Virtual Reality

VR simulspaces are comprehensive and authentic illusions. The resolution is so high definition as to be hyper-real, with even minute details and sensations replicated perfectly. Entering VR is much like entering an alternate reality.

Accessing Simulspaces

While you can access a simulspace server via the mesh, the bandwidth consumption and potential lag makes this unfavorable except for short visits. Hardwired connections are much faster and more reliable. Those with access jacks simply jack in, others place ultrasonic trode nets over their heads. Only servers may run simulspaces.

VR completely takes over your sensorium, overriding physical senses. Most people prefer to keep their body in a safe and comfortable environment while in a simulspace; body-fitting cushions and couches help you relax and keep you from cramping up or injuring yourself if you happen to thrash around. VR game parlors offer private pods. In case of long-term virtual sojourns (for instance, during space travel), morphs are normally retained in tanks that sustain them with nutrition and oxygen.

You first enter a simulspace via an electronic buffer holding area known as a white room. Here you choose your customizable avatar — your simulmorph — and other settings. Once ready, the white room dissolves away and you find yourself within the full-sensory virtual environment.

Muses: Most muses are left behind when entering a simulspace. However, they can potentially come along if domain rules permit it. Some simulspaces give muses their own simulmorph.

Domain Rules

Simulspaces include real-world simulations, historical recreations, and fantastic worlds of every genre. None are bound by the laws of physics. The fundamental forces of reality — gravity, electromagnetism, atmosphere, temperature, etc. — are programmable in VR, allowing for environments that are completely unnatural. Gravity might fluctuate, weather may be subject to emotion, magic may exist, and you might heal damage effortlessly or be capable of transmogrifying into other creatures — the possibilities are endless. The domain rules that structure the simulspace reality are coded in and may be altered and manipulated according to the whim of the admins.

Time Distortion: Time itself is an adjustable constant in VR, though deviation from true time has its limits. So far, transhuman designers have achieved time distortion up to 60 times faster or slower than real time (roughly one minute equaling either one hour or one second). Time contraction is far more commonly used, granting more time for simulspace recreational activities, learning, or work (a strong economic incentive). Time dilation, on the other hand, is extremely useful for making long-distance travel through space more tolerable.

Simulmorphs

Your simulmorph is your digital representation in VR. For all intents and purposes, it feels like a real physical morph — or perhaps an infomorph or something weirder, depending on the domain rules.

Though your simulmorph may experience pain and damage in VR, this is merely sensory input — your physical morph (or infomorph) remains unharmed. Such experiences can still have a strong psychological impact on an ego, as the simulation is as close to reality as you can get. Torture in VR seems every bit as real as actual physical torture. Your ego may still suffer mental stress and trauma as a result of simulspace experiences.

Immersion

While in VR, your physical body slumps inertly, sometimes jerking or thrashing. The immersion cuts you off from your physical senses. At the GM’s discretion, you may make a Perceive Test at −60 to notice extreme disturbances or if your physical body takes damage. You may enter and leave a simulspace at will, but toggling in or out takes a complex action.

While immersed, your link to the mesh is routed through the simulspace’s interface. If the domain rules allow it, you may browse the mesh, communicate with others, etc. — though this may be experienced differently than usual, perhaps like reading a book or communing with spirits. Time distortion may also be an issue — holding a chat with someone in meatspace is excruciatingly slow when time is accelerated. Some simulspaces do not allow outside connections.

If the simulspace crashes or you are otherwise dumped from it, you immediately resume control of your morph as normal.

Simulspace Rules

Since a simulspace is an alternate world with its own reality, the GM chooses what stats a simulmorph has and what rules exist for the setting. Anything goes. You could even break out the rules from another game for an extended simulspace session.

GMs should also keep the following rules in mind:

• Asyncs cannot use their psi abilities in simulspace, though such abilities can be simulated.
• Any damage taken in the simulspace is virtual. Virtual injuries and wounds can use the same mechanics, but characters that die in a simulspace are usually simply ejected from the simulation. In some cases, “dead” characters are brought into a white room and can re-enter or just watch the simulation, depending on the domain rules.
• Mental stress or trauma inflicted during a simulation carries over to the ego. The GM may wish to reduce SV penalties in situations where the character is aware they are in a simulation.
• Vigor pool cannot be used in simulspace.
• Time distortion has no effect on pool recharge rates — pools recharge at normal time frames, no matter if your mind is running at faster or slower speeds.

