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[Vieve]

Doing his own wetwork would be an illogical and inefficient use of his time and resources.

He's not a control freak.  He clearly trusts that he's hired competent personnel. 

[Makkal]

Cyber Knights
Many of the Khanid want to keep their warriors competitive, but the only way to do so in the modern world is through extensive body enhancements. The advanced knowledge of cyber implants possessed by the Amarr has proven exceptionally useful in this regard. Some Khanid still aim to excel in physical combat, while the more progressive ones seek to become masters of modern warfare.

This is one of the three ancestries for Khanid capsuleers. So I wouldn't doubt that there are at least Khanid capsuleers who, following their Cyber Knight heritage, are incredibly physically augmented.

The standard cybernetics we use is stuff for controlling our ships, but nothing stopping people from loading up physical augmentations as well.

Right. I picked Khanid for my character and it gave me the option of being a cyberknight. I picked cyberknight, so I play a cyborg.

This is a legitimate choice for a capsuleer to make or it wouldn't be an option.

This thread is suggesting that my RP is wrong because five minutes into the character creator I hit a radial button that someone has decided shouldn't exist. If memory serves, I learned I could play a religious Asian cyborg in EVE first and *then* some splash screen comes up to tell me I'm an immortal living in a pod, piloting a ship.

[Shintoko Akahoshi]

I wouldn't sweat any real or implied suggestions that you're doing it wrong, Makkal. Obviously there *is* support in PF for heavily physically augmented people. Cyberknights *are* a valid Khanid bloodline. If you want to play a heavily physically augmented pilot, you seem to have all the support from CCP that you need.

There seem to be a couple of arguments going on in this thread. One is a debate about the possibility that you could have a pilot who is also heavily physically augmented - that you could fit both sets of augmentations in one human. Pod pilot interfaces are fairly invasive, but they don't comprise a lot of replacements. You have your jacks along your spine, along with associated hardware for mediating between the pilot and the ship. Other than that, your body is mainly your own. According to the old Cromeaux story, clones are not too far off from a standard human body. The obvious differences are the pod pilot interface, and the crazy "burn your pattern into gel" brain. But they don't have bionic limbs or anything like that. That would suggest that there's plenty of room for physical augmentations.

The other argument is simply "why would a capsuleer get their hands dirty when they don't need to?", which is in my opinion irrelevant. People do all sorts of things because they are important to them. Someone like Makkal might go in for heavy physical augmentation simply because it's a family tradition, and Khanid's are nothing if not tradition-bound.

[Silver Night]

I wouldn't sweat any real or implied suggestions that you're doing it wrong, Makkal. Obviously there *is* support in PF for heavily physically augmented people. Cyberknights *are* a valid Khanid bloodline. If you want to play a heavily physically augmented pilot, you seem to have all the support from CCP that you need.

There seem to be a couple of arguments going on in this thread. One is a debate about the possibility that you could have a pilot who is also heavily physically augmented - that you could fit both sets of augmentations in one human. Pod pilot interfaces are fairly invasive, but they don't comprise a lot of replacements. You have your jacks along your spine, along with associated hardware for mediating between the pilot and the ship. Other than that, your body is mainly your own. According to the old Cromeaux story, clones are not too far off from a standard human body. The obvious differences are the pod pilot interface, and the crazy "burn your pattern into gel" brain. But they don't have bionic limbs or anything like that. That would suggest that there's plenty of room for physical augmentations.

The other argument is simply "why would a capsuleer get their hands dirty when they don't need to?", which is in my opinion irrelevant. People do all sorts of things because they are important to them. Someone like Makkal might go in for heavy physical augmentation simply because it's a family tradition, and Khanid's are nothing if not tradition-bound.

Or because they were physically augmented first, and became podders later. Or because it makes them feel more secure. There are a lot of good reasons.

I've got a couple of characters who are physically augmented. One is (or was) a cyberknight of the more infantry-oriented variety before becoming a pilot, the other got replacement parts as prosthesis, again before becoming a pilot.

