Eclipse Phase General /epg/

>>45335330
>I haven't seen many Eclipse Phase threads lately, so let's get one rolling!

I don't know, we use to have them regularly but the tide turned recently and all /tg/ talks about is how mechanics suck (debatable, character creation sucks balls but the basic task resolution is a dream) and how the devs are a bunch of wankers (totally true)

I like eclipse phase

>>45335330
>Also can someone post the OP copypasta?

OFFICIAL BOOKS
>Eclipse Phase PDFs
http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs
>Zone Stalkers
https://robboyle.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/ps21811_eclipsephase_zonestalkers.pdf
>Morph Recognition Guide
http://www.mediafire.com/download/j4bjbba89kw8v0y/Eclipse_Phase_Morph_Recognition_Guide_%286098716%29.pdf
>Million Year Echo
https://robboyle.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/ps21812_millionyearecho.pdf
>Firewall (Updated):
http://www.mediafire.com/view/r9qja2gyg0bi222/Eclipse_Phase_Firewall_%287029562%29.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

>>45335330
>What soundtracks do you guys use for your EP games?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsJXfkOlCLw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrenNlr1Wzo

The bits with voices in don't quite work, but played quietly enough, it'll just add to the generally unsettling nature of the soundtracks.

>>45335330
Ive never played EP but i do collect sci-fi music.

http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=gfpQjtTrCEk#Introduction_-_Mirror_s_Edge_[OST]
http://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=1EPqrdgR4i8#EVE_Online_Jukebox-Safe_Trade_Routes

Does anyone want me to dump my list for EVE ost? Or are you already familiar with it?

>>45338581
>Does anyone want me to dump my list for EVE ost?

I'm familiar with it, but want it anyway.

>>45338612
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wOrYz701W8&index=30&list=PL7D3714705FE7676F
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92D93JYB2OU&list=PL7D3714705FE7676F&index=35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaZME7Z7dlc

Thats all the really good ones.

>>45335330
I think the Syndicate Wars soundtrack is neat for Eclipse Phase; it's weird, sort of futuristic and kind of disconcerting in places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJjoq3kdaTc

Roll20 must not like eclips phase as its not listed in their 'find a group' tab.

>>45335330
Some other soundtrack-ish options.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyKNUj-AjgA
Ghosts by Nine Inch Nails. Varies a fair bit, but chances are good there's something in amongst this album you could use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT-QJ15mTcQ
Starbound soundtrack, though it might not be good if you've got people who have played that video game.

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>>45335330
Basically anything from Killer7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05oc2udeGpA
Or Deus Ex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vTvHsHx4TM
Or LISA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1a_LxEW2bU

>>45340569
Roll20 is shit, though.

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One thing I've found weird about the character creation is that everything is incredibly expensive for a "post scarcity" setting. Why spend a shitton of points on a tricked out morph with all the implants when you can just buy a stock model and healing vat and soak for a little bit while it upgrades you. I've witnessed similar complaints with software/equipment and fabbers. I get that normally you would have to pay a licensing fee but blueprints must be easily and freely piratable on the mesh, especially in the outer system where IP enforcers won't forknap you.

>>45344109
It's well-known that as-written, morphs and gear are a trap option and the ultimate munchkin build is an infomorph with maxed-out networking and rep who spends the first session buying every blueprint he can get his digital hands on. Personally, I encourage players to buy morphs but gently suggest a 30 CP soft limit as the threshold of 'good investment'. That said, "Oh shit, I died, we need to find a healing vat to repair my morph while I play infomorph" is a good plot to use once or twice, just not all the time

>>45344109

You need blueprints for healing vat upgrades. But yeah, buying things is dumb, don't do it. I think that's largely the point: the authors made the "new economy" mechanically superior to credits. Just think of how cheap Rep is in this game: you are meant to buy rep with your Character Points and consider yourself superior to inner-system weirdos who use Credits, the trap option.

Of course, there is one thing the authors overlooked: as-written, indentures are CHEAP and can only be bought with credits. There's an indenture trait, but that's a trap option: instead look at the sidebar about the IndEx and read the fluff, and you find that people work long periods of time just for a cheap morph and a 250-500 cred IndEx fee.

So in short: buy a Cornucopia Machine, spend CP on Robotics skill, get a case blueprint and buy people with the skills to make or obtain blueprints. You will be richer than any high-rep Anarchist in no time.

>>45344109
>>45344162

The Futura morph is worth more credits than its CP cost (apparently because it is valued by collectors), so it is a good investment to start with a Futura and sell it at first opportunity. Then buy indentures, as >>45344303 said.

Do Remade have genitals/sexes? I'm honestly curious about this, because it seems like they're exclusively grown rather than born, and the people that buy them probably want them for specific reasons that don't include anything sexual. They'd also have the best mix of hormones naturally possible so there wouldn't be any sexual dimorphism between a male and a female remade in that sense.

