How do monomates even work

[Cemetery Hill]

Have you ever thought about this, and wondered how recovery items work in this game? You'd think they'd be a drink (in the case of mono/di/trifluids). But then you get androids using mates, and I'm just wat. Does it like, break open, and release photon energy, is it also a drink, or a gas, or something? I'm legit curious about how some of these things work, given a great reality stretch (Come on, Zanba inside a tiny red box? I mean, the box could be a physical manifestation of data, which can be converted back into data that you carry as your inventory and then the item that the data actually contains).

TL;DR - How do items even anything.

[NoiseHERO]

I always thought of em as rations... like calorie mate. mono,di, and tri being the size.

PSO2 Alpha test made em syringes... How sci-fi magic of em.

Then PSO2 made them drinks.

So basically you probably know just as much as the creators when it comes to the non-static concept behind them.

[blace]

You know what needs to be answered? Moon atomizers.

How do they bring you back with tossing one into the air? How does anything do anything?

[NoiseHERO]

Well death in RPG games has always really been knock out, right...?

Otherwise story line deaths wouldn't make sense. D:

So they gotta be healing ray thingies(star atomizers.) but smelling salts too.

[Sinue_v2]

Mates were originally a food item, like Calorimate - or one of those Nutritional Bars. They started with the Perolimate and Ruoginin in PSI (Soda and Burger in the US version). They didn't get the "Mono, Di, Tri" prefix until PSII when I think they were all simply nutritional bars that had nano-machines inside which helped the healing process. (They were potions (http://www.land-of-kain.de/phantasystar2/manual/ps2man36.htm) that were simply considered medicine) You didn't have to worry about Casts until PSIII and the issue was just overlooked. They worked for them as well as humans. PSIV, however, asked the same question you are, and their answer was to give Demi and Wren their own specific repair kits and repair techniques (something I kind of wish would come back... but it would complicate the game substantially).

Anyhow, PSO didn't really explain what mates were - or at least I don't remember, although I assume they went the food route since Cicil got pretty chunky by scarfing down Trimates whenever she so much as stubbed her toe. PSU included PS1's Perolimates as a throwback, and it was a craftable food item, so yeah... still food. And of course, PSO2 includes (for the first time) a graphical animation when using the item - and it appears to be an energy drink.


http://www.ripplinger.us/camineet/images/theories/peromate.jpg

Atomizers (or "Dews" in the originals) were like, well... atomizers. Spray-ons. So, same principal, except applied topically or inhaled I guess. More difficult to explain were the 'Pipes. Hidepipe, Escapipe, and Telepipe. These items were basically woodwind instruments, more like Ocarinas (http://www.land-of-kain.de/phantasystar2/manual/ps2man35.htm)... which eventually evolved in PSO/PSO2 into a little technical gadget that could cast Ryuker. How a pipe could teleport you back to town or out of a dungeon ala-Super Mario Bros. 3, I have no clue. PSU just ignored pipes and had you teleport by crystal (because they're awesome in Final Fantasy, so of course folks will love them in their Phantasy Star amirite?).

If you want some kind of rational explanation for Mates or Atomizers which I don't think contradicts any of the game's official canon, you could always just assume that your character's body is already loaded down with surgical nanites that simply lay dormant in vital tissues until you drink a "mate" or use an "atomizer" - at which point their batteries are charged and they go to work. It'd work the same for casts... just assume they're coated/infused with self-healing materials already and just await a catalyst to invoke the reaction.

[Cemetery Hill]

That actually makes sense (And telepipe/ryuker is basically just a wormhole type deal, or magic. I mean, come on, we're making fireballs from nothingness).

But then you get players like myself who use Androids. Then again, I do believe that Androids (or at least mine because I'm special) are basically cyborgs in armor. Or Iron Man's legacy.

[gigawuts]

Being that there was an actual quest where you piece together a disassembled cast in PSO (lol lionel), I don't think they're really just cyborgs in armor.

Now, they might not be pure machine - I also think they either have always had organic components or at some point organic components began to be used. Hence casts being able to use techs. In PSO1 techs were assigned to the user, but in PSO2 techs are assigned to the weapon. I feel like techs and casts met halfway, with casts becoming a bit more organic and techs becoming a bit more mechanic.

So, I'm going to say food with nanobots and healing photons. Because in scifi technology is magic and has no limitations so long as the story doesn't demand it.

[blace]

What about casts like Ult(Elenors sister)?

She seemed to be stuck in between that rift.

[gigawuts]

Well, nobody said every cast was an identical make and model. They even went into some pretty specific detail with the racaseal named Shino in a quest, talking about how she was an older model and wasn't really capable of acting independently.

I figure casts were a technology in ongoing development in PSO, with models from a few decades prior being mostly machine, standard models for the game's time incorporating SOME organic bits for processing, and cutting edge experimental models incorporating more organic bits.

Honestly, for casts I actually consider PSU to be directly linked to PSO. They seemed to be taking that path already, and PSU seemed to pick up where the story in PSO with AI's and cast designs left off. It was probably the way their approach to casts was evolving over time in real life.

[blace]

With the players aside, casts did seem to be following a set habit or job.

So far, they seem to have more of their own minds in PSO2. No need to look further than Lisa, what with her maniacal sense of humor.

