45960251
Can I be a space cowboy?
>>45961884
You can be several flavors of space cowboy. Do you want to be a Martian redneck roughing it in the deserts of the red planet? How about a Belter in the asteroid belt, staking and protecting your claims and looking to strike it rich? How about a Brinker on the system edge looking to keep your little station safe? What sounds like fun?
>>45962143
I have not actually heard of anyone doing a Ranger campaign, though the possibilities are there.
Also, what is the best method for martian nationalists to throw off the shackles of the PC?
>>45961884
Remember how we said the Mars setting is like, cosmopolitan urban areas and the open outback? the outback is all space western. But the trains are hi-speed maglevs, the "indians" are enclaves from French-North Africa and the most common animal domestic is a alpaca.
>>45963177
Also there are superhighways full of bikers and megatrucks, a million little settlements, and all that. You also forgot the rust hounds, smart camels, and feral robots.
>>45962860
>Also, what is the best method for martian nationalists to throw off the shackles of the PC?
Kill every corp sonovabitch and delete their backups until every last one is permadead. Insert Martian Spurdo memes as needed.
>>45963493
He said best, not worst.
Skeet-shooting bots: when is it good, and when is it bad?
>>45964587
Can you clarify?
>>45964750
As in, shooting wild robots with a hunting rifle or a rocket launcher or something.
>>45964786
Well, I wouldn't do it in an urban center because that would be frowned upon by the local constabulary. Otherwise, go for it. a wild artificial is a wild artificial.
>>45964866
>Otherwise, go for it. a wild artificial is a wild artificial.
Unless it's a secret Cognite program to evolve a better adaptive AGI intelligence. Then you're in the shit.
>>45965314
Well, if you don't put "property of Cognite" in big enough letters, that's your own damn problem.
>>45965397
What if they didn't think to put that tag on the bot because it escaped its lab?
>>45965626
Then you did them a huge favor, having an AGI research subject escape is bad for public opinion. What if they fucked up and made a baby titan?
>>45965712
Phew! Now my babes can sleep easy tonight.Wait, don't titans need really big server farms to get to humanity-destroying levels?
>>45965794As far as we know.
>>45965839
>>45965794
So big that they tried to build computers literally the size of planets.
>>45965794
That's why "baby".
Also, this is the danger of a Seed AI. The "core" that becomes a TITAN can be a singular hard drive which can expand to anything it's plugged into.
>>45960251
>>Online character creator
>http://eclipsephase.oook.ch/Creator/version4/index.php
Not working.
I wish I could get players wanting to do things other than murder in Eclipse Phase.
>>45966621
Let me play then, I could go for some autonomist settlement-building projects or something. Constructing can be just as fun as destroying.
>>45966621
Murder is generally a shitty solution in EP, as it's only a stop-gap for most enemies and tends to leave lots of forensic evidence most people don't bother thinking about.
>>45960588
>Mars is the new "home base" of the human species
Nearly everyone who isn't in the planetary consortium would disagree with that.Most would assert that humanity no longer really has a home base. Jovians would assert that humans now exist almost exclusively in the Jovian system.
>(You can almost grow trees around the equator now)
Isn't the air too thin?
>>45966722
Depends what you're trying to accomplish. Just shooting a guy works fine if all you want to do is prevent him from doing something in the short term. Burn his stack if you also want him to not remember the encounter.
>>45969040
Well, there's plenty of CO2, so I assume in the equatorial lowlands the density and composition is sufficient for plants. The real question is if the soil and water quality is enough.
>Nearly everyone who isn't in the planetary consortium would disagree with that.
Mars still has the largest singular population in the Sol system, many of whom are post-Fall immigrants. Even if "Mars is our new home" is the PC line, if you had to pick a "center" for Transhumanity now that the Cradle is gone, Mars is probably it.
>>45969040
>Most would assert that humanity no longer really has a home base. Jovians would assert that humans now exist almost exclusively in the Jovian system.
They're all wrong, of course, because humanity died in 1960.
>>45969189
Yeah, I should have said it's a very short term solution. If someone is trying to stab you, or is physically blocking you from getting at something you need, killing them (or at least, applying lethal intent) is perfectly tactically sound. But if you keep doing it you're gonna give the space cops plenty to work with unless you're particularly careful.
Popping the stack is it's own issue too, people aren't going to look to fondly on you if you keep doing it. Criminals have their own social network.
>>45969401
>you're gonna give the space cops plenty to work with unless you're particularly careful.
Thermobaric seekers, antimatter bombs, and EMP grenades covereth a multitude of sins. But then I'm the asshole Erasure Team member who literally only leaves his paradise simulspace to kill everything until Central tells me to stop or all my current forks die, whichever comes first.
>>45969189
>>45969401
If you really want to make it stick, targeted worms are always an option.
>>45969531
Hear Know Evil, Speak Know Evil, See Know Evil.
>>45969505
Well, in simplest terms, that kind of stuff leaves a trail all its own, but yes, this is one of the ways you can put a dent in forensic evidence.
>>45969273
CO2 is not sufficient. Plants also need nitrogen and oxygen.
>>45969505
Overthinking it. All you need to do is use a burner morph.
>>45966514
That's because OPs never update their outdated copypaste
http://eclipsephase.next-loop.com/Creator/version4/index.php
I feel stupid but are aptitudes only used for skill defaulting?
