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Posted by: PlatonicPimp Aug 6 2007, 01:30 AM

OK, so I just took a look at the rules in augmentation for reprogramming Nanites closely. I'm thinking of a character with some awesome hard nanites with a nanohive (maybe the wild card edge, not sure). The rules require 24 hits on an engineering (nanotech) extended test with 1 hour intervals to reprogram the nanites.

Here's my questions: once the nanites have been reprogrammed, do you need to do it again to put them back to their origional function, or can you just switch them back? Also, once you reprogram your nanites, can you save that program and load it back up later without having to make the test? If so, can I just purchase the appropriate program? At what cost?

My personal thoughts are that the program to execute the nanite's function can indeed be saved, once you make the test. Thus you would be able to just switch between nanite functions by executing the script you wrote from your commlink. This would let you switch between all funcitons easily once you've done it. And yes, you can buy those scripts pre-written, and the cost is exactly the same as the appropriate rating of the nanite's you are programming the wild cards to emulate.

Thoughts?

Posted by: weblife Aug 6 2007, 08:51 AM

We have houseruled that you can keep the program and run it again later.

However, you keep the same number of glitches and the time it takes to readjust the nanites are also unchanged.

Say i reach 24 successes after 8 hours and 2 glitches, every time i load this program to my nanites, they suspend i 8 hours and the effect has the 3 same glitches.

Of course, you can then keep trying to write the "perfect" program.

Theoretically you do not need to actually run the program while writing it, you just need a sufficient datamodel.

Oh, and we have also ruled that these programs are specific to their environment. My nanite program cannot be used by another person because of the differences in physical makeup.

Of further note, the special reprogrammable nanites you get from the 30 point are supposed to be easy to reprogram, however they refer to the standard reprogramming rules, in which you lose the colony if you roll a critical glitch. We houseruled that they are sturdier than that and simply treat a critical glitch as a faulty program to be ignored, in worst case they idle.

In addition, the extended test is not in hours but in 10s of minutes. Still 24 in threshold though.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Aug 6 2007, 09:46 AM

Posted by: PlatonicPimp Aug 6 2007, 01:50 PM

Yeah, but I don't like being an ass about it.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Aug 6 2007, 01:56 PM

It's better to get soft ones, anyway:
Less worries about scanners and reprogramming them into Sutr - oh, and they run on bio-energy, so they are Green, too.

Posted by: PlatonicPimp Aug 6 2007, 01:58 PM

Also, what happens when you take your rating 9 hard nanites and reprogram to, say, a control rig booster at rating 5? The normal ware only goes up to 3. I'd limit it to three as a gm, but the exploit is currently open.

Posted by: Jaid Aug 6 2007, 05:50 PM

Posted by: OneSeventeen Aug 7 2007, 01:22 PM

I don't have the book (yet--I have a physical object fetish), but how does it say that nano-machines work? If they're like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bova describes, then you have to kind of chemically program them. It seems to me that some kind of HDD on the machines themselves would be a waste of space (the point is really small, right?).

I don't dislike the model where you can store the algorithm that changed them on your commlink and sort of replay it which takes the same amount of time and has the same number of glitches, etc. as before. I do feel like it's a bit odd to be able to simply flip between programming. It feels a little too powerful, I guess. Of course, I haven't play-tested it or anything.


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Posted by: hobgoblin Aug 7 2007, 03:32 PM

afaik, the soft (protein based) ones cant be reprogrammed.

but the hard (carbon, buckyball, diamond. can someone say diamond age?) ones can, to a limited degree...

that is, if they are maintained by a hive...

Posted by: PlatonicPimp Aug 7 2007, 03:52 PM

Yes, with an appropriat test, and taht is the extent of the rules. It leaves a lot of questions open. How long does it take for the nanites to change function, separate from the time it takes to figure out the program? Do you have to make the reprogramming test every time you change the nanite function? Even to revert back to it's origional function? If only a developer would drop by....

Posted by: OneSeventeen Aug 7 2007, 06:30 PM

I think I would rule, if it were up to me alone, that the nanites have no space for memory, so you'd have to refigure out the program every time. Or re-write it, I guess. I would probably give a modifier of some kind of it was a program you wrote a lot. This is new technology, right? I think user-friendliness is not where it's at yet... They're still getting it to work as expected. They'll give you an IDE in another few years.

This is purely my interpretation and I've not even seen the book, so take that with salt to taste.


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Posted by: PlatonicPimp Aug 7 2007, 09:05 PM

Maybe writing or aquiring the script to program the nanites is really easy, but compiling, configuring and running the program is really hard. Which means that the test isn't to write the program, but to run it.