[SPECIES] IPC

[portfiend]

i'm making a specialized discussion thread for IPCs, as they are one of our species i am gonna have to re-code from scratch anyway, and this gives us an opportunity to pass-over their mechanics.

IPCs are a notoriously difficult balancing tightrope - they have extreme upsides and extreme downsides. complete lack of need to eat or drink, capable of existing in vacuum environments, complete immunity to poison / airloss (and near-immunity to cold), they can be healed with just a welder and aren't blinded by them. they run on a battery that needs recharging or they'll die, they're extremely vulnerable to heat damage.

i kind of want to design pass IPCs to bring them slightly closer to organic species in balance, hopefully in a relatively player lore-friendly way. im willing to hear suggestions

[portfiend]

while digging for old docs i found this, which is interesting but im NOT looking to adopt it right now. however im holding onto it as a reference

• feat: completely reworks IPCs into a new species, MKCs teamstarcup/starcup#724

[HTMLSystem]

I would like to point out that IPCs are, in fact, blinded by welders. At least if they're the one using the welder.

Just wanted to clarify :3 We're willing to make suggestions when we come up with them.
We do think a lot of what IPCs already have could be split into species specific traits. Like "radiation shielding" and "cold shielding." I find that IPCs, as they are right now, are pretty alright. If you want to make them closer to organics I think a good step forward would just be making some of an IPCs default "pros" into traits.

[HTMLSystem]

SUGGESTION MADE MY GF: Make traits that REMOVE those aspects (radiation shielding and barotrauma resistance) for trait points. Because IPCs are in dire need for. Traits. I feel like a lot of balancing stuff could be fixed with IPC specific traits.

[KawaiiDouchebag]

@portfiend
I feel like a lot of issues with IPCs can be fixed by starting again from the ground up. Take a generic urist and think about what needs to be added or removed to it to turn it into an IPC. Then do that.

For example, if you were to turn a harpy into an IPC, you would need to replace it's legs with cybernetic legs, eyes with cybernetic eyes, and arms with winged cybernetics as well. Then you would have to replace its bloodstream with coolant/lubricant. It's stomach? Replace it with a generator/battery, it's heart? That's just a pump baybee. It's brain? That's just a Positronic. It's liver? That's a filter. It's lungs? That's a heat exchanger (huh, would you look at that, heat can't be exchanged effectively in space, problem solved), It's torso/head? Thats just a hull.

Ideally, you'd be able to turn any character into an IPC just with traits in character creation, and on the same coin, you'd be able to just construct an IPC in round if you wanted to. It doesnt really make sense for IPCs to be their own species in this world where cybernetic modding is this easy, it should just be what you call people who have gone all the way.

Doing it this way also brings IPCs to be in line with other species innately, since it's just a matter of trait balancing at that point.

[CollectionOfBones128]

It doesnt really make sense for IPCs to be their own species in this world where cybernetic modding is this easy, it should just be what you call people who have gone all the way.

I just joined The Den, so apologies if I am missing context, but I do have to disagree with this on a fundamental level.

IPCs aren't people who are cybernetic, they're robots who are people, Sapient Machines.

While I think cybernetics are really cool, I doubt the people who play IPCs are aiming to play a cybernetically augmented organic.

[HTMLSystem]

Agreed. As an IPC player I don't want to play a cybernetically augmented organic. I want to be fully metal machine. If I want to play an organic that has augments, I'll play that instead as it's already an option.

[KawaiiDouchebag]

It doesnt really make sense for IPCs to be their own species in this world where cybernetic modding is this easy, it should just be what you call people who have gone all the way.

I just joined The Den, so apologies if I am missing context, but I do have to disagree with this on a fundamental level.

IPCs aren't people who are cybernetic, they're robots who are people, Sapient Machines.

While I think cybernetics are really cool, I doubt the people who play IPCs are aiming to play a cybernetically augmented organic.

The point of what i was saying was that a humanoid that has had every possible cybernetic would just be an IPC at this point. They WOULD be fully robot. They WOULD be a sapient machine.

Doing it the way i said simply allows IPCs to be balanced easier, especially since with dentwo

EDIT: Some of my remaining message below is innaccurate. Read Portfiend's message below for more details!
(if i am recalling correctly) we're moving towards species being defined by being given a set of free traits, with no hard-coded species. If i am wrong on this feel free to correct me though.

[CollectionOfBones128]

The point of what i was saying was that a humanoid that has had every possible cybernetic would just be an IPC at this point. They WOULD be fully robot. They WOULD be a sapient machine.

Doing it the way i said simply allows IPCs to be balanced easier, especially since with dentwo (if i am recalling correctly) we're moving towards species being defined by being given a set of free traits, with no hard-coded species. If i am wrong on this feel free to correct me though.

I've been working on making balanced IPCs for an invite-only fork (and, sidenote, am happy to license anything I can to MIT so it can be used for Den2) And one of the major points that came up time and time again is that we had to heavily avoid the feeling that IPCs are just organics with metal paint over them.

(Examples include any suggestion for IPCs to be powered by an internal bioreactor topped up with food and booze were consistently shot down, forcing IPCs to need to be in an oxygen environment to cool off, etc.)

If the upcoming framework for Den2 is that all species are just going to be humans with traits and markings... that will be a difficult framework to make a satisfying IPC species.

[portfiend]

Doing it the way i said simply allows IPCs to be balanced easier, especially since with dentwo (if i am recalling correctly) we're moving towards species being defined by being given a set of free traits, with no hard-coded species. If i am wrong on this feel free to correct me though.

this is incorrect. species will still exist and some species have "morph traits" that alter them mechanically but not visually

[HTMLSystem]

The point of what i was saying was that a humanoid that has had every possible cybernetic would just be an IPC at this point. They WOULD be fully robot. They WOULD be a sapient machine.

I mean.... agree to disagree..? Is a person who's implanted with cybernetics to mimic a human body an IPC? I wouldn't say so. Because IPCs have a completely different internal system. Instead of a heart they have a micropump. They don't have a liver, kidneys, heart, or lungs. They are completely different iinside and out. So no. A completely cybernetic human wouldn't be an IPC.
That or we have two different definitions of what cybernetic means Xp. We take cybernetics to mean taking something organic and enhancing it or completely replaceing it with something mechanical that mimics the original organ.

[KawaiiDouchebag]

The point of what i was saying was that a humanoid that has had every possible cybernetic would just be an IPC at this point. They WOULD be fully robot. They WOULD be a sapient machine.

I mean.... agree to disagree..? Is a person who's implanted with cybernetics to mimic a human body an IPC? I wouldn't say so. Because IPCs have a completely different internal system. Instead of a heart they have a micropump. They don't have a liver, kidneys, heart, or lungs. They are completely different iinside and out. So no. A completely cybernetic human wouldn't be an IPC. That or we have two different definitions of what cybernetic means Xp. We take cybernetics to mean taking something organic and enhancing it or completely replaceing it with something mechanical that mimics the original organ.

Im glad we agree. Turning a human into an IPC would also involve digitizing the brain, and replacing all the internal organs with silicon equivalents! That is absolutely correct.