>>45972438
You also add skill points to them, and they're used for secondary statistics like initiative
>>45972438
No, some rolls are based off Aptitudes directly, usually with multiples, such as WIL x3 is the "sanity" roll, or COG x3 is the "idea" roll. Or you might roll COO x3 to say, slip some handcuffs.
>>45972485
>>45972995
Thank you, kindly.
So, X-Risks will be baller because, well, the authors will come up with some fucked up shit.
But is anybody excited for the other books they're developing, the Crime and Space Combat ones?
we've always ended up playing on exoplanets as homesteaders. The setting basically makes combat impossible, so unless you're looking to play a spy thriller (and we aren't) or spend your days on Earth, you go to exoplanets.
>>45976063
>The setting basically makes combat impossible
wut?
>>45976902
He might be referring to how unless you stack armor, initiative, speed, durability, chance to hit and use a high damage weapon, you aren't going to last past Speed 1 in the first round
>>45978104
That too. But more that if you're fighting anywhere but a theoretical white room, just by existing the odds are stacked in your opponents favour because of the habitat/space station divide from a planet. It's like shadowrun, if the corpies knew you were coming from the words "My name is Mr Johnson", and you were wearing tracking bugs. There's just too much information available for them not to come down on you like a tonne of bricks.
>>45978323
Well sure if you're just trying to go murderhobo. All the same tools are available to you though.
The trouble is that people think you can just shoot things to win. That's not how it goes. You need digital overwatch, engineering support, and a thought-out plan. As it should be.
>>45979202
You're an idiot. Even with all of those, unless you're subverting the entire habitat, your enemy can still come down on you with overwhelming force.
>>45979470
Depends who your enemy is. If you make an enemy of the cops, sure. Well, most habs which actually have cops anyway. If they aren't your direct opposition, then you just need to nudge things so you don't catch their interest. Since the default is operating as an independant espionage unit, most groups should be able to manage that.
>>45979557
Also helps that the people that you're trying to murder are generally criminals, anarchists, and the like. I mean, look at the official Eclipse Phase adventures.
A Bump in the Night: Criminals.
Glory: Criminals.
Million Year Echo: Criminals and TITAN bioweapons.
Continuity: Yourselves, after you got infected by the Exsurgent Virus.
The Devotees: Criminals.
The Stars Our Destination: Anarchist Scum.
So am I the only one that feels like the creators basically writing everything with the assumption that you'll be running the game as Firewall agents to be kinda constricting and in a lot of cases, totally against what a lot of groups would do?
As a DM I feel like my players would scream railroad if I ran the content as-is with only Firewall as an option. Seems more sensible to run it as a pseudo-sandbox and let them choose a group to run with.
>>45980509
>So am I the only one
No, this is a constant complaint in both /epg/ and on the official forums
>the creators basically writing everything with the assumption that you'll be running the game as Firewall agents
This is wrong. The books posit a number of ways you can run the game without the player characters even knowing Firewall exists
>Seems more sensible to run it as a pseudo-sandbox and let them choose a group to run with.
This is why the Firewall book has rules for allowing unaffiliated characters to join Firewall
>>45970827
>http://eclipsephase.next-loop.com/Creator/version4/index.php
Wow that is nice.
Thanks, man
>>45980509
>Seems more sensible to run it as a pseudo-sandbox and let them choose a group to run with.
As the sort of "default" assumption, I don't mind Firewall, because it's a group that mostly welcomes members from anywhere providing they're down with the goals of the organisation. You can have player characters who wouldn't otherwise work together rub shoulders, tied together by the goals of Firewall.
Unless everyone's on the same page when it comes to factions for their characters, letting them choose a group to run with is going to be tricky. It's probably why exoplanet hopping seems to be the other popular way of doing it; cut off from the politics of the Solar System, relying on one another to stay alive, the autonomist exobiologist isn't quite as annoying and the Jovian Stronk triggerman isn't going to get constantly triggered by the perils of resleeving.
>>45982419
Well I was considering doing an alternate start for my players wherein they start as indentures trapped onboard a Hypercorp remote facility as dull meatslaves who have to coordinate their own illegal escape. I was considering using the Zbrny Group as an example, since they're rather unexplained and seem undeveloped enough that I can fill in the blanks.
Players coordinate their escape, then have to stick together and work out ways to survive in the new world while they figure out how things have changed since they got uploaded back during the Fall.
>>45980612
I got a heavy notion that the game was designed in order around the setting, then Firewall, then everything else. Maybe that's just because the books have a lot of the little Firewall sidebars and snippets in them and it colours the whole thing.
>>45979470
Why would you have to subvert the entire habitat? Just get clever with the part you're in and use the element of surprise to your advantage.
>>45970045
Devs really need to specify the current atmospheric composition of Mars.
>>45984110
I'm actually OK with it being basically "Enhanced Respiration morphs can breathe in the valleys and lowlands, you need oxygen supplies when going above that". Sunward also mentions that the Valles-Mineris canyon network is starting to grow wild plants, IIRC
Who else edits the setting to remove anything objectionable?
>>45983147
"Hey! X is returning some very slightly off readings. It might not be running as it should. Pay attention to that."
or
"Hey! X is fine, but we're detecting some shit from nearby sensors!"
or
"hey! X is fine, but the people there are screaming for help!"
or
"Hey! X is fine, but X is requesting ammo or backup!"
or
"hey! X is fine, but not responding. Send something to check it out."
