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Old 05-17-2017, 09:38 PM   #1
GODSLAYER
 
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Default Digital Mind Question

If you have a Digital Mind, do you have to pay for the computer that can host your intelligence separately?

The way I read it, it's included. So if you have a 25 IQ, the computer housing your mind would be at least Complexity 12 and you could do anything a Complexity 12 computer would be capable of.

Is that right?
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Old 05-17-2017, 10:27 PM   #2
sir_pudding
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

Ultra-Tech, Changing Times, and Shell-Tech all have it as an Accessory Perk, IIRC.
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Old 05-17-2017, 11:25 PM   #3
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

I think it's possible to have Digital Mind as an ability of a (weirdly structured) organic brain, at least under the rules.
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Old 05-17-2017, 11:30 PM   #4
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

If you exist within one physical body instead of on the Internet, that body is "free" as far as cash goes, and, it has whatever ST, DX, and, HT you pay for, as well as any DR you buy. Technically, nothing prevents you from having a robo-brain in a fleshy body.
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Old 05-18-2017, 09:33 AM   #5
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

I guess the real question is to have a Digital Mind, am I required to buy a computer and if so, how much does it cost?

Can I get a computer of any Complexity for 1 point as a Perk? My character has a 30 IQ... I imagine that Complexity 15+ Computers are pretty expensive at TL 9.
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Old 05-18-2017, 10:08 AM   #6
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by GODSLAYER View Post
I guess the real question is to have a Digital Mind, am I required to buy a computer and if so, how much does it cost?

Can I get a computer of any Complexity for 1 point as a Perk? My character has a 30 IQ... I imagine that Complexity 15+ Computers are pretty expensive at TL 9.
The perk is basically the Accessory perk so would be for a commonly available and probably fairly cheap computer.
It basically is designed to give you the minor abilities typically available with such a computer. More advanced abilities would have to be purchased.
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Old 05-18-2017, 10:20 AM   #7
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

I should think it would be possible to live as an intelligent nomadic electronic parasite traveling through the internet.
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Old 05-18-2017, 10:28 AM   #8
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

I think the cash vs. points paradigm is a GM call: he can charge one, the other, or both.

I'd firmly insist that the implanted computer is either commonplace, bought with cash, or is the minimum needed to run your IQ.

Of course, If that gives results that don't make sense with the campaign parameters, I'll start saying no. I'll point out that the most complex TL 9 computers in the book are the size of a building, 20 tons, complexity 11, and cost 5 billion dollars. This caps IQ at 18, which is enough to start breaking things (though perhaps such a computer should).

If we go for the complexity 17 machine needed for IQ 30 and just scale things up without bothering with genius, we get... 2,000,000,000 tons. Two Billion tons, if you don't like counting zeroes. About three hundred times the weight of the pyramid of Giza, and much less dense. I'm looking for comparisons in size: Its 100th the weight of Everest, and probably 1/5th as dense. If just the computer components are counted, that's a SM+21 object, by the spaceships weight by size system. 7 km long! 3km in diameter if its a sphere. And these are just rough numbers! The cost is 1 Quadrillion gurps bucks!

Of course, in a crazy enough supers game, that really doesn't matter, and as a GM I'd just slap a unusual background on it and really play up the "valuable property" disadvantage, as well as make fun of the size. In a less off the wall game, it'd be a problem.

Ultimately though, its a GM call. GURPS doesn't really have a firm ruling on it.
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Last edited by ericthered; 05-18-2017 at 10:46 AM.
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Old 05-18-2017, 11:40 AM   #9
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

It looks like in Shell-Tech, they are charged 1 point for the Accessory (Computer) then just the cost of the computer.
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Old 05-18-2017, 11:55 AM   #10
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Default Re: Digital Mind Question

Quote:
Originally Posted by GODSLAYER View Post
It looks like in Shell-Tech, they are charged 1 point for the Accessory (Computer) then just the cost of the computer.
Note that the costs in Shell-Tech are the costs to buy a cybershell of that type "off the rack". I wouldn't charge a character that cost, if that was their only cybershell.

There's also some discrepancy between Shell-Tech and Power-Ups 2: Perks, it seems. PU2, under its listing for Accessory, suggests that a computer taken as an Accessory "can run the utility software standard for ordinary desktop or smaller computers in your setting – word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail, games, etc. It can’t run software good enough to grant advantages or skill bonuses, or real-time combat aids like targeting programs." Whereas Shell-Tech has things like the High Arcadian Centaur (p. 13), with a compact Mainframe computer as an Accessory. At TL 10, that's Complexity 9. I can't imagine that's not capable of running more than just word processing and basic calculator software!

In any case, on your original question, I don't think Digital Mind requires the Accessory (Computer) perk at all. If you have Digital Mind without the Accessory, then it's assumed that, while you may have a computer brain, all of its processing power is tied up being you, and you have no spare processor cycles to run other software. Whereas if you have Accessory (Computer), you do have that to spare. You can run programs on the computer that aren't "me.exe", essentially.
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