Science labs, now with actual cloning

[KA101]

[quote=“Psiweapon, post:17, topic:811”]Make the memory bionic implant a recoverable on butchering CBM that requires no power.

Scientists and previous survivors butchering galore.

Such black or grey boxes appear in:

Videogame: Mass Effect 2 (Kasumi Goto’s quest, storing the memories of a dead guy)
Books: Neuromancer (the Flatliner’s ROM I think it was called, storing the memories of a dead guy, used as a hacking aide)
Cartoons: EXO Squad (A character was cloned and rebuilt from a special black box in his exosuit, and a custom-tailored Neo Mega body, Alec DeLeon was his name I think)
Live-Action series and movies: one episode from Black Mirror, some movie from the '00s, in these versions they basically store videos of what you have experienced.

And probably a lot more I don’t remember or know about.[/quote]
The Dixie Flatline received a pile of money in exchange for letting Sense/Net take a recording of his personality/knowledge. The recording could then be inserted into any particular computer (with the proper hardware) to interact with the Flatline well after he’d died. When supplied with stable memory space & power supply, the Flatline’s recording could think, learn, and develop over time. FWIW having him/it hooked into your system produced the sensation of having someone reading over your shoulder. /read Neuromancer way too much

Bonus for using “aide” correctly; the Flatline could operate hardware independently of Case.

[Nopkar]

That’s what I was referring to Glyph. I just like the idea that it’s still ‘my’ character, even if it does come out with one less arm and is suddenly freak strong and schizophrenic yah know? he’s still a part of the character I lost.

and the CBM idea is AWESOME. what if on a failed butcher (would it be a solid survival butcher or more science? or first aid for that matter? or a combo of them all?) that the CBM module is damaged slightly but could still be usable, but it instead imparts unintended effects like insomnia/schizophrenia or something like that?

[TaintedHolyWater]

I just want to say failure to implant any CBM that should require a lobotomy should be lethal without question…

That said I love the idea of crawling out of a tank as some half-formed monstrosity (only way to play!) and going on some mad manhunt to find and mangle my old body. Props if puts up a fight! We’re all infected right?

That said installing the CBM after retrieval may be a problem… It requires Electronics/Mechanics/First aid to do and if you start without your skills you are screwed. Or are you?

What if after getting the implant you had to return to the lab to use it? I’d say you have to put it in a computer in the cloning lab and go back into the tank while it [S]scrambles[/S] replaces your memories.

[S]Dorf bonus[/S] Extra points if we can drag your whole body (or zombie body) back to the lab instead of risking cutting it out.

Side question. If clone you has to kill zombie you is that suicide?

[Nopkar]

I like the lethality idea quite a bit, and high requirements to re-installing your previous skills CBM (failure could result in faulty skill increases, like a point in sewing when your character never had it to begin with, if not a reduction in skills you already have)

question: any way to track skill increases? maybe when/if you find a skill recorder CBM it only begins tracking when implated. your 10 melee doesn’t count towards the recording, only anything gained afterwards?

[TaintedHolyWater]

I was thinking of it needing to be activated (costing power as normal) and it taking a “snapshot” of your brain but only if you activate it. Spend you one power a day to back up and again if you think you are about to die. Sound good?

[Psiweapon]

damn good

[lech]

I like the idea of cloning, but I think that just a simple skill debuff after a resurrection is too boring. IRL clones do not live for too long and age and die very fast. Why not implement this mechanic in game? When a player reborns, he gets a message from the machine in which he appeared, that the new body can live just for X days, not more (where X is a random value between 1/24 and 90, for example). Thus we 1) prevent player from not valuing his first life 2) introduce a new play style, when after his first death a player must plan his actions more carefully, depending on time that his current body can live.

[Psiweapon]

@Lech:

Couldn’t that be represented by giving the clones one of the “wasting away” type mutations? That’d leave the door open to curing it with enough luck.

[GlyphGryph]

I just like the idea of adding mutations and erasing memories (but giving the option of re-implanting them in other ways, with some measure of volatility), if only because it gives that wonderful “copy of a copy” feeling.

[Benedict]

The way I see the system is this:

You die
Clone wakes up naked, with clone sickness, in a dark lab.
Clone has no skills, and low stats from the sickness.
Clone must find body, (perhaps fight it - that’d be cool) then retrieve Memory module, and take it back to the lab.
At lab, it will be implanted (with obvious chance of failure/crippling pain for the lolz)
Once implanted, player has a more-or-less corrupted version of the skills s/he had previously, with some mental health issues thrown in for good measure.