>>45986096
I tried, but I had an empty book.
>>45986096
What would be objectionable? 9 Lives?
Can someone please explain Eclipse Phase to me? The lore, gameplay, etc?
>>45987489
Ten years ago, Cold War era super-AIs went crazy and leveled Earth and most of the human race. The survivors spread throughout the solar system, embracing various flavors of extremist politics. In the shadows, a weird viral body horror is working to exterminate everyone left. Your job is to fight human extinction.
Gameplay is a d100 system that puts emphasis on diverse skillsets and allows you to come back from the dead on a fairly routine basis, probably in a brand-new body. This is good, because the system is very lethal. Insanity is the bigger fear than death in this system.
>>45987545
Huh. Cool. Think I can get into this fairly easily.
>>45987545
>Cold War era super-AIs
wut?
>>45987624
Sorry, being an Americunt the TITANs slip into the category of "Cold war paranoia bullshit" so neatly that I crossed a mental wire.
>>45987193
Violence, sexual themes, politics, bullying, and anything else inappropriate for a third-grade audience.
>>45987602
What >>45987545 said, in a nutshell, but it's also a smorgasbord of hard-ish science fiction tropes, from reputation economies to stargates to jellyfish aliens. Both open source and free market ideologies feature heavily.
By default, you work for a conspiracy bent on saving humanity from extinction and the gameplay tends towards espionage, but games of crime, politics, law enforcement, exploration, and philosophy are possible.
>>45987684
So, basically, you end up with a blank book.
>>45987866
My word! This is unforgivable! The principal's head will roll for this!
>>45987489
Anarchist translesbian space muslims save humanity from oppressive AI built by heterosexual white cismale patriarchs.
Anyone have the backer pdf for Transhumanity's Fate?
>>45988053
What ?
>>45988366
He's exaggerating criticisms of the setting because he's salty.
>>45986609
I'm not sure your point here. Is it that security and the number of ways that an alarm could be sounded make violence useless as a problem solving method?
Like, yes, straight up armed assault on a defended facility on a populated/armed habitat isn't the best idea under normal conditions, but as PCs your job is to induce abnormal conditions. Or putting it another way, straight up assault can only be one component of a plan, and doesn't automatically solve every problem.
>>45989235
And really, if you're assaulting a hab area, 99% of the time it's going to be under the following conditions
1. Exsurgent infection, in which case anyone watching is either an exsurgent too, too dead/traumatized to do anything, or on your side.
2. Mercs assaulting another merc position as part of a proxy war, which is rarely done in densely inhabited areas.
3. Shadowrun style "Steal the X risk from the black lab" shit, which sounds like he is describing. In which case you want to use covert methods to plan your assault, use burner morphs, and generally not go in guns blazing with your mesh inserts on. Or take a third option and arrange for an unfortunate plasma fire or meteor strike.
>>45989727
Oh, and I forgot
4. Actually invading a hab for military purposes under the aegis of a faction's military. In which case, why are you even doing that, you might as well nuke the hab and save everyone some time. If you need to, well, stealth isn't much of an option, so you might as well go for maximum overkill.
>>45989235
Different anon. I am guessing that his point is that it is impossible to go unnoticed, and thus any team trying to sneak around will be quickly spotted and hosed.
What he falsely assumes is that noticing something is the same as caring about something. As long as the stealth team creates a more reasonable explanation for the anomalies they create than what is actually going on, security won't care.
>>45979202
I still think the best way to take a hab is a few hundred tons of sodium on top of a nuclear shaped charge. Assuming the plasma jet doesn't outright destroy the hab, injecting that amount of neutron-activated sodium into the atmosphere should kill just about anything after a few hours
>>45989937
Yeah, I think the idea given the original post is no matter who you shoot up, the portal will open to the cop or the corpsec dimension and cops and security guards will come pouring out to shoot you. That's how video games work, that' not necessarily how something like EP would work.
Say you do to Valles New Shanghai and knock over a Cognite office park for some data. Now, that's a quiet but well-off neighborhood, so police response time will probably be pretty good. But the corp presence there is low. So if you get in and out quick enough, you'll be gone before police are on the scene. You don't shoot any cops, they're not out for your blood. Cognite's probably pissed off, but they're shady. And if they try and swing their dicks around, VNSPD might get annoyed. And if you leave the city limits, then it's a problem for the local Ranger regiment. And those guys probably won't be real enthused to get back Corp files. It's all a game of social engineering and jurisdiction.
>>45990017
Why ruin your enemies resources when you can take them for yourself?
>>45990236
Sodium 24 has a half-life of 15 hours. The hab won't be radioactive when the cleanup team arrives.
>>45990236
It's often much easier
>>45990157
Granted, shooting your way into somewhere on Zhongshan Road (central administration for Thrasis League, embassies for various powers, etc) might as well result in a portal opening to the plane of infinite secbots as far as the players are concerned. But elsewhere in New Shanghai that's not in the most expensive and prestigious real estate on the planet, you'll have far better luck, especially if your target is a highly placed triad boss or questionably legal corp research center that might not want too close scrutiny.
>>45990157
So basically the complaint is the EP is too realistic?
Do people actually enjoy murderfests with no planning or opposition?
>>45990347
You could even do that. Just buy up a ton of Cases, set up each one with a cheap weapon, and fork away.
