Vending Machines

* See also Vita-Chamber
* See also Rapture_Economy
* See also Gatherers_Garden
* See also Hacking
* See also Mini_Games
* See also Types_of_businesses_City_could_have
Player Interaction Machines Found In The Game.
Uinvent.jpg|The BS1 Maker Mechanism ( extending a reason for loot bits found ) - U-Invent-IT machines
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GatheGard.jpg
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Genenenenebank.jpg|concept
FortuneMachine.jpg|An amusing game prop 
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EVE_Dispenser.jpg|Dispenced For Free To Patrons in Adonis Resort
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ADD Security Shutdown (fine paying system), Eve Dispenser, Medi-Station, Gumball machine, and the amusement Slotmachines, Jukeboxes, and The 'Zardoz' Fortune Telling thingee.
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Stuff Is STILL In Vending Machines ? :
It puzzles me (Story-wise) that so many goodies would still be left in the Vending/free machines in BS1/BS2. You'd think they would have been long cleaned out ( being a resupply mechanism for the Blast-Fest game simply justifies it, overriding logic ). Hacking might have been too hazardous for most Splicers ( especially if they have 'the shakes' ). But we found plenty of Splicers carrying sufficient money ( And Big Daddies had alot too ?? Interesting... ). THUS : Was someone still filling the machines with new inventory ? Making new inventory ? Were people still being paid ?? 
By BS2, who keeps restocking the Vending Machines ? With old money laying about like confetti, you would think everything would have been bought out. Where does the stuff come from ? After 10 years, alot of things should be running out ( except by some hidden infrastructure/production even in Lamb's domain, which we don't see ... ? ) Who would be crazy enough to still accept 'old money' for valuable items ? 
In BS1, Rapture must not have been as "gone" as they (the writers) made you believe. And in BS2, I see no reason why Sofia Lamb would not have seized anything/everything good and doled it out exclusively to her faithful lackeys ( to exert control ).
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Understand that the Vending Machines in BioShock perform useful access to different game mechanics elements ( Plasmid/Tonic adjustments/purchase/upgrades, weapon ammo resupply and enhancements, Player medical repairs. ) It being a Shooter Game, they have to operate largely instantaneous -- When for any semi-realistic operation, many would have to be more complicated and take up far more time time ( similar to instant weapon changing, Plasmid switching, administering Medi-paks, etc ... )
The MMORPG's more realistic/detailed Playstyle would have many Vending Machines be much more involved and NOT so instant. 
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 "Do we gouge the suckers a little ? Maybe. But where else they gonna go ?" - Lloyd Webster, President, Circus of Values Vending. :
A poster boy for the game writers implication that 'Capitalism is Evil', and thus the writers make sure that failure was assured from the start ? Have you ever seen a Vending Machine that gives you a lower price ( as compared to your supermarket prices ) ? Convenience is a commodity. There is competition from every other source of the same goods, which the buyers have the choice to purchase from instead. You might as well voice the same illogical complaint towards the World we live in.
Note that we DO see these Vending Machines AFTER Rapture has gone downhill ( more than a little ... in a state of dangerous Chaos ). Who then refills the machines, and at what cost and risk ? Perhaps the prices went up as the chaos spread and there was great risk for most people just trying to go to what few stores were still open. Wouldn't ALL prices have gone up in such an environment ? THIS IS Basic Economics. Later, what is Money really worth in Rapture, anyway ? What is still produced and available by that point ? ( So, 'Limited Availability' as well ... )
It is actually unlikely those Vending Machines would have a single item remaining in them by BS1's time -- UNLESS the City was NOT in quite as bad a shape as the writers tried otherwise to present. Perhaps many Citizens were in a better situation than the deserted/wrecked areas Jack passed through ? After all, Atlas is guiding him, and likely that path would be through largely unoccupied areas ( areas which Atlas's Terrorist-Anarchists trashed ) - areas with minimum Ryan-siding presence. Even then, with the 'Pheromone Control' being in effect, the worst of the nastiness may 'be over' in Rapture.
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Empty Vending Machines :
In BioShock there supposedly were the machines placed by rather 'mercenary' manufacturers ( Ooh - Evil 'Capitalists' ) who apparently did not have a problem with selling to both sides/everyone (ie- Ammo ...) .
With a terrorist %27civil_war%27 and anarchy, as time went on and Rapture's Economy and Order took a rather major downturn, production of much of the common items would have been drastically reduced or ( particularly more sophisticated ones ) even stopped completely. Eventually there would be little restocking. SO Rapture apparently wasn't quite the 'basket case' in BS1 times as the writers wanted to imply.