[gigawuts]

Yeah, Lisa is a bit of a wild card. While most casts in PSO1 were seemingly designed for a purpose, hunter casts (not the hunter class, but members of the hunters guild - AKA players) seemed to be completely autonomous, but not necessarily fully sentient and self-aware.

In PSO2 that trend carries forward pretty much the same. I don't recall much about cast NPC's in PSU, but in PSO2 many casts seem to be tied to groups or organizations (Fourier in particular), although still seem to be somewhat independent. There haven't been any casts acting as essentially appliances like there were left right and center in PSO1. The player casts are, again, fully autonomous units, but do seem to have a lot more sentience going for them.

I'm mostly extrapolating sentience and self-awareness from NPC's that are similar to what players would be in the game world, and that's largely influenced by the actual limitations of the game. PSO didn't have autowords, or the ability to make casts more animated in cutscenes, etc. But at the same time what I'm describing may have been completely intended.

This has nothing to do with monomates and I am sorry.

[blace]

Lucaim Nav had personality. A somewhat invasive one.

Anyway, the nanomachines could be a viable option seeing as how scape dolls are used up upon the player losing consciousness. That doesn't seem to account for moon atomizers though as they have the same effect but only affect those that lost consciousness rather than restoring friendly units in the immediate area.

[gigawuts]

I consider a lot of games to be similar to Metroid's approach to health. Samus' suit doesn't actually have health - it has energy. When the energy is exhausted you die. Increases to health are energy tanks, and in some games you can have reserve tanks that restore a single (IIRC?) tank when you take a hit that should kill you.

So when the energy is spent, your suit's defenses are too. You only die due to exposure to the hostile environment, or the attack that broke through the last bit of energy (which is presumably powering a shielding of some kind).

I took scape dolls to be like that in PSO1. It works for all classes except the HUnewearl, which is in stripper garb as opposed to something that could be interpreted as a power suit or solid metal.

[blace]

I took scape dolls to be like that in PSO1. It works for all classes except the HUnewearl, which is in stripper garb as opposed to something that could be interpreted as a power suit or solid metal.
Bikinis. How does it work on them?

[gigawuts]

uuuuuh

photons

シ

[blace]

uuuuuh

photons

シ
And that is the answer to everything PS.

Edit: Now it makes me wonder, how does a scape doll revive you? Needles? Patch? A shockpad to the chest?

[gigawuts]

Well, like I said, the scape doll would be absorbing damage in place of you. Fainting would be it just reaching its limit. All thanks to the power of photons.

[blace]

I don't know, I recall always falling over in a heap before it gets used up.

[gigawuts]

Yeah I know*, but.... photons.

*I don't know.

[Sinue_v2]

Well, techniques aren't magic. I don't know if modern Phantasy Stars still make the distinction, but techniques are more a spiritual energy you channel into physical effect. Think of it kind of like this, Ryu from Street Fighter casts "fireballs" when he preforms Hadouken... but you wouldn't call him a wizard like Gandolf or Elminster. Those kinds of wizards did once exist in Phantasy Star via the Espers like Lutz, but you had to be born with the innate talent to tap it - and then train diligently to refine that talent into spells. Techniques, developed between PSI & II's time, were designed to be a kind of "magic substitute for dummies" who didn't have the aptitude for real magic. Even so, many character couldn't use techniques either. Rudolf Steiner of PSII, or the entire Orakian line of PSIII, for example.

Since it's a spiritual energy, in the classic series androids couldn't use techniques at all - since they weren't biological or had a "spirit" to channel. Well, except for Mieu in PSIII, but she also obviously (http://www.pscave.com/comic/ps3characterbook/page113.jpg) (and awesomely (http://www.pscave.com/comic/ps3characterbook/page114.jpg)) had some flesh and blood components. That doesn't really explain how she could use Techniques... but... she's a lactating robot. Just roll with it.

In PSO, Techniques have become even more generalized into an everyday technology that used the caster's ability to channel photons (a spiritual energy) to produce a pre-programmed effect... and new techniques or technique upgrades came in disk form. Casts, because they had no ability to channel photons, could not use techniques in PSO. By PSU's time, Sonic Team had made photon's the PS universe's "magic sauce" stand-alone technology that could do and justify just about anything and everything for no reason even without a biological source to channel the photons. Photonic technology either merged or displaced most all other traditional technologies, and thus Cast's gained the ability to use Techniques through technology. As for PSO2, I just started and can't read Japanese, so I can't say why casts are able to use Techniques in that game... or if it's even bothered to be explained.

Photons are, and have always been, a form of spiritual energy... so it does kind of tie back, even if the original series never mentioned photons. Photons, you could say, represent the Great Light (PSU made this tie very explicit)... while the D-Cellular factor was a product of Dark Falz.

[blace]

I'm sorry, I'm not overlooking the rest of your post but:


That doesn't really explain how she could use Techniques... but... it doesn't really explain how she can lactate either, so just roll with it.

What?

[UnLucky]

Defensive units emit a photonic barrier to absorb the various forms of incoming force the wearer might be susceptible to in harsh or hostile environments.

Actual physical coverings are not nearly as effective in combat if they are not infused with photons, which is why many ARKS members prefer lighter attire for mobility, comfort, or individuality.

[Sinue_v2]

I'm sorry, I'm not overlooking the rest of your post but:

What?

I edited the post. But... yeah, still. What indeed.

[Cemetery Hill]

So basically, long story short; Photons. Photons for everything.