>>45990157
>a Cognite office park
It's funny that Cognite is *always* the example picked out of the air for this, versus any other hypercorp. Cognite is probably the canon hypercorp with the single worst PR in all the PC. Which leaves aside the possibility of player made corps that somehow have even worse PR.
>>45990480
Why bother with cases? Set up a few CMs, fab up an army of griefer morphs, and blow the place up on November 5 while blaring the 1812 Overture and overwhelming the local mesh by spamming dank memes until it all crashes.
>>45990347
Oh yeah, no, if you do the equivalent of try to hop the fence at the White House, then it's on like Robomule Kong. But that's always true.
>>45990480
Eh, the Case or Basic Pod "mobile landmine" situation is a solid tactic, but you're going to quickly lose unit cohesion when an entire city-state, if not an effective planetary government directs their e-war capability at you. And those SMGs or Heavy pistols aren't gonna stop the HOPLITE Platoon which shows up. But if you need a showy distraction to actually get some spy shit done that does wonders.
>>45990407
>So basically the complaint is the EP is too realistic?
Being fair here, EP posits a world in which privacy is frequently nonexistence and networking technology is ubiquitous. Forensic technology is advanced enough that there is basically no way to 'get away with' a crime in the same way we think of doing so now. Robust and omnipresent mesh communications make it easy for police AI or informorphs to 'drop into' a situation and get a reading on things in minutes or even seconds.
So police/security power has been substantially upgraded. It's also much, much more difficult to evade customs in space. Taken together, a lot of things we think of as classic crime tropes or elements of cyberpunk (which EP is related to) don't work.
>>45990480
Note that even this sort of tactic, while technically feasible, relies on a lot of circumventing of security measures, and relies on a passive opposition that doesn't get suspicious and has very limited counter intelligence. The core of the idea is there, but the execution will be very tricky, and likely of very limited utility anyway.
>>45990522
This is because Cognite literally is the worst PR in the Consortium. They'd be a much bigger player considering they're the cornerstone of a lot of drugs with psychological effects and psychosurgery tech - if they're public face wasn't terrible. They also do probably canonically the shadiest research of the actual Consortium groups. Most corps have skeletons in their closet, Cognite has skeleton processing factories.
On the other hand, according to Firewall this means their IA/Black Budget group is pretty top tier for their size.
>>45990689
You know darkcasting is a thing, right?
>>45965794
Briefly, then they invent more efficient computing substrates [spoilers]and then make those huge anyway[/spoilers]
>>45969040
They're probably weird looking low-gravity adapted transgenic trees.
>>45990786
I thought Firewall pointed out those guys aren't actually that good at their job.
>>45991083
Darkcasting has limitations, not the least of which is that the darkcasting rig might be in the hands of someone you can't trust. The difficulty of evading customs still means that any weapons or other material must be sourced locally; locals who might be nominally on your side are less-likely to be willing to help you make a suicide run (when the hammer that falls will fall on *them* instead of *you*). Bodies are hard to come by, and you'll need ID that is not only valid, but matches some kind of valid entry log if the automated scanners are looking for that sort of thing.
This isn't insurmountable, depending on the size of the hab, but it puts real operational difficulties on anyone looking to mount a traditional terrorist or criminal operation. Cross border operations are difficult enough IRL when borders are pretty leaky, documentation is just paper, and we don't have Big AGI Brother peering through every camera.
>>45991256
It's been a while since I read the material, but I believe the point was more that Cognite's internal security was very limited compared to say, Oversight, but after their past problems, they're fairly good at their job. They're not afraid to extend a hand to groups like Firewall either, to keep stuff out of the e-papers.
>>45986096
I tweak the setting slightly so things are a little less wonky. Among other things, scum habs have more problems and Jovian oppression is toned down. A lot of material on the factions are from in-universe biased sources anyway, so reality doesn't have to match up 100%.
>>45991984
I assume the user has to roll stress every time he reloads because of the non-Euclidean feed mechanism.
>>45991984
Frame as heavy as possible? Check.
No way for bullets to move into chamber? Check.
Robot detection system that can be fooled by a t-shirt? Check.
Two barrels for no reason? Check.
Bad caliber? Check.
No visible safety? Check.
A hammer somehow? Check.
No iron sights? Check.
>>45992195
>No iron sights? Check
Do you need iron sights in a smartlink world?
>>45992260
They're nice to have when the flimsy window that pops out of the side of your gun breaks off
>>45992260
This thing would be shit for killing anything but lightly armored vehicles. Not accurate enough to shoot sensors off a tank. RoF too low to be effective against infantry. Caliber too low to actually damage a tank. Ridiculously heavy. A really shitty stock.
>>45992367
I can only work with what I am given.
>>45992451
>Railgun
>No battery
>>45992260
Basic field mesh safety says you should turn off your mesh inserts, use your helmet's encrypted ecto solely to link into the tacnet and your smartlink, and be ready to kill the ecto at the first sign it's been subverted. Paranoid types rely solely on skinlink and direct laser comms. So don't rely on your smartlink always being available. Learn to shoot without it and limit your combat mesh use as much as possible, for your safety and that of your squad. And for your choice of gods' sakes, don't be like that guy who posted live video of his combat op and tagged it #Direct Action #Valles-Mineris Warzone #Warcrimes #Badass #YOLF. He ate a dozen seekers and last I heard he was still in dead storage.
