Sunday, February 19, 2017

Holo-Tank

Holographic Projectors (p. 325 EP) are a fairly standard technology, which are small enough to embed in synthmorphs and make common household electronics. These project visible spectra light in HD formations for immersive video, environmental masking and visible interface functions. However, basic projectors may not be enough for those with very advanced needs or wants, which may require upgrading to a larger base form.

Holotank: A holotank is a household appliance or electronic which comes in several sizes, and are either rounded or rectangular usually, and work best as a "container" or "tank" with two halves - top and bottom. The function of the holotank is to create a significant space, cleared of obstructions, where HD holograms can be projected with high fidelity in the enclosed space. For most people, basic projection systems are all that's required, but the holotank can generate very high quality real-time images, and can project large areas to scale at once, making it useful for viewing certain kinds of 3D video (usually area shots or projections) or certain recreational games. They also have use in "tactical" situations, as they can project a 3D map of an area with objects moving in real-time, making them very ideal for military or infrastructural projections, without needing to leave open wireless access to share in AR. As such, Holotanks are often seen on large military spacecraft, and in control centers for many habitats - such as VNS traffic control which projects a real time 3D image of all ground, air and incoming space traffic and can highlight problems in traffic flow. Due to their large size, Holotanks are not portable. [Moderate]

Especially as AR gains more even more prevalent while Mesh Inserts proliferate, the Holo-tank may be seen as an unusual purchase - reserved for those with more resources than they know what to do with, or for "nerds" and hobbyists of particular dedication. As many heist and corp-terror vids will show you, the fact that a Holotank is a dedicated, hardline device with it's own memory can be useful for planning certain factors which might involve detailed and interactive 3D maps of a location - without needing to worry about people sniffing wireless transmissions or where your data is being stored. They also have uses in certain CAD designs, especially for those who do not wish to work in Simulspace for some reason, but most commonly are seen in commercial or government installations. A single-surface installation may be called a "holotable", and these are more sophisticated than a glowboard.

3 comments:

  1. Just wanted to say that as an Eclipse Phase GM who recently discovered this blog, I'm loving your work. I've read the whole thing end to end over the past few nights, and there's a lot I'm definitely going to inject into my own campaign.

    One thing that occurred to me as I was compiling a master doc of a bunch of your custom weapons: have you considered doing some kind of factional armor kit list? Something like your brand-name weapons series, but with armor.

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    1. Well, thanks for reading, glad you enjoy it. I know people read - but it's good to hear from them.

      Specifically, I hadn't really thought about it. "Brand Name" actually comes from a rule included in the book about potentially adjusting the qualities of guns to give more variety, and in fact most of my BNW entries are just pulls from a master list I made all at once so I didn't have to think of them on the fly - Armor has much less parameters so I don't think there's as much utility there. That said, thinking about it I could at least do a write-up talking about different styles of armor - both in aesthetics and typical modifications. I've also made some locational-themed garb which has AV.

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    2. What I'm envisioning is something along the lines of, say Jovian Navy kit, or PC Marines, or what have you, with different AVs and armor patches coming standard (or perhaps with unique abilities the extant patches don't cover). For instance, Titanian Militia might not bother with thermal-dampening because of the low ambient temp on Titan...that kind of thing.

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