Biomod Controllers
An unnecessary cost when style is everything

I don't see how it adds to the game either. Biomods are generally cosmetic fluff with a lot of drawback we've seen discussed elsewhere. It discourages people who need to limit their PDS load from embracing corporate extravagant style if they want.

I think a counterargument may be that you can't technically cause someone to suffer the loss of biomodifications where you can in other cases, whether cybernetics or clothes. My counterpoint to that would be true, you can't - but also like Holychrome pointed out there are issues and risks with getting biomods removed.

If someone really does want to biomod themselves into a SparkleKittenz™ character, then the only thing I see that doing is causing a whole lot of RP for that person, and for others who may rally or recoil.

IIRC, from reading old BGBB posts, it was originally created because the players/staff at the time feared SD turning into some kind of furry convention. That was more or less my point- now that we have a large playerbase, and an ICly established anti-splice movement, I don't see it serving any purpose at all.

Really, even with the restrictions that we have in place such as the 20% rule, I fail to see how it's an issue. I don't understand how in-canon one of the premier luxury services that VS makes, personalized, custom genetic engineering to specification would have EVER been reliant on a rival hypercorp's hardware for basic functionality. Now if SK wanted to make CyberKitten™ ears with laser aiming modules to compete, that'd be a totally different story.

TLDR: Biomod controllers are dumb and should go the way of the dodo. More biomods (that function) means more diversity, which brings more opportunity for RP and conflict.

And generally, I don't think that it'd be such a big deal, but I don't know what characters that are supposed to be part of that workflow of character customization are really supposed to be doing with their time if not making biomodifications. -Staying deliberately vague on details here.

In any event, I just see the biomod controller as just another level of drek that you have to go through to try and differentiate your character from the masses. I see them as being good, if you're a 'fuck you money' rich mixer, someone who's built a plot around the concept of getting biomodded, or a corpie with too much flash and not enough spark in their life.

I'd also point out that biomods are another prime avenue for mix/corp divide politics and intrigue, and while the controller doesn't *directly* affect you getting biomods, it certainly discourages some from getting mods that would otherwise be limp tubesocks.

Its total removal might not even be necessary, but the PDS load should be near non-existent since it confers no actual advantage other than being able to RP moving a biomodded bit. If there's an actual reason for needing it to rival other chrome in terms of load then I have no idea what that reason is.

Also gonna make a quick note here about how biomods are already very expensive, which should be enough of a downside on its own. Not even gonna mention the trouble to actually get them.

It doesn't make sense in the context of what bio-modification is described as doing.

It is completely inconsistent: There to prevent someone with animal ears from emoting with him, but not to prevent biomodded eyes from working, or biomodded skin from acting like actual skin.

It has no IC justification whatsoever and (like some other chrome) exists only because of obsolete OOC discomfort over non-issues.

Don't you see that the previous model (where biomods were not allowed to be functional, period.) kept them away, and the cost of the controller (in PDS primarily) to get that functionality today limits what you'll get out of doing it? This policy is why you don't have the game overrun with furry splicers twitching their ears and tapping you on the wrong shoulder with their tail.

Minority groups cluster, furrys would be on us again like flies on shit.

My point was now that we have a IC faction that hates on the furry issue/community, that players could take agency here over simply having coded mechanisms in place to discourage people from playing those kinds of characters.

If fur splicers become the hot issue, we can simply pop our tags out declaring us as one side of a coin and murder them for funsies and have the IC mechanisms in place to not simply look like crazy mindless serial killers.

The final thing I'd mention and/or am curious about is: isn't staff directly involved in the workflow process for crafting these? Wouldn't there be a hand-wave solution to say 'sorry chum, VS is out of doggie genes' once they get the fifth fur splicer in a row application? This could absolutely be handled in-character: "Sorry, we're backlogged on dog splicer applications. Current estimated wait time is seven years."

Just an idea.

As a point of fact.

You can "target" someones tattoo's, and they will have to pay an artist to repaint them. This is not something you can really do for Biomods... There is no regrowing after shredding someones ears. In fact you can't even do that really without staff intervention from what I know.

Anyway, as far as I know, you can tattoo on sleeping people, personally I'd like to see that extended to helpless/grappled people just have the check be more difficult if they are resisting.. But if they are RPing correctly, they should be willing to allow you with @trust to tattoo.