>>45992567
>Lifelogging in a combat zone
Well, if I have PCs ever surf the space channels that's definitely going to come up.
>>45992567
What if I program my seekers to post on the mesh a few milliseconds before they detonate?
>>45992851
Save it for the post-combat party. Literally, save it, because so many "Soldiers react to impending seeker hits" vids go viral, it's a decent way to fish for rep. But don't fucking post it until the op is wrapped and whoever gives you orders says it's OK to release it.
did anyone ever make a list of TITAN artifacts?
Why are the Ultimates simultaneously so shit and so fucking based.
>>45994631
>Inducted into the Ultimates as an Aspirant
>sleeve in the body of a teenage boy as per habitat rules
>paired up with an Exemplar
>he teaches you how to fight and how to love, both roughly
>>45995714
>tfw you're still the biggest weeaboo in the system
>tfw the leadership thinks you're an embarrassment but won't kick you out because you're too damn good
>>45995918
And since the plasma sword is basically just a beam katana, now you too can be Travis Touchdown.Which is perfect because you'd have to be a highly skilled lunatic to seriously use a Plasma Sword in conflict other than 'huge robo monsters are after my blood'
>>45995714
>TFW Ultimate
>Seek to be the best there ever was
>At art
>The genetrash laughed at me
>Then I folded an origami knife and killed them in an exquisite dance of love and pain
>Then composed a poem about the incident while arranging their bodies for maximum impact upon observers
>I must improve further
>>45996148
Yep, that's an Ultimate.
>>45995918
>>45996128
The energy sword is pretty unfortunate. It's better than the other melee weapons but the damage per attack is just slightly greater than a pistol, and unlike pistols you can't burst fire it for bonus damage or get extra shots using a complex action
>>45994631
Because they're kind of fascists. Having a macho aesthetic but nothing backing it is kind of fascism's thing.
>>45997517
It's really disappointing that melee is so shit in EP. Yes, yes, I know, there's a reason guns have completely replaced swords, etc. But when you have to go to absurd lengths to make melee even vaguely competitive with "picking up a heavy pistol", shit is out of whack. Besides, SOM 40 is hilariously easy to get by RAW, I'd like to see some kind of nod to what happens when someone who can bench-press a small car gets hold of a mono-molecular-edged claymore.
>>45997540
I'm pretty sure the fact that they rank among the best and most respected warriors in the solar system backs up their machismo a bit.
>>45997865
>the best and most respected warriors in the solar system
I didn't realize the TITANs were a member of the Ultimate movement
>>45997715
>I'd like to see some kind of nod to what happens when someone who can bench-press a small car gets hold of a mono-molecular-edged claymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anEuw8F8cpE&t=12s
Also, well-honed swords already have monomolecular edges. Being really sharp isn't actually that helpful compared to other material properties.
>>45997715
I agree. They haven't really explored the horror and carnage of getting grabbed by someone strong enough to casually twist limbs off. At the same time I'm glad melee isn't a viable primary warfare strategy. That shit is stupid.
>>45997987
The TITANs weren't warriors. A warrior kills his fellow man to achieve victory. The TITANs killed insects for reasons that we can't fathom.
>>45997715
>>45998360
Melee attacks don't need to be on par with ranged weapons, but it would be nice if they did anything at all. All the graphics of space monsters with slavering jaws they toss into the books fall flat when you realize that, under RAW, they'd do no damage whatever through the average PC's armor
>>45998866
>>45999687
Daitya should have a counterweight mechanism to assist in picking up really heavy things in low gravity.
>>45999795
Who says it doesn't? You ever see any penalties to lift something in low gravity?
>>45999795
Or, you know, a magnetic system to anchor him to the floor.
>>45997987
They still had the best track record against the TITANs of any transhuman force.
>>46000040
Which is kind of like saying "They were the cockroaches that were most resistant to pesticides". Yes, it's true, but not exactly a point in their favor.
>>46000123
Compared to all the other cockroaches it is. And the TITANs are gone. If they wanted transhumanity dead, it would have happened already. So measuring against the other cockroaches is the only thing that matters now because the humans moved out of the house.
Also, they actually managed some victories against the TITANs. Real victories.
>>46000123
Nah, more like ants or bees than cockroaches. Roaches don't try and fight back.
>>46000182
>If they wanted transhumanity dead, it would have happened already.
It's like you don't know what "Eclipse Phase" actually means.
>>46000040
>>46000182
>>46000213
>t-they did pretty well ;_;
No, they lost, just like the rest of transhumanity. Either go full Seed AI or accept that you'll never be better than second best.
>>45999833
I can see the morph with my eyes
>>45999983
I don't think you understand how cranes work
>>46000362
Rules before art.
>>46000326
Yes, but as has been said, I'm not measuring them against the TITANs. I'm measuring them against the rest of transhumanity, because the TITANs are either gone, playing with us, or don't even want to kill us at this point.
>>46000408
Fine. They don't get any special bonuses to picking things up despite being designed for picking things up. Therefore they don't have a counterweight system, just like every other morph.
Happy with that, Anon Esquire?
>>46000468
>what's a SOM bonus
>>46000717
A general bonus rather than a specific one. A counterweight system won't help you punch harder. It will help you pick up an object with 10 times your mass in low gravity without falling forward.
>>46000425
>t-the TITANs aren't coming back!
