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> Move-By-Wire and what I've experienced..., physical therapy got me thinking
Stumps
post Nov 27 2004, 07:52 PM
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I'm in physical therapy to overcome muscle atrophy.

They stick these pads on me in exact locations on my leg and then send a current of electricity through my leg to jolt the nerves into reacting.
In my case, this is being done to remind my leg muscle how it's supposed to function where the nerves have forgotten.

What I discovered in this was that I had no real control over how much my leg would jump.
Sometimes it was a lot and other times it wasn't much at all.

So...being a junkie of SR, I of course, started thinking of move-by-wire systems.
Basically, a jolt of electricity makes them snap-to faster than they normally would.

But what I wonder is...exactly how good of an accuracy would you have if your arm was being jolted into position at a speed that isn't determined exactly by you.
It's not a reaction that you are naturally used to. That, in fact, is exactly why it's in place. To give you a reaction that's faster than you are used to.

I'm starting to think that ones accuracy would be decreased by such movement, at least, in some degree as their arms shot around like mildly wild puppet arms without a direct control of their exact final location or amount of power and speed control that was put into that movement.

Just something that I was thinking.
It may have no basis.
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Tanka
post Nov 27 2004, 08:02 PM
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You aren't used to it at first, but you do get used to it.

Take, for instance, somebody training to be quicker on the draw. They're clumsy at first, but slowly they get better at it.

Reaction enhancements are similar. You aren't used to the new speed you have at first, but after some time you grow used to it and shake with fear that you ever have to downgrade.

Kind of like going from dialup to broadband.
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Tarantula
post Nov 27 2004, 08:56 PM
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Perhaps you're thinking of wired reflexes, as move by wire puts you into a permanent seizure in which its controlling computer negates until you try to move, it then allows only those muscles to move, giving you unnatural smoothness with your movments, as well as faster.
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Cray74
post Nov 27 2004, 08:59 PM
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Tarantula described Move-By-Wire pretty well. However, even wired reflexes involves a degree of conscious control. The cybernetics is just accelerating your desired muscle command between the brain and muscles.
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Tarantula
post Nov 27 2004, 09:42 PM
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Along with that though, does that mean move by wire users don't move at all when they want to be still? Being that the computer controls all their muscular movements, and restricts them unless they want it to move, could they 'freeze' and not move, similar to mice or squirrels when they think they've been spotted?
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lodestar
post Nov 27 2004, 09:46 PM
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The big difference between Move by wire and Wired reflexes is that wired reflexes is just that - hardwired into your system - so it provides reflexes before you have to think about them - very similar to skill wires which are basically the same system just with a broader more generaly set of reactions. That's why you can turn of wired reflexes - its simply like removing the skill chip.

Move by wire OTOH dispenses with the human nervous system entirely your brain simply being hooked directly to the computer that controls the electrical impulses to your body. The computer determines by the brain's input what is desired and computes exactly the movements required to achieve the desired action - much better than the brain itself could compute which muscles to actuate. Now since brain power is no longer being taken up figuring out which muscles are needed for a desired action - the brain can be on to its next descision.

The comparisson to jolting your muscles into action is apt, if a far cruder meathod of doing it. When the electrode that's on your skin applies the impulse the signal to the particular muscle is random and haphazard - it affects the muscle differently depending on the conductivity of your skin and which of the muscle cells recieve the jolt that they interpret the signal to contract. The consistency of the jolt applied probably varies as well. In a move by wire system imagine that the musle itself has been directly wired for said jolt to the point at which the MBW computer can specifically control individual muscle strands to achieve a much more precise result. In the case of the MBW system as presented in game terms it would seem that all the muscles are constanly recieving the actuation signal and the computer simpy gives the "relax" command to the required muscles to speed up the system even more.

But that's just the way I interpret it, YVMV. ;)
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Stumps
post Nov 27 2004, 11:18 PM
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Either of the two, wired reflexes or move-by-wire, can fall into the quesiton that I've had.

The reason that the question comes up isn't due to a question about the brains ability to handle the issue on a raw level or whether or not the brain is sending signals that are translated to an actual direct movement vs. one that is roughly the area you meant.

The question is...would you be ready for it when it happened.

I think it would take a lot of getting used to.
I have my questions about the first times your arm shoots up to an exact position you wanted way before you normally are used to expecting it to be there.

I'm not saying that you would stand there saying, "wo!" every time past the first, but I think it would definitely take a concentrated amount of self training to get used to this new ability that shoots your arm up in milliseconds, far before you are used to it being there and thus...it could present a small problem in the areas of coordination for a while until you got used to moving at this new speed.

Remember...you didn't adapt or grow into this new speed.
It is simply now there.

(and no. I'm not talking about GM/Player excuses for it. If we are going to get into that, as these usually do "I always say that it's because..." etc...etc... I'm talking about the exact issue of when it's installed and you suddenly have it and you walk out of the door of the clinic after recovery and 5 minutes later use it. And from that point until an *undetermined amount of time that it takes for* you to get used to it.)
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