However, I could see how someone who was an all-powerful space-god might also feel like they needed to give themselves an edge rather than just being meat outside the pod.

[Gottii]

@Gottii: I can has page number? That sounds interesting.

Okay, found my copy.  (little bit of a necro)

Exact quote from pg 121-122 from EVE The Burning Life

"Robots and monsters?"  Terden said.  "Depends. You can spot the implants in most of them, and there's a bunch of ongoing projects I dont want to get into, where there's almost more machine than man."

"More machine?"

You miss the part about not getting into that?"

"I just didnt think that was possible.  The more you shove metal into someone and take away the body they've grown used to, the less they can usefully operate."

"There is that....There is that, yeah."  Terden said, inspecting the table again.  His hair cast jagged shadows on is surface.  "So, what you do is either you use as little metal as best you can, or you use as little human as best you can."

--------------

So, basically, if you look as TBL as PF, according to PF, full borg cyborgs are basically not very useful nor very human.  This would indicate that most cybernetics are looking for a light touch, augmentation rather than full on replacement.  Or biotech.

BTW, the "using as little human as possible" line meant using children.

[Lithium Flower]

Im generally against "cyberization".
We are pod pilots in first place, there are specialized implants for that, other metal? Totally unrelated.
I prefer my characters "clean" from this stuff, they are mere humans and act as humans.
As for dealing with "cyborgs", well, who cares how many kg of metal you had under your skin, if you had an antimatter blaster shot into your heart, right? 

[Ciarente]

In my experience the issue of augmentation starts to get on people's wick when it's used to 'block' RP, and a lot of knee-jerk antipathy to augmentation is the result of bad experiences in the past. When you've tried to RP with someone whose character is essentially Superman with psychic powers the instinct to duck and cover when a cyborg enters the scene can get pretty strong. 

That of course is not to say that there's not plenty of characters who play the issue of augmentation much more subtly than that - just that we can all be captive to confirmation bias if we don't look out for it.

[Makkal]

IIRC Duster Clones are specially constructed, with reinforced skeletons, etc (to handle the weapons and for strength) making them generally superior to run of the mill baseliner meat sacs.

I can name at least three capsuleer player characters who can rival them with all these augmentations they got, but I think further discussion in this key belongs here http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=4235.0

My characters are rather meat sacs 

My personal preference is that capsuleers, even augmented ones, are taken down by dust soldiers with ease if the two are on equal footing. A dust soldier pours all their experience and training into infantry combat. Just using their weapons would kill or seriously injure a baseline soldier.

The problem with this is that, according to dust lore, if you catch a dust soldier unaware, you get OHK him with a nova knife. Pretty much throwing any superiority the soldier has away.

And it doesn't make sense to me. My amarr dust soldier can shrug off shots from a defensive turret or stand right by a grenade as it goes off, but stab him with a knife and he drops?

[Lithium Flower]

IIRC Duster Clones are specially constructed, with reinforced skeletons, etc (to handle the weapons and for strength) making them generally superior to run of the mill baseliner meat sacs.

I can name at least three capsuleer player characters who can rival them with all these augmentations they got, but I think further discussion in this key belongs here http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=4235.0

My characters are rather meat sacs 

My personal preference is that capsuleers, even augmented ones, are taken down by dust soldiers with ease if the two are on equal footing. A dust soldier pours all their experience and training into infantry combat. Just using their weapons would kill or seriously injure a baseline soldier.

The problem with this is that, according to dust lore, if you catch a dust soldier unaware, you get OHK him with a nova knife. Pretty much throwing any superiority the soldier has away.

And it doesn't make sense to me. My amarr dust soldier can shrug off shots from a defensive turret or stand right by a grenade as it goes off, but stab him with a knife and he drops?

I think it was more about their armor, not bodies.