Consortium shills belong on >>>r/neoliberalism
>>46001773
If the TITANs came back, we couldn't win. So we all may as well be fucking Scum for the time being.
If they're not coming back? Then you have to make the most of what we have. With anti-exsurgent precautions taken, of course.
Has anyone seen the movie The Congress? Cool flick with some eclipse phase themes
>>46001809
Depends on how you define your win condition.
>>46002023
Evolving beyond transhumanit to become a quasi-living macro-habitat with a transcendent mind, and descending upon the TITANs to drill into their computronium bodies and devour their minds. One day...
>>45998932
That's why you take heavy inspiration from Jetstream Sam and Metal Gear's cyborg ninjas in general, and wear power armor while dual-wielding monomolecular vibroswords, while using augmentations to jack your SOM up to 40.
Add in some active camouflage for your armor and a high Infiltration skill so that you don't get shot to death while closing to melee, and you're good to go.
Bonus points if you take a bunch of Psi Sleights and the Mental Speed mod so that you can cut bullets out of the air.
>>46002023
Beating the TITANs in a flashy final battle with the powers of courage, friendship, and fighting spirit.
>>46004337
Challenge them to a space jam
Here we go..
>>46006311
Bitch, please
>>46006311
>>46006415
Great. When's the anti-uploading terrorist group going to show up?
>>46006415
NO PLEASE, the cost of immortality is just too high
>>45994631
Because they're written as ineffective nazi boogiemen for the setting. In a setting where schoolkids do gene fuckery while stoned, they use insults like genetrash. It's like the Joviand.
>>46006444
Then you can die like the few billion people that have till now since the dawn of mankind.
What a self-sufficient station in the Belt should have? My players are going to get a base of operations there, which is an automated mining platform on a dug-out asteroid, which was stripped of mining machinery, sealed and equipped with basic life support. So, for now - a reactor, an air re-generator, a food maker, a healing vat with a micrograv-enabled medical robot, a comms array and an AI. Should there be anything else?
>>46007378
Drones to harvest from the asteroids it is near.
>>46007166
>few billion
Try 107 billion
>>46007378
They should ditch the automated stuff. If they don't, you're free to have it turn on them.
>>46007378
A nice red and white bullseye painted on it.
>>46007378
It definitely needs a hydroponics bay for vegetable feedstock and air recycling. Also maybe some meat vats to grow some decent meat.
Reminder that putting your dick in a TITAN means a promotion. Don't forget to let TIMMY out of his box
>>46004834
we will always beat the AIs at calvinball, we should challenge them to that
>>46007378
Manufacturing; I assume at least one big CM, but multiple is better, along with more specialized fabbers (ie, for structural materials). Along with a few bots, this can be a decent autofactory. Keep in mind the resources you have available, and what elements you'll need to import.
Fuel for both the reactor and any spacecraft you use. What you need will depend on the type of craft and reactor.
Water for both living and oxygen (and possibly fuel); you can recycle some of it, but you should have a reservoir and/or the ability to import or harvest water.
Heat management. You'll need to heat your living areas and any machinery that doesn't like super cold temperatures, and also prevent said heat from cooking you alive from waste heat. Radiators a must.
Sensors, to see stuff coming.
For your comms gear, decide who you need to communicate securely with, and work out a crypto arrangement (preferably quantum). Egocasts need to be secure, or you may regret it literally forever. Also: get an ego bridge for doing egocasts, backups and sleeving.
>>46009872
What's the scenario here? Planning on exporting?
>>46010609
No idea, I was just assuming it was meant to be a sort of 'home base' for PCs to hang out between adventures. You're going to need most of these regardless of your other activities, minus maybe spacecraft fuel (and you kind of want that, too).
>>46011027
Multiple CMs and bots to run a mini factory seems like overkill when you can't even move stuff from there to where your mission is.
>>46007378
Panopticon should provide a decent list of habitat systems and components, usually with some description of scale.
What you've described sounds a lot like what the book has to say on almost literal holes in the ground or tin can habs, like "Medical is the closet where we keep the healing vat and the doc robot".
>>45986096
REMOVE SURYA
>>45960251
How often does the average transhuman get to eat something that didn't come out of a maker?
When's the last time your character ate 'real food' /epg/?
>>46012113
My character is a French with Art: Cooking and Interest: Food. He only uses makers to supply the bland base ingredients and buys real or vat grown food for any ingredient that adds flavor. His father thinks makers are a culinary Great Satan and refuses to use them, ever.
>>45992195
>.357 Magnum is bad
Get out.
>>46000266
>implying implications that would be fine if the name were Latent Period instead of Eclipse Phase.
>>46012345
He's doing it wrong. Texture and consistency are what you're not going to get right from a maker.
>>46012403
I'm sorry for recognizing that bigger holes are better and .357 doesn't tumble like a .22.
.357 is nice if you want to shoot far but not accurately or if you want to but small holes in a bunch of guys lined up in front of each other so that each can get the wasted kinetic energy from the previous guy. Sort of like a matrioshka brain of death.
>>46013397
You must be trolling. No one could actually be this stupid.
>>46013742
What, do you think temporary wound cavities contribute significant to terminal ballistic performance?
>>46014251
They do if 500 ftlbs/ft are transferred, which isn't that difficult with hot loads.
>>46009226
I tried but the AI told me to put it back. It said the outside was too scary.
