Justification of Essence Costs Options

[elbows]

This has been bugging me for a while. In Man and Machine, they make a big deal about clarifiying the cause of essence loss -- specifically, interfacing machines with the human brain causes essence loss.

They claim to have gone through and reconsidered the essence costs of all cyberware based on this criteria, but there are a number of items that don't make sense.

Consider headware radios, at .75 essence. The mind-machine interface here is basically an on/off switch (and maybe frequency selection as well). The actual talking part is not handled by a direct neural interface (unless you pay extra for the "cyber-telepathy" add-on, whatever it's called).

Compare to a smartlink at .5 essence, which includes a limited simsense rig (recording your movements), visual output (images sent directly to your brain), plus a bunch cybernetic "switches" for changing firing mode, ejecting clips, etc. Basically, you're connecting a much more complex machine to your brain, but the cost is lower.

Also, a headware cell phone costs (IIRC) .5 as well -- but it's basically the same device as a radio, though slightly more complex.

And then there's bone lacing, which has a pretty high essence cost, but as far as I can tell has _no_ connection to the brain at all. And even if it is somehow connected to your nervous system, why does titanium cost more essence than plastic?

Other than the obvious answer of "game balance", can anyone justify the essence costs of these pieces of cyberware?

[GrinderTheTroll]

I always thought the more impact it had on your overall person the more essence it costs. The "loss of essence" is your becoming more machine than person. More invasive cyberware means more essence.

Balance is a major factor, but the headware radio vs. phone essence cost has always seemed high.

[tjn]

I really like Doc's idea. It's not canon, but it fits very neatly into existing canon and promotes fusion.

[Teulisch]

The way i see it, is that essence represents your bodys natural micro-electric feild, or whatever its is. This is what powers magic abilities, and what creates an aura. Without it your braindead. So the cyberware, which needs no external power supply yet can do all this wonderfull stuff, is 1) using up some of that bio-electric to power itself, and 2) removing the % of your flesh you have left. Headware is more vital (because its in the brain) even though its smaller. And less body tissue should mean less pheremones, thus explaining the minimum +1 diff to social for low essence (you smell wrong on a subconsious level)

Cyberzombies need magic to be created, and have a negative impact on the astral as technomagic keeps a corpse alive.

Personaly, i prefer keeping 1.01+ essence of my sams so i can get 4 points of bioware. that and a lil essence loss wont kill me outright.

for the radio issue, what expensive is getting enough charge from your body to transmit a signal. Phones are easier because they have less interconnection with the brain... and makes you very easy to find by anyone who knows your number.

[elbows]

Grinder, I like the "more invasive = more essence loss" idea. The hard part there is definining "invasive" -- which is probably what led to the "mind-machine interface = essence loss" interpretation.

tjn, your idea that using the body's energy to power cyberware causes essence loss is cool, but I'm not sure it explains bone lacing (which is basically just inert material).

Of course, I'm not sure that there's _any_ possible interpretation under which it makes sense for titanium lacing to cost more than plastic. I've been thinking of house-ruling bone lacing to break it down by levels instead of material -- higher level = more stuff in your body, which leads to more essence loss (if we use Grinder's intepretation).

And yeah, I always house-rule radios and phones to have much lower essence costs (and the same cost for both).

[Moon-Hawk]

If you define essence as the similarity between the physical form and the astral pattern then the more an implant changes your functionality, your abilities, the more different you feel, and are, from your astral template, and thus that connection is weakened. Which is why things that have zero impact on normal functionality (like cortex bombs) or things that maintain regular functionality (like pacemakers) don't cost essence, but titanium makes you more different from your astral template then plastic does because it more drastically changes your abilities and makes you less like "yourself."

[Cray74]

The problem with "bio-electric fields" powering cyberware is how pathetically little power the human body generates in an electric format. You'd need something like 25000 human brains to make an LED flicker. FanPro's BT side is wising up to that, but SR still keeps talking about "bioelectricity" powering cyberware.

Essence loss is fairly explicable using the Earthdawn concept of "patterns," the universe's blueprints for people and objects. A passive implant like bonelacing is altering the body's performance by making the bones tougher - ergo, the "true pattern" is altered. Or rather, the body is altered away from the original "true pattern," and the change manifests as essence loss. Titanium bonelacing alters the recipient more than plastic bonelacing (higher body bonus), hence the higher essence cost.

[tjn]

[Tanka]

[Cray74]

[Cynic project]

It is largelya game blance thing. In fact that is all that it is. With a few problem areas, such as things in the head.

[tjn]

[DrJest]

I can see matters have changed a lot in this field since 2nd Ed.

For the record, the SR2 (courtesy of Cybertechnology and the Cyberzombies material, I think) version of this has already been stated: that installing cyberware causes your physical pattern to deviate from your astral pattern. When the deviation gets too big (Essence 0) your physical pattern thinks it's dead, so you die. Remember the chilling conversation Hatchetman had with his doctor?

"I asked him if I was alive
He said yes.
I asked him if I was going to stay alive.
He said yes, as long as I remembered.
Remembered what, I asked.
Remembered that I was alive, he answered."

[Lindt]

Woh, where was that from? I just got a brain typhoon for a game....

[Tanka]

Lindt: Cybertechnology in the Cyberzombies section.

[Arethusa]

A word of advice for those who haven't heard it before: shut your head off when you look at the essence values for the radio and phone. They're wrong, they're stupid, and they're broken, and best of all, they're very easy to fix.

[DrJest]

Lindt, the old Cybertechnology book has a truly amazing piece of fluff dealing with Hatchetman becoming a cyberzombie. Spine-chilling :) It's a lot shorter, but I'd rate it up there with the Universal Brotherhood piece, and to a lesser extent the fiction from VR1.0. You owe it to yourself to read it :D

Arethusa, yeah, a lot of it is pretty naff. Especially when you look at all the options you need to make it work worth a damn. From a personal point of view, I'd pretty much halve the essence costs of nearly all the communications cyberware. A headware radio/telephone is practically the first thing any cyber-aware culture sticks in its heads, for crying out loud.

[Kagetenshi]

[Da9iel]

coating =? complete covering?

[Tanka]

Not always.

My coat covers my arms and chest, but not my neck.

[Da9iel]

You wear a coating over your arms and chest? Can I see! :spin:

[Kagetenshi]

*Waves hand* This is not the inconsistency you're looking for :)

~J

[Da9iel]

*click* "Uh, this is not the inconsistency I'm looking for." *click* :alien:

[Kanada Ten]

They actually make a big deal of "altering the metahuman body and how it functions" as the great big cause of essence loss.

[Ol' Scratch]

So why doesn't getting shot, burned, stabbed, or de-limbed cause Essence loss? I'm pretty sure that counts as altering the metahuman body and how it functions. Same goes for accupuncture, surgery, implantation of an artificial knee, and lots of other things.