Otherwise, People would also run out of money, or the money itself would soon have little value ( there would be nothing anyone was willing to sell that helped their own survival or could be bartered ). People would hoard important items. Less Order meant more machines would be broken into. We saw at least one machine ( Fontaine Futuristics which when a hacking failed killed the Splicer, and a Booby-trapped one in Hephaestus, and numerous damaged/destroyed ones in many places ).
Goods Stockpiles would dwindle with few (if any) replacements. Factions ( like Sofia Lamb's ) might be able to keep making various items, but just with ONE unobtainable material or component THEN some item can no longer be produced ( and it is usually very hard for workable substitutes to be found ). 
By the later (MMORPG) period, machines in no-mans-land would likely all be empty, or even taken for spare parts/components/materials. In organized Faction territory, Vending Machines would only have basic items ( and even then most supplies would be manually controlled - a resource used by the BOSS ). The money such machines accepted likely would have been changed ( too much Old money floating around ). Machines in sealed-off areas might still retain their original inventories, but these would have been 'sought out' over the years.
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SO, Who Keeps Filling The Vending Machines ? :
Most amazing thing of all - That in Rapture THAT there is ANYTHING Left in any of the Vending Machines -- If things are as bad as the game implies ( 'Failtopia' - remember ... ). If everything is so disrupted and people so desperate, then they'd have broken in and stolen EVERYTHING that wasn't already bought out. Those things then wouldn't be replaced ( money became useless, etc ... ). For BS2, after years of further erosion of abilities and facilities ( and incompetence of the Crazy Lady ), most of the stuff just couldn't be made anymore anyway ( though substituting appropriate things would have been fun -- "WHAT ? $15 for just ONE Rock ?? That's ridiculous !!!"... "Get Some More Money Buddy!!!" ).
FOR Infinite BS's Columbia, it was supposed to have not quite have gotten to 'Fail' yet, but that place still has very weird stuff in the machines, and even stranger Pricing. There, despite the belief that such Soulless machines which were 'taking away' jobs of 'the godly', could ONLY be the work of the Devil -- and Every One Of Them should be smashed and inoperable, no matter what Comstock said ( or HE would soon have found himself "Smashed and Inoperable" ). Iconoclasm WOULD/SHOULD have been a better story for Infinite BS's Columbia ( Ludditism was one of the original concept ideas for a Failtopia-esque game environment -- Maybe they should have stuck with it. ).
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No Coin Slot ? ( Huh - This is Rapture ain't it ?? ) - Things that should have had a "Payment for the Service" :
* Gene Bank ( A useful service should be paid for - It is the 'Rapture Way', at least to some extent it could clean out genetic 'baggage' from previously used Plasmids/Tonics. Mayhem in the streets, and Citizens could no longer get to a convenient working Gene Bank machine. )
* Vita-Chamber ( Maybe customers have accounts - it is a sophisticated system... patient records/data, etc ... )
* Power-to-the-People ( But then Fontaine's/Atlas's handouts were Meant to cause trouble... Guns for his future Atlas supporters ).
* EVE Supply Dispenser ( To keep workers from constantly pocketing a few for 'later', or was EVE really cheap ? ... We do find it lying about all the time. )
* Jukeboxes - What would it have mattered to spend $1 ???
* Public TV Sets ( the ones in entertainment venues - instead of the ones used for public service or in commercial environments ). Perhaps some parents would have them on their Home TVs as a way to limit little Jimmy and Jill from wasting too much time watching the 'Goob-tube' - or in rental properties.
* Public Elevators ( Some might have them as seen in BaS1 )
* A 'Shoe Shine Machine, with a leg sticking out of it might have been interesting (coin operated)
* Computer Game ( hottest thing from McClendon ) - eats quarters of course
* Chewing Gum Machines in the AE stations ( like the ones I remember on the NYC subways )
* Cigarette Machines, natch. ( There might have been 'Shot of Vodka' machines too )
* Gatherer's Gardens, which pre-dated the civil-wars's/anarchist-rebellion's start ( before ADAM became more the de facto currency )
CircusStamps.jpg
CircusStamps.jpg
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Circus Of Values may have originally given Trading StampsTrading Stamps : https://www.bing.com/search?q=trading+stamps ...