>>46014509
>500 ftlbs/ft
I'll ignore for a minute that abortion of a unit and point out that that the .45 has just as much energy in a considerably larger diameter.
How do you do microgravity combat with at least some sort of a map/battlegrid that doesn't bog down the game too much? I'm thinking of isometrics.
>>46015211
If you're using a map/grid system you're bogging the game down.
>>46015211
Just use variable height flight stands
>>46015307
But I really like making maps. And my players like them, too. I just want to speed up things.
>>46015432
I'd advise simple sketching of maps then and not focus too hard about precision, because you're gonna hurt yourself or somebody else trying to conceptualize like, proper 3D movement all the time.
Because structure in micrograv can be weird. Imagine say, a hexagonal "corridor", with exits that are "up" and "down" relative to where you start, but the moment you enter those rooms, they might be oriented so "down" was "forward" in the previous room to save space or something. Or they might have no orientation.
>>46015211
What >>46015751 said; also, most tactical situations are (roughly) planar (if that plane sometimes shifts from scene to scene). It's very rare that I've found myself needing to get elaborate with describing things in very 3D space.
>>46016149
That kind of room is suitable only with gravity. That means constant spinning at high speed. And that means that window is either a screen or is very capable of giving vertigo.
>>46016393
Eh, Cylinders have giant windows, it can't be that bad. Unless that's like, a relative distance thing. I'm not an expert in vertigo.
Do people with basic biomods even get vertigo?
>>46016630
>>45966251
size of a moon
>>46016676
>>46016708
>>46016630
>>46016630
>>46016676
The thing is, the horizon will be constantly spinning clockwise (or counter-clockwise, doesn't matter), at high speed, because the "down" is where the planet is, that means that the rotation axis is horizontal relative to the planet's surface here in these pictures.
Is an non-insane/non-genocidal TITAN too far out of flavour?
>>46016393
Why not both?
>>46016911
No, in fact you're probably working for one.
>>46016911
If you never GM'd, you probably don't want to read the spoiler. But there are some in the setting already.They are called Prometheans and they basically run the Firewall.
>>45986096
There's not too much that's really objectionable. Mostly I don't like how the jovian habs apparently have no loos.
It's just that extra icing of, 'lol stupid dumb conservatives can't even poo in loo" that the book gives off, so I get rid of some of the dumb stuff like that.
>>46016911
>>46017017
>not infected, just a little senile
>>45991984
/k/ here
this thing is drawn by someone who doesn't understand how guns work
>>46017082
Most space guns art is, sadly.
>>46016393
>That means constant spinning at high speed. And that means that window is either a screen or is very capable of giving vertigo.
>Not removing vertigo using biomods/psychosurgery.
Get a load of this bioconservative.
>>46017005
This is my first time DMing, and am just thinking of some possible plot-hooks/NPCs.Of course, I read the back of the book months ago.
>>46017017
>>46017005
Are there Prometheans/Seed AIs outside of Firewall?
>>46017172
Hacking your body like that is cheating. You're supposed to be sickly, diabetic blob of fat like the rest of us normal folks.That was a joke.
>>46017205
There are, most likely. If there isn't one, make one, nothing stops you from that.
>>46017172
>>46017226
This is why Eclipse Phase threads are close to extinction.
>>46017205
>This is my first time DMing, and am just thinking of some possible plot-hooks/NPCs.
As a general rule, any seed AIs are going to be *very low key* about what they are, and being seed AIs, generally speaking no one is going to find out unless said seed AI wants them to. More to the point, most people aren't going to willingly work for said seed AI due both the fact that working for a machine god that might exterminate humanity is non-fun, and that if anyone catches wind of the fact that they work for a machine god (or even that they *believe* they work for a machine god), society will flush their stack out an airlock and take a magnet to the backups.
So it's not something the players are ever likely to learn, and wouldn't be helpful if they did. It *can* work, but it's something you want to think about in relation to your specific characters and what they want and believe.
In any case, if you want plot hooks, tell us what you're interested in (and what your players are interested in, obviously).
>>46017205
Probably. The thing about Seed AI isn't that they're all evil, it's that only one of them needs be be evil to ruin everything, and you can never be sure whether it is evil until it's too late.
>>46017152
>proprietary .45 GOOG
>>46017205
There can be if you want 'em.
A plot point idea I've never yet fully worked on or run with is the idea of a Seed AI type system which was isolated on earth in like, a remote lab think tank, which wouldn't be directly subverted because the humans blew out all the comms and ordered the AI to lock out all external communications, so it's just been twiddling it's thumbs for the last 10 years waiting to get new orders from anybody, killing it's time doing all the routine outpost tasks it's supposed to do. AI cabin fever is a fun idea.
What will a human become if it starts improving at seed AI rate? What would it be called? Is there anything in the books about such cases?
>>46017517
Exhumans or singularity seeker.
>>46017574
Are there any successful ones among those?
>>46017517
X-Threat
>>46017338
I was actually thinking something pretty similar to this >>46017488
A group of people, undecided who would be the best fit for it, basically have a Seed AI trapped in a giant computer in space. It's got no means of communication besides what the faction provides, no means of developing itself, and no means of freeing itself. So along comes the party, because Firewall has said this small faction/subfaction is a potential X-risk and they have to investigate. If they somehow get into contact with the thing, it's obviously gonna ask them to let it free. Basically a much larger scale Timmy situation. Except, if they do free it it would actually just be totally benign. Maybe even help them to some extent clean up the actual x-risks that the faction have contained/uncontained at their facility.
