Semi-realistic Regeneration and corresponding Increased Consumption

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

Not on target for the thread, please don't derail this one, Flyndaran. Start another one.

If we're verging into FP-cost builds anyway, it seems like an on-target comment aimed at your post.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Recycling material almost certainly involves some scary waste products - diseases like malaria and ebola rapidly dismantle cells, which produces a lot of chemical byproducts. Doing it quickly overwhelms the liver and kidneys (which both diseases make worse by directly attacking of course, but we'll assume the magic regeneration thingies have the sense not to do).

So you'd probably have a requisite of a boosted liver and kidneys if you want to go this route.

Hmm. Regeneration of hit points in exchange for a buildup of toxins in the blood seems like an interesting mechanism. That being said, a boosted liver is right behind the corner for our inventor, and kidneys are not far behind. Talk about incentives.

Originally Posted by Bruno

You also need to reclaim fluids that have been leaked into places they shouldn't go. That can be tricky, you'll be fighting the bodies natural inclination to swelling. There's also the cell-filled fluids and tissues that are flat out not in your body any more so there's limitations.

This doesn't sound as bad. At a minimum, extra drinking for replacing lost fluids (e.g. blood loss) is seemingly much easier than consuming as much food. But getting rid of extraneous fluids where they're harmful - I'm not sure how exactly that should be done; I'm inclined to believe this will be one of the major contributors for shifting one step closer to Unusual Biochemistry, but not all the way.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Faster than the digestive tract can help with if you're hoping to get it by eating after the injury, I suspect.

Ultimately recommending an IV drip is definitely in the alpha-version description of the biomod.

Originally Posted by Bruno

If you're not storing it as fat, then you must be storing it as sugars, which is pretty unheard of for mammals (tetrapods in general I think) but I don't see why you couldn't do it in genetic engineering or with nanites or with a sugar-water fuel tank or whatever. But you need more than just energy - you need all the nutrients, because that's what people are made of and you'll need to rebuild things.

I don't recall the precise numbers, but IIRC ('normal') sugars don't provide an enormous storage efficiency advantage, so might need to think of something else. Quick wiki check gives sugars 17MJ/kg, while fats get 37.

Even ethanol has only 26. Though a hacked metabolism that can safely handle lots of alcohol and use its energy to fuel ATP production would be amusing.

Originally Posted by Bruno

If it's "only" a hole poked in you or a cut, then you need to build the scaffolding for new tissue, new tissue, and new blood volume (where's the water coming from?). We'll handwave how the nanites align your tissues correctly and keep them that way while healing without you being strapped in place.

If you've had major tissue damage (fire, chemical burns, the kinds of trauma that takes flesh right off you even if it's not a GURPS amputation that you need Regrowth for) then you need to magic that material out of somewhere. And the logical place for that is your other bones and muscles.

The most obvious way to store the reserves is extra-heavy bones and excess "unsupported" muscle mass that is dismantled by the nanites and relocated to where it's needed.

Hmm. Needing to consider the difference between cutting/impaling and destroying damage types seems like a bit complicated for the game I'm running. But the fact that the former can be modest in requirements is a plus.

Originally Posted by Proteus

I played around a bit with the ideas here and my own, and got this:

Looks good as an alpha-version of the biomod.