>>45344303
>the authors made the "new economy" mechanically superior to credits

They actually didn't. They tried but they used the credit cost to determine the favor cost of goods and services for balance purposes. This torpedoes their whole "artificial scarcity" narrative by making things that are rare and expensive in the Consortium just as rare and expensive in the Autonomist Alliance. Not only are the favor costs equivalent to the credit costs, so are the times to actually fabricate things. Contrary to what the fluff says, under RAW making a full set of gear from blueprints with a CM can take literal days.

Also, Space Travel and Egocasting are both [Expensive] meaning that it costs the same amount to physically transport your body somewhere as it does to beam your mind as data.

Oh and don't forget that EMP grenades are [High] cost despite being trivial to make using only an electronic device and some copper wire

>>45344502
>they're exclusively grown rather than born
this is true about every morph
>the people that buy them probably want them for specific reasons that don't include anything sexual.
from a previous /epg/

>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

>>45344792
Not necessarily. I know there's fluff of someone who's birth morph is a hibernoid.

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>>45344502
>Do Remade have genitals/sexes?

I imagine there is a not-insignificant percentage of ultimates who go neuter to avoid the distraction. On the other hand, perhaps having the desire and conquering it anyway is more their style.

Pic related looks like a female remade.

How have people changed or interpreted the fluff when they run their games? Frankly I'm getting bored with the idea of the Titan Virus as cthulhu as malware and having the factors being just random aliens that tell you that using the pandora gates is not a good idea so without boring anyone to death here's the TL:DR on what I had in mind

>Post singularity race that existed before humans and developed Async powers which enabled them to create the various gates
>Factors were essentially like Shoggoths and used as such by this race
>Something happened and forced survivors to shield their egos inside of life boats
>After hundreds of thousands of years one of these lifeboats finds its way on earth and the first AIs and much of the tech present in the game is discovered out of it
>Didn't realize at the time they were essentially chopping apart of living ego with PTSD and the fragments have a melt down activating Async powers
>The AIs made from it wake up, some go insane and some are just confused as to wtf and people exposed to it develop Async powers as well
>Long story short, Earth 10 years after the fall is still a battle ground of various automated defense systems and rogue sythns/pods/survivors duking it out and people make a living Earth Crashing for shit left there.

>>45338384
farcastblog is dead, did anyone save the content?

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>>45337529

I do too, anon.

>>45335330
>What soundtracks do you guys use for your EP games?

Infected Mushroom, Glitch Mob, the odd vidya OST ranging from DX:HR to Not A Hero.

What would your reaction to being offered employment as an indentured prostitute be?

>>45345837

Spin off fork, review contract in extensive detail at maximum time dilation in a simulspace run in an in-built server. Weigh the offer's pros and cons: on one hand, I could spin off a fork to do it with a programmed autodelete at the end of the term, but on the other hand the reputation cost, etc. Probably decline, but log the event for future analysis while another fork investigates over mesh to discover the offerer's motives.

My character is pretty rich, so she/he/it does not need the money.

>>45347740
What about the experience of being an indentured prostitute firsthand?

>>45347799

There are XPcasts for that.

Have any of you guys tried Eclipse Phase over a play by email/post format?

I'm trying to get something like this set up with a few friends and it's taken nearly 6 months for them to finish their characters (I've had to spoon feed one guy through the process, twice).

I'm hoping there's a chance I could get my itch to play the game in some other way.

>>45348516
>I'm trying to get something like this set up with a few friends and it's taken nearly 6 months for them to finish their characters (I've had to spoon feed one guy through the process, twice).

When you have these sorts of players (for any game), just give them pregens to play with and start. Or use Transhuman's random-rolled chargen. If they refuse, give up and move on.

>Have any of you guys tried Eclipse Phase over a play by email/post format?
I haven't tried EP over PbP; the closest was over IRC. The trouble with PbP is that there are a lot of variables to every action, and a typical EP character has a dozen actions per turn, and that's before getting into forks. If I send what I do to the GM, and the GM responds, and I send the next thing I do, and the GM responds... a single round could take months. EP needs to be played in real time, or else you will never get anywhere.

I say it every thread in the hopes it will somehow come true.

I want to know more about the Yazidi. I want the timates to stop being proto nazi jedi who make huge philosophical errors because the devs are cunts (Gene trash. Really? Im a setting where that is malleable school kids can fuck with it?).

I want more exoplanets, I want xrisks to come out and I want more goddamned energy weapons. And more on the damned exaurgent virus.

>>45344109
Costs about 60cp for a seriously upgraded fury morph, which is wholly achievable through rep or charcreation with a bit of fuckery. Not counting the cost of the fury. There are plenty of cheaper almost as good morphs too.

Is very strange.

I find it funny that the assorted bio morphs designed for specific environments can't survive there. Space, mostly. Cryonic temp tolerance lets a biomorph survive at -200. Space? -270. That sort of thing.

>>45349194
>space is cold
Please don't tell me this is in the GM guide or something. I want to have faith in EP.