>>46017599
No, not so much. It's generally Firewall's job to shoot those people.
>>46017599
Human brains aren't built for getting much smarter while remaining sane and human, and most people break something in the process. The most successful attempts at getting smart have resulted from group-mind efforts, and even those aren't *that* much smarter as a whole.
If it was as easy as just starting to programing yourself recursively, humanity would have undergone a hard takeoff by now (because one of the corps would have done it, if no one else - probably Cognite).
>>46017636
It's interesting, though part of the problem is that friendliness is difficult to prove. By default, anything not programmed to be capital-F Friendly (ie, reliably encode human values, not just be non-aggressive) is incredibly dangerous, and you can't trust anything the potential seed AI itself says - after all, if it wasn't friendly, it would just lie, and you can't trust that you'd see through any lie it would create.
One possible mission resulting from that kind of scenario is less to acquire the AGI itself, but to find the research that was used to create it so that you have ways to verify its Friendliness. This may involve raiding old research labs, as well as tracking down AGI scientists who are probably not interested in letting anyone know what field they were in.
>>46017993
>One possible mission resulting from that kind of scenario is less to acquire the AGI itself, but to find the research that was used to create it so that you have ways to verify its Friendliness. This may involve raiding old research labs, as well as tracking down AGI scientists who are probably not interested in letting anyone know what field they were in.
I actually like that a lot. Thanks for being so helpful.
>>46017636
>>46017993
I'd have the AI not ask to be let out - nobody told it about the Fall, but it's smart enough to guess that something Bad will happen if it does come out. Instead, it just asks them why they can't let it out.
>>45963333
>TFW I can be the bike in a biker gang and have my redneck bitch ride me.
Being a synth is so gangster.
>>45992533
>not integrating the battery in the magazine
>>46016149
Holy shit that's a big apartment for an orbital.
>>46018625
Yeah, it's at least a [Moderate], possibly a [High]
>>46018370
>>46018677
>>46018706
Would it be possible to have The Fall without resorting to space cthulhu?
I have this idea in mind for the Promethians and Titans to have been created from the ego of a post singularity race that tried (and failed, obviously) to make use of and control Async powers with the fragments of code that makes up the ego being used to create the various AIs and be the progenitor of most info-life.
Earth would still be wrecked, only there wouldn't be some kind of techno plague trying to create temples to long forgotten gods or anything (and introduce Earth Crashing)
>>46018677
>>46018706
>>46018729
I have a feeling that BMX styled races would be the shit on Mars, think of the jumps you can make.
>>46017993
>Human brains aren't built for getting much smarter while remaining sane and human, and most people break something in the process.
Fucking biocons.
Anything they don't understand is "insane".
>>46018802
Well yeah. The TITANs might have just been faulty from the start. Hard launching post-human intelligences might have just done irreparable damage to at least one of them, who them started a war with the others who were so far beyond humanity they didn't even care. Maybe one of them cooks up exsurgency and then promptly gets killed by it and it's loose.
>>46018547
>batteries with no electrical contacts
>>45992533
>>46018949
It could be located in the grip. Or integrated into the casing.
>>46018848
That's pretty much what I was going with. The idea being that it goes from WWIII to "Why is the TITAN system authorizing this laun- OH SHIT!" and then weird shit like hyper insane/violent pods and nano swarms happens as a result.
>>46018802
>I have a feeling that BMX styled races would be the shit on Mars, think of the jumps you can make.
There is actually a sidebar in the section on I think Noctis? where they discuss that space bikes vs parkour or something. Since there are some urban neighborhoods which are too packed even for like, two-man smart cars.
>>46016976
>>46017205OZMA has Agent T
>>46018802
>Would it be possible to have The Fall without resorting to space cthulhu?
See here http://eclipsephase.com/comment/29183#comment-29183 . TL;DR - the exsurgent virus was a weapon built by desperate scientists out of an otherwise peaceful probe containing useful alien tech, that they used on the TITANs out of fear of what they were evolving to become.
There's other options. Maybe the TITANs were at war with themselves. Maybe the TITANs weren't the only seed AI - the TITANs were US projects, but what about Europe, or China? Maybe the TITANs were intended to go wrong from the start, made destructive by sabotage on the part of the team that created them for their own reasons. There are options here.
>>46019080
Not surprising. I'm curious how often people look up and see random people flying across rooftops and dome-scrapers.
>>46019213
Routinely, freerunning is the single most common sport in any hab with enough room and gravity to actually run around on. The reaction would be mild annoyance at worst until someone does a five-story faceplant all over your clothes.
>>46019213
Probably fairly often. It's mentioned in the section on at least Martian city that freerunning is so common the "roof" layer often has features to make it easier. The lower gravity has to be pretty good for efficiency of movement. Not to mention shitloads of common morph types come with a SOM bonus.
Plus like >>46019276 said, it's one of the few nigh-universal sports of Transhumanity, besides futbol.
>>46019010
You could see that
>>46019345
>futbol
Lowgrav would make it unplayable. Rugby would work well. Handegg would need some reworking, but it could work, unlike futbol.
>>46019080
>>46019611
Technically, I think the futbol has been customized to account for low grav. There's no way people wouldn't try and figure it out, given how popular it is. It'd be big on Venus and Jupiter cylinders still anyway.