Player only has three days to complete this before the clone is remotely killed, and another is sent out (if any are available). Something to do with stopping clones from going rogue (since y’know… you’re essentially asking them to write someone else’s entire life over their brain).

BUT

That’s better than starting afresh. And also sounds amazingly fun.

[GlyphGryph]

I don’t think the time limit is strictly necessary to be honest.

[Benedict]

Really? I think it’s an awesome idea. Makes it that much more of a challenge to find your original body and bring it back (from whatever killed it originally), because you can’t just train up slowly until you’re ready. You have to take the challenge head on - probably still with cloning sickness/lower stats - or face losing your extra life.

[GlyphGryph]

I don’t think requiring you to go out and find your body is actually fun, though. It limits the cloning mechanic solely to being a strict extra life. It really robs it of the majority of the fun and potential, imo.

Instead, let’s do this: Instead of the memory implant boosting your skills, it completely overwrites them. So any time spent doing stuff or learning stuff will end up being wasted.

It also makes for an interesting story when a player first finds a memory storage transplant, and inserts it, only to have their skills and name completely reset, and find themselves with a character very very happy their PREVIOUS character was kind of stupid. Heheheh.

[Benedict]

Instead, let’s do this: Instead of the memory implant boosting your skills, it completely overwrites them. So any time spent doing stuff or learning stuff will end up being wasted.

I totally agree. I meant this too. Sorry if that wasn’t clear

I don’t think requiring you to go out and find your body is actually fun, though. It limits the cloning mechanic solely to being a strict extra life. It really robs it of the majority of the fun and potential, imo.

Hmm. Perhaps it could be a specific starting scenario, then? (i.e. a profession, although that’s not the best word for it :P)

I just think the idea of having to race to your body would be so awesome. I mean remember the Journey to the West mod (I think it mighta been creidieki’s) which made you live on the run? It was amazing, because you just didn’t have time to stop and gain skills or gear. You just had to run, and run, and run, or the horde would catch you.

This could be the same but MORE INSANE!! (and with the added creepiness of a robot talking in your head as you are born into a dark laboratory with no idea who you are, but maybe I’ll write a story about that instead of fantasising about it in a game)

[Slax]

Having your old body come back to life seems incredibly fun though. Some sort of side-effect of having your DNA shared? Maybe the machine has to do some wonky scanning instead of you just needing a needle with some blood. You don’t run into yourself every day in the wasteland. Random secret boss fight?

[Nopkar]

Why not after cloning for the first time, a new mob is spawned: Rogue Replacement Clone. armed with anything from naked+stick to full tactical gear+m249? (even a 1 in 10000 chance for an armed mini nuke?)

These clones will ‘find you’ (spawn nearby in the loaded cell) and follow to kill?

[The_Darkling_Wolf]

Cloning could also provide a nice use for the fuckton of meat you get from hunting, make it so you need to supply biomass to the facility before it can clone you, if it runs out of biomass then its game over, no more clones. As well, there’d probably be a lot of repairs and optimization that could be done.

Basically I’d like to see cloning be a nice project for a player who’s secured survival, something to act as a bit of a resource sink and give you something high level to do, and in exchange you get a real tangible benefit, in that you can now totally risk taking on that Fungal Spire you were avoiding, or raiding that Triffid Grove that’s been getting up in your grill.

[ted]

I think it would be cool to let you clone yourself to get an ally who’s guaranteed to be competent and initially friendly, but naturally won’t have any capabilities you lack. Letting you start as a fresh clone in a semi-functional lab could also be pretty cool.

OTOH, a “cloning” machine that just gives you a new body when you die is basically just a save game, and not interesting at all.

[KA101]

It’s a new (hopefully without too many problems) body, possibly with some of the old one’s skill levels, and with whatever gear the player had the foresight to leave for it.

(Remember! gear stashed for your clone may be gear that could have helped you avoid needing the clone in the first place!)

Regarding cloning as resource-sink: I’m thinking of the ol’ Good/Cheap/Quick standby. Clones can be Good (minimal deviation from the sample), Cheap (maybe only 10 chunks of meat needed at absolute minimum*), or Quick (your clone’ll be ready in a week**).

*Such a low price would pretty much guarantee some nasty starting mutations and probably still take a while.

**If you die before the clone’s ready, you can’t check on it, ensure that the gear’s there, update its skills, whatever. If a week seems short, recall that Cata-years are about 8.5 weeks long.

Accepting a longer growth cycle and/or supplying more materials could thereby give the player a more-capable clone, which provides an incentive to invest in the project.

[Slax]

Cheap cloning. What could possibly go wrong?