On a side note, acquiring dust armor for capsuleer could be an interesting idea for dealing with 'baddies' IC-ly 

[Shiori]

And it doesn't make sense to me. My amarr dust soldier can shrug off shots from a defensive turret or stand right by a grenade as it goes off, but stab him with a knife and he drops?

Well, a nova knife isn't just a bit of metal, but shenanigans involving plasma and graviton generators and a whole load of technobabble, so maybe. Of course, that just leads to the question why if that technique is so effective in penetrating DUST armor, why don't they tip a small missile with it or something.

[Lithium Flower]

Nova knife: The latest technology advance in a field of culinary. Allows you to cut dust soldiers into thin accurate slices without applying force!

[Synthia]

Synthia's nature, in that each Synthia is a remote-operated unit, means that she could construct some form of entirely mechanical remote unit, or engage in ground combat with very, very little consequence. Not even a cyborg, a full robot, and all the invulnerability that entails.

Does that seem a bit over the top ?

Only thing she's done of that nature was to construct a doll-sized robot Synthia, to interact with her sister's doll house, and dolls.

[Saede Riordan]

I wouldn't really think it'd be over the top, but I've not actually looked at the various PF that supports Synthia's existence. At the technological level that EVE is at, I'd think things like full cyborgs, robots, and the like, would be fairly common. I think it all comes down to how well you play it.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I'm not 100% up on Synthia's nature either, but I'll say this: I think a fair number of people look at Synthia and - partially driven by the way she interacts - already assign to her in their minds a degree of "silliness" or "jokeyness". So, I don't think it'd be a Huge Deal^(tm) if she made a remote robot body, because people already look at her and to some degree just shrug and go "Oh, well that's just Synthia."

That said, a lot of these things depend as much on "will you do it" as "can you do it". COULD Esna go stomping around in his battle armor, shooting everything in the face? Well, he could try at least. He doesn't, though, because that'd be silly in my opinion. Same deal with Synthia - could she create a remote-robot combat body? Quite sure she could. Would she use it in some way public enough that it'd be noticeable to other characters? Would she use it in some way that'd annoy other characters (or even their players)?

[Aria Jenneth]

And it doesn't make sense to me. My amarr dust soldier can shrug off shots from a defensive turret or stand right by a grenade as it goes off, but stab him with a knife and he drops?

Well, a nova knife isn't just a bit of metal, but shenanigans involving plasma and graviton generators and a whole load of technobabble, so maybe. Of course, that just leads to the question why if that technique is so effective in penetrating DUST armor, why don't they tip a small missile with it or something.

Yun Hee uses these extensively. If you use a Minmatar scout suit and advanced knives you can one-shot (well, technically two-shot; they're used in pairs) heavies with even moderate skills, putting their power level well ahead of even a plasma shotgun. The main problem is getting close enough.

If I recall correctly, the item description explains it as a knife that reinforces its strike with a plasma charge. The visual effect is ambiguous-- you see the knife arcing electricity, but there's none of the orange plasma flare you get from most of the game's plasma weaponry.

My guess is that the knife functions like a sort of plasma variant of a HEAT round, striking shield and armor with the typical force of a nano-augmented supersoldier lashing out with a knife, then venting superheated, ionized gases through the breach.

Owie. Not something you'd want to be on the receiving end of.

Also yet another weapon you probably don't want to use without a dropsuit*. The thermal backwash has got to be fierce.

Mind you, even if we weren't talking about horrible sci fi plasma blades, we'd still be talking about clone soldiers being downed with knives by other clone soldiers. There's a lot of strength behind that blow, and then there's the further augmentation provided by the suit. Pistol-whipping a dropsuit works just fine if you can punch like a railgun.


* ... if you even could. All DUST weapons, including nova knives, have dropsuit CPU requirements, even if they don't need PG. This incidentally helps to explain why you can't just pick up weapons on the battlefied-- they're installed as part of the suit, and probably inoperative if detached. Granted, even an inoperable nova knife is still a really big knife.