>>45344815
Most morphs are fertile or can be made so if you pay the licence fee. The weird shit like Nomads probably aren't. Most uplifts probably are.

>>45349238
They never mention the explicit temp of space. Titanian hulders can survive on the surface of titan - neg 197 or 170. I forget. Ring flyers, the naked biobeasts who are supposed to wing around the system, high as kites? Freeze instantly.

>>45349486

Actually, you won't. Space is not cold, you are getting your science wrong. -270 is the temperature of an object exposed to only background radiation for a long time. Space has no particles to carry heat, so energy is lost only through radiation... and gained through the same.

An object in direct sunlight in space will actually get REALLY HOT. That's why spacesuits are white, by the way: to reflect sunlight to keep the astronaughts from getting roasted alive in space. An object in shade in space will gradually cool by shedding infrared radiation. This takes a long time.

So no, EP did not get its science wrong in this particular instance. You did.

So I've had in mind a PC who started off as a celebrity MMA fighter before joining Direct Action and pursuing a business career afterwards.

In the Transhumanist future, which morph do you think would be the standard to test a fighter's skill without any of those fancy upgrades?

Splicers come to mind since, aside from the basic bio mods. Doesn't have any enhanced physical features in the way Exalts and Olympians do

>>45349070
Furys are fairly poor combat morphs for their cost anyway. Synth armor alone makes biomorphs suboptimal.
>But prejudice!
Just throw a synthetic mask on that shit if it's causing an image problem.

>>45349486
>>45349682
Savage.

>>45350103
Maybe a flat?

>>45350103
Provided they are both in the same morph I don't think it matters because any advantage is mirrored. Organizations like the MMA would probably crack down on implants like they do steroids.

>>45350273

Can you even just make flats? Does it no longer count as one if you have a stack in it?

>>45350103
I reckon a fighting organization like that would have "categories" similar to modern middleweight, heavyweight, etc. As in, you'd watch bouncer vs bouncer and splicer vs splicer fights where both morphs have the same implants/advantages, in order to keep it fair.

>>45351354
Well, yes, but on the flip side, you have "ULTIMATE KILLBOT CHALLENGE!!!", filmed live on a secret asteroid base where people from all over the Solar System compete to design the most hilariously monstrous and deadly synthmorph they can, put the most psychotically violent ego they can find inside, and let them stalk and destroy each other live for rep and entertainment. It's a poor episode if the asteroid doesn't experience a hull breach in the first 15 minutes. Any rumors that Firewall recruits Erasure Squad members from ULTIMATE KILLBOT CHALLENGE!!! contestants, or that Erasure Squad members are commonly entered as contestants, are untrue. Please report any rumors along those lines you hear to your Proxy

>>45350838
Flats aren't a morph without a cortical stack. They're human baseline morphs without the absolute minimum standard gene-manipulations. They get fucked up by non-standard gravity, colds, not sleeping a full 4 hour cycle. They have vision problems, asthma, allergies, heart arhythmia, unsightly fat deposits. There brain architecture isn't even standardised.

>>45345488
Yeah he made a PDF a while back

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8jLNAO9v2X5bWg5RmJHczJyeFU/edit

>>45351852

Well yes, I'm aware of all the disadvantages of being a flat I just figure no one would go out of their way to make one even though there are a few people who keep flat bodies on hand as collectors items and occasionally sleeve into them for shits and giggles

>>45351635
>Martian Bum fights
>Hypercorp X caster who fights poor and down on their luck morphs and promises pay in rep and credits for exps of their fights against fellow bums
>Pretty popular on luna seeing two synth beggers tearing each other limb to limb for a chance to get a pod and a hefty amount of credits.

>>45344596
>Not only are the favor costs equivalent to the credit costs

Although it's worth remembering that, in Autonomist Alliance areas at least (not counting the Extropians), the favour cost is the cost associated with essentially jumping the queue, rather than an amount of favour you've got to burn up/give to somebody else to get a thing in the first place. Firewall Agents might find themselves having to call in favours to jump the queue, because their missions are often time-critical, but it's not the case that you need to accrue a certain amount of reputation before you'd be allowed to use, say, egocasting facilities.

There's a useful section in Rimward about it (p176, "Reputation Econmies") that helps to highlight the important differences between the economic styles.

When using Transhuman's life path, for skills, do you add your aptitude to the package level or no?

>>45355531
Yeah.
If you're aptitude is 15 and your packaged skill is ranked at 40, your skill total on your character sheet will be 15+40= 55.

>>45348706
He's a good friend, but he's incapable of doing stuff like this without guidance. I proposed Eclipse Phase because the die resolution mechanic was similar to other d100 games - if I tried to reinvent the wheel I'd have no chance of getting any understanding.

I can't/don't really want to commit to spending 6-8 hours on a session (consecutively). Too many other hobbies and Wife/Work - taking an month to walk down a hallway for a campaign/session is perfectly fine for me as far as PbP so long as I can do it in a leisurely fashion.