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The Fix The Pays :
You find the shell of a Vending Machine (of some flavor), perhaps with a few pieces which have not been destroyed or stolen. Useless ? Not if you can find and/or fabricate all the missing parts and repair the rest. Then you will have a machine to place somewhere where it has convenience like a central place in New Rapture where specialty items you get ahold of can be sold ( and will make it useful enough for other Citizens (and Players) to buy stuff from it ). No doubt upgrades, like better Tampering/Theft Security or other modifications, will allow the machine to do its job, and make you lots of PROFITS. Restocking your Vending Machine out at some Border area will become someone's Mission, as will obtaining/making useful items to stock it with. Your 'Team' NPCs can be tasked with more mundane servicing in 'Safe' areas.
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Circus of Values Has a 'Hack Tool' Advertised (picture) On Its Front :
A bit odd that a tool used for committing crimes is advertised 'for sale' (even in Rapture). Is it unlikely these machines would have their advertisements redone AFTER the disorder of the 'civil war' has started, when 'hacking' of the opposition's machines might be more acceptable ( or UnHack your own ). It is possible that the 'Hack tool' is actually a common repair item used in ordinary repairs of ones own machines ( nice would have had us do that (repairs) to some broken machines or locks or somesuch, INSTEAD of always breaking someone else's security measures ). Hmmm, have some older machines to be found broken with older 'skins' on them showing how the items being sold have changed ( hand scrawled sign text on recently (still) active ones ).
Faction Period vended goods (typical) :
* Dried Fish
* Potatoes
* Wad-O-Kelp ( was this to eat or to use as TP ? )
* Crude Matches
* Arrowheads
* Bottled Water (+ RRV)
* Seaweed cup-o-noodles
* Gum (actually awful tasting RTV rubber)
* Hardtack Biscuits
* Single Bullets/Shells ( alot harder to come by these days )
* Kerosene (for Lanterns)
* Sander Cohen brand Handywipes
* 'We Luv Rapture' Smiley-face pins ( that needle is adequate for many minor surgery application )
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==PowerToThePeople==
Largely a Contrived Game Expediency, it is still effectively a 'Machine' which the player can make use of.
This Upgrade Station idea filled-in/added a Game activity/goal roll, so it is BS1/BS2 operation needs to be discounted a little when used for a more realistic MMORPG Rapture. Additional upgrades from those seen in the Solo games. Perhaps some of the stranger/weirder ones were 'name only', and their effects were somewhat different -- Who knows what promises people would 'swallow' when they were desperate ( Also, what would 'Jack' know ? Was he supposed to be some expert on the subject ? ).
Operates on a limited set of 'standard' weapons ( and even then limited changes made with standard accessories). A real weapon upgrade station also cleans guns ( including ultrasonic cleaner while-u-wait ).
Seriously -- a 'magnetized' drill that deflects bullets, when simple lead bullets aren't magnetic ... ( and BTW a magnet PULLS steel/iron TOWARDS itself ??? )
Really those Stations shouldn't have limited you to one upgrade in their general use ( and should have cost you Money ), but for BS1/BS2 purposes, being a desirable to search-out/find level goal was an added exploration aspect. The MMORPG would have a much wider upgrade system, so any such stations are only basic ( assuming they aren't broken/destroyed/looted and still have any of the accessory parts left in them ).
Fontaine built them ? Why ? Would he want the majority of Rapture armed against him ? ( One of the stupidities of the game is that the writers assumed most Citizens would be against Ryan. ) Fontaine/Atlas could still arm/upgrade his minions without needing these publicly-accessible machines. So again it is a 'game' feature that might be a bit differently handled in the MMORPG.
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Seriously, Why would Fontaine want Ordinary Citizens to be empowered, when very many would Join Ryan in acting to Destroy him or his later Atlas character ???
Perhaps these machines were only located in the destabilized areas where Atlas was active -- The parts YOU (as Jack) get trotted through to keep you safe, rather than other parts of Rapture where Citizens had kept control with Ryan's help.
Magical whizzbang conversion machines semi-realistically might be able to provide more minor mods ( Automatic-ing standard guns, larger magazines, better sights, stock/grip mods, longer barrels, clean and lube, and other NON-Magical modifications - largely dealing with standard add-on parts ). 
Wouldn't be as quick either ( It is convenient for a game where Players don't like tedious waits ). But then YOU ARE already ADAM_Addled by the time you see your first one of these upgrade stations, and so your sense of 'time' might be rather warped when you DO your first Weapons Upgrade mod.
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Realistic 'Power To The People' Upgrades :
This would have been for a set of Standard Weapons -- To have 'bolt on' upgrades of the various kinds in effectively a self-serve vending machine. Some weapons, like the Chemical Thrower and Grenade Launcher, would then be not quite as 'kludged' together as sometimes implied/illustrated ( ex- the cute "we used vegetable cans to build these" look they had in the game.)