The piercings are incidental to description because the devs I don't think want to have to program the ability to have corsetry piercings and the like, as some people do do in this game.

So yes, it's incidental cosmetics until it's not.

Biomods are an ICly contentious status symbol well above tattoo's as well, and as contentious status symbols should have an appropriate and generally speaking fierce level of targettability. There has to be some way to go down from the status symbol. Or to put pressure on it.

Like actually comprehend it?

Anyway, I'll restate in very explicit terms.

Without staff intervention, you cannot put pressure on someone's biomods.

Without staff intervention, you can target someones tattoo's and fuck them up.

The biomod controller acts as a permanent consequence to dying with your status symbols.

Why remove something that makes a system less flat and one note?

Compared to other game system with cyberware (CP2020 and Shadowrun as two examples), augmentations in Sindome seem extremely limited. In other systems, it is not uncommon for characters to have a dozen modifications if they live long enough.

As a player, I had to recalibrate my expectations of what "being augmented" means for my character. They will never have ALL of the augmentations. They will never even have half of the available augmentations. More than likely a character will end up with a small handful of thoughtfully selected augmentations that suit a specific play style.

The way I have reconciled that and made sense of it in an IC way is that augmentations are invasive. They are major changes to a character's physical body. They might come in the form of nanos that are rewiring the body on a deeply cellular level. Or they might be eyes, or ears that are augmenting existing senses or adding entirely new senses. Or maybe they are something like a flash boost that is putting the central nervous system into overdrive. Or they are biomods that are literally redefining the body to less human and more animal.

A body can only handle so many changes. If a character wants ears and a tail that move around, they are giving up the option of having other types of augmentations. If a character wants a bunch of nanos, they are giving up on having a bunch of cyber. The reverse is also true.

If there is one thing I have learned about Sindome it is that no one character will ever be able to excel at everything. It is not that kind of game. There is a max UE cap. There is PDS that limits augmentations. There is a fatigue system that limits how active a character can be. Navigating around the limits and striking the balance is both art and science. To me, the limits on any one character becoming great at everything is one of the biggest selling points of this game because it forces characters to collaborate and team up with people who capable of doing other things.

I have not seen a single authoritative voice mention that players cannot create biomodded characters. All I have seen is staff saying that there are costs and trade offs to being biomodded. A player is not going to be able to create a flash boosted, cyber eared and eyed, quadruple nano'd cat samurai with moving ears and a tail.

If you want to play a fully functional furry, that's fine. Just accept that there are tradeoffs. Just like anyone else accepts that if they want augmentations A, B & C that they are going to have to give up augmentations Y & Z. It's not that they cannot have Y & Z. They just can't have EVERYTHING.

Brevity isn't dumbing anything down, it's a courtesy for the sake of conversation.

I've posted long rant style posts like yours and I also try be conscious that people might not read it thoughtfully, so I add a TLDR section at the end with a few bullet-points or a more generalized idea.

So lets try to keep it civil and classy peeps.

As far as bio-mod controllers, I see both sides, but empathize more strongly with the long-held staff vision of the game which is that they'd much rather see biomods being used more creatively than they are 90% of the time, and this is an IC mechanism to try to 'tax' that.

Animal splicing could be just be ICly banned and shove the whole thing off, agreed, and that might be the 'neatest' way to handle it, but I think this is a compromise that errs toward themely ideals of freedom and transhumanism and customization without opening the door entirely to the problems Johnny has mentioned, and it'd also create a host of IC problems for 'grandfathered' splicers which might be very interesting RP but would probably just be upsetting for players.

If I could just snap my fingers and make changes I would get rid of the controller, make generic cheapo biomods available to mixers (Earz-2-Morrow pills now from VS) , and slash the cost of bespoke biomods for like...six months or something, then go back to baseline costs and availability and if there's no continuing interest after that just leave them for the cat girls to pick up when they flee from the mix.

Biodmods are IC supposed to be a status symbol, but OOC no one cares about them because they're so rare, and rarely interesting on top of that. Get them out there more and let people demo what can be done and I think that OOC interest might start to match the IC theme a bit more.