Cheat Codes

Like any system with rules, there are ways to cheat. Many simulspace games intentionally incorporate cheat codes as easter eggs or rewards; others are simply intended to make an admin’s work easier. Cheats allow you to break the domain rules in some way. This may be a special power, a way to alter an environmental factor (like flying), altering the time distortion, access to hidden maps or controls, a way to get info on other simulmorphs, or a short-cut through part of the simulation. In game terms, cheats might provide special abilities or modifiers to a simulmorph’s skill or stat tests. Cheating is usually forbidden. Players who cheat in a simulspace game and get caught may face eviction from the simulspace. Nevertheless, cheat codes are highly prized and sometimes even traded on the black market.

Hacking Simulspaces

Simulspaces are complex virtual environments and often run on time dilation, which means that hackers cannot hack them in a normal manner when they participate in the simulation. There are ways to affect and influence the simulation from within, but the degree of subversion that is achievable is limited. For this reason, hackers rarely enter VR to hack.

Within a simulspace, your only option for hacking is through the standard interface that any simulmorph can pull up. This is used for standard user features like customizing your simulmorph, chatting with other users, viewing maps/FAQs, or checking the status of the system or other users. Options for using this interface to hack the system are usually quite limited, as they are designed so that system controls and processes cannot be accessed and manipulated from the inside, unless you happen to have credentials for an admin account. At the GM’s discretion, a poorly designed simulspace may have hidden ways for accessing admin options or even accessing a command terminal from within the simulspace; finding such tricks may require a rep favor, a Research Test in advance, or a critical success on an Interface Test.

Externally hacking into a server running a simulspace is just like breaking into any other system; use all of the standard rules for intrusion and subversion. External hackers can manipulate a simulspace in the same way as an admin or cheat code from within.

Simulspace User Actions

Standard user options in a simulspace boil down to a few actions:

• Access Simulspace Functions: This catch-all action encompasses everything a normal user is meant to do in a simulspace. This includes things like customizing your simulmorph, chatting with other users, editing user-defined parameters, initiating mini-games, trading virtual items, viewing user profiles, accessing maps or background files, and so on. Some features may require an Interface Test.
• Activate Cheat Code: If you know a cheat code, you can activate it to acquire what benefit it provides.
• View Domain Rules: You can analyze the simulation’s parameters, rules, and controls. With an Interface Test, this may give you an understanding of things you can do that aren’t immediately intuitive or a way to get past a specific obstacle, challenge, or puzzle.

Admin/Cheat Actions

Admins and users with cheat codes have more options. The following represent just a few of the potential options — many others are possible, depending on the simulspace in question. Most simulspaces are monitored to prevent cheating and abuse, though admins are typically pre-occupied with maintaining the simulspace as a whole, dealing with other users, etc. At the gamemaster’s discretion, an admin might get to make an Interface Test (possibly with a modifier for distraction) to notice the use of unauthorized cheat codes.

• Add/Remove Cheat Codes: Either install a new cheat code or edit/remove an existing one. Writing or editing a cheat may require a Program Test with a timeframe set by the GM. Finding an existing cheat may require a Research Test. Installing a cheat code hidden from other admins requires a Hacking Test.
• Alter Domain Rules: Most simulspaces have control interfaces that let you tweak the system settings within certain parameters; adjusting these does not require a test. Drastically altering a domain’s environment or underlying rules, however, will require a Program Test with a timeframe set by the GM.
• Control NPCs: You can dictate what responses NPCs give to certain actions or direct them outright.
• Eavesdrop: You can virtually surveil other users in the simulspace, no matter their virtual proximity.
• Generate Items: You can create virtual items regardless of rarity.
• Modify Simulmorph: You can modify a simulmorph’s stats within specified parameters. This can range from giving them extra hit points or special abilities to nerfing them. Drastic changes may require a Program Test with a timeframe set by the GM.
• Privacy: You can enact privacy controls that prevent your face-to-face communications with other users from being eavesdropped upon.
• Start/Stop Simulspace: You can launch a new simulspace or close down an existing one. Once initiated, this takes 1d6 minutes. Closing down a particularly large simulspace with many users takes time, as users are given a chance to cleanly log off.
• Teleport: Instantaneously travel anywhere within the simulspace.
• Terminate Session: You can forcibly end a user’s session, returning them to the white room.
• Toggle God Mode: Make your simulmorph invulnerable to damage.
• Toggle Invisibility: Make yourself imperceptible to standard users.
• Toggle Lockbox Controls: Lockbox simulspaces prevent specified users from toggling in or out of simulspace. This is common with VR used for torture, holding forknapped or indentured egos, or in certain instances of psychosurgery involving volatile patients.