Level of Mindsim Integration [LMI]

Korvyr

Popping this idea here for reference and others' inputs. The idea belongs to Pollivar and was thought up as a means to possibly explain level restrictions in-game within lore-friendly terms while in character.

Discord log: https://pastebin.com/qRhS6CA1

The idea is thus: Level of Mindsim Integration (LMI) describes how many "levels" (the fake tally marks we all know and love) you have acquired via experience as applied within the mindsim concept. As this concept applies to all classes, it would be an elegant way of describing the niche of item level 10 not being able to be used by player level 5.

Exempli gratia: "Hey mate, can ye spare a gun? Mine broke on that ugly bugga's noggin' when I scram'd 'is brains.." "Sure. Can you handle integration level 20, though? Grabbed this off the captain." "Ahh fek.. Only got 15. Need to work on me blasted lemmi more..." ("Lemmi" being a random shorthand version of LMI I just thought of. Amusing, as you can think "lemmie use this" or "lemmie wear that". Or even think of it as a play on words for "limit".)

(Edited for spelling.)

Sairys

Went on a bit, threw out an alternative.

Levels are effectively the level of integration between your meatsack, wetwiring, and mindsim.

Experience and levels are your progression along the integration, levels being discrete points where functions are upgraded or unlocked. (More health, sleep/hunger functions suppressed, etc)

Dying setting you back to a backup reverts your integration to that point as the mindsim would be otherwise out of sync with the meatsack and wetwiring. While recovering your lost xp would mean the systems can revert to where they were when you died.

Each class can then explain the level lock on stuff in their own way.
A BEAST might not have the mindsim capacity to run that shiny new weapon, for example, but maybe the process increases kith efficiency which is needed for Furies to use better weapons.


Edit: Just an after-thought, might offer some storylines / lore about experiments to put mindsims into "higher level" bodies or vice versa.
Like, "why can't we clone level 75 bodies and drop a level 75 mindsim straight into it?" seems like it could be a neat question to answer

Indi

Right, so the BEAST weapon example, where the weapon is so high-tech it requires the mindsim to operate it, which in turn is really just translating the thoughts and actions of the meatsack into controls the weapon responds to - this LMI is the capacity of the mindsim to make that translation. If it cannot get it sufficiently fast and precise, then the weapon is too dangerous to be used.

I would say that the cloning process must be of the body AND mindsim. Since we'll be cloning ourselves and then going off to get more experience, the clone can't be of a higher level than us. And if we clone a different body, and different mindsim, then we're no cloning ourselves so what's the point? 

But still, you're right that there can be all sorts of weird experimentation rp.

Sairys

My expectation is more that the Fury class is the one that will mess with the mindsim level concept the most because it seems the least "tech" class. (If it really uses any?)

The others are relatively easy because they incorporate tech. Really, for weapons and armor BEAST is actually the easiest. 


An aside: LMI makes me laugh because it's the acronym for a remote access service that's relatively common.

Archer

Historically IRE just calls them “levels” ICLY.  I like where this is going though!

Pollivar

To clarify, you wouldn't be able to have a level 75 mindsim and a level 75 body because the level would be the integration between the two - they aren't anything on their own.  As for kithblades and furies, well, I got the impression that kithblades are, in fact, tech to channel the kith from your body into the sword and then use it as a weapon! That seems like a very mentally intensive process. Doing all of that AND fighting with it? Obviously, the more powerful your 'focus' - the blade - the more your mindsim needs to be able to run all of it and connect to it...

Sairys

Maybe? Kith really just reads as space magic to me right now, like Fury is pyromancers with swords

Also, rereading over some of the articles it seems like the mindsim is more in line with the stacks from Altered Carbon merged with a phone + ai assistant than something that's taking over mental processing for us.

Maybe it does? but again, just rereading it, I'm not sure it's the sort of thing that you're going to run your iron man suit through. More info could easily sway things any which way.

Korvyr

Space magic, eh? I prefer to think of it as simply beyond current understanding, like gravity, or physics at the center of a black hole.

Why do two objects gravitate towards one another at a speed directly related to their mass? No clue, but they sure do.

Sairys

Sure, it's mostly a placeholder for stuff that doesn't get explained away as science/technology though.

Again with the fury, a potential reason for level locks on the blades is a relatively simple one.
The design that makes a kithblade more powerful than a lower level one is to do with it's effectiveness as a conduit for star kith.

Higher level ones are more effective but require more power from their users, the level req is a representation of when you're actually capable of activating the kithblade.
If you're above the required level you can use lower level ones because you're able to channel the needed energy, but you can't exceed the capabilities of the blade itself