Funny and more realistic would be : Every additional Mod to a weapon made it more likely to malfunction/jam/fail and thus force the player to switch quickly to a different weapon ( more interesting gameplay for the MMORPG then too ... )
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* Prime Health Unit First Aid station ( Insta-Healing station )
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* Security Bot Cutoff Station ( Pay Fine to stop the Flybots from killing you for your crime ) 
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== Indirect/Non-operating Machines In-Game : ==
Note- Most of these In-Game didn't require payment, but in Ryan's Rapture should have...
* Bubblegum machines
* Drill Fuel
* Epstein the Swami - You paid a Dollar for the 'Amusement
* Gatherers Gardens - may have operated using ADAM as payment ( excess of that needed for the Plasmid/Tonic/Slot ) - ones we saw apparently were setup by Ryan Industries after the takeover of FF.
* Gene Banks - may have absorbed some amount of ADAM out of the customers system as 'payment'
* Lockers - like ones seen in Ryan Amusements
* Door Locks ( that you can 'bribe' ???? )
* Newspaper Racks
* OxyFill tation
* Payphones
* Pay Toilets
* Pay Turnstile for Metro ( seen in Welcome Center )
* Peephole Viewing in Sirens Alley
* Pay Elevator ( in Buried at Sea ?? )
* Pneumo Kiosks - Remote On-demand delivery would be an *extra* pay service
* Power to the People - eventually would have been charged for Service
* Safes ( which you can 'bribe' ???? )
* Scenic Binoculars - a view paid for
* U-Invent machines ( may have operated by require more materials than were actually used to produce the resulting items )
* Vita-Chamber - Rejuvenation/Resurrection booth
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Hack Attack :
It was Kinda odd to have Vending Machine selling a Hacking Tool which can be used to cheat the same companies vending machines (or others). Maybe logical if they were only made in the U-Make-It machines ??
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Gene Banks were discussed in Rapture to not only alter what Plasmids and Tonics the Player could have, but were originally meant for citizens to cosmetically enhance their own physical aesthetics, such as their body size, how they look, etc ... We've seen website showing what has happened to unfortunate Celebrities who overused things like BoTox ... No doubt there were people of a similar sort in Rapture.
MMORPG Players characters no longer are Splicers, but the game's Role Playing' element allows playing out the life Splicers lived ( Heh - every Player can have a 'Splicer persona' to organize and run (if they wish) to give the other side of the real "Rapture Experience" ... )
You get (as Player) to select your 'look' at the game start ( a product of your DNA - no real 'mods', as they proved temporary, minus a little subsequent 'plastic surgery' ...) You are returned to your unmodified DNA state as part of 'The Cure'. This is a typical thing for MMORPGs, to offer customization to Players when creating a character/avatar ...
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"Slot" Oriented Plasmid/Tonic Genetics ( and the "Gene Bank" ) :
It is all for gameplay purposes -- when you come down to it. But they did have the two tier ( manual select of equipped Plasmids, and the unused set with the Gene Bank changing between the slots ) as a limitation. When menus ( like the Plasmid use selector ) get too long, they are a bother to use, and you did eventually acquire sufficient slots such that you could do plenty of different things when you wanted to ( without having to reconfigure yourself with the Gene Bank machine constantly ).
I rarely even used the GeneBank for normal playing, and mostly just for exploring what the other Plasmids/Tonics did ( and in those Playthrus, it was even then just buying variously different ones and initially equipping them to see what they did ).
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Splicers ( if an individual even had ANY ) Plasmids, : They had very few ( compared to Jack or Delta or Atlas ). I could speculate that the earlier versions of Rapture Plasmids did NOT allow the genetically upgraded user to change them out --- That would require a much more complex biological mechanism/technology ( the Slots ... and then changeable slots - done via Gene Bank manipulation ). With earlier produced versions, the more you had, the more UNSTABLE you were ( and Splicers we saw in the game were the ones who hadn't yet genetically imploded from having too many at once ).
Later, Ryan would have wanted the Plasmids to NOT fry the Splicer's brains so much ( SERIOUSLY, He wouldn't want MORE insane people tearing up his City and murdering the remaining Citizens ). So when he got charge of Fontaine Futuristics, he would probably have had the genetic engineers work on having more stability, resulting in the Slot Mechanism, and then a method to disable their effects ( Which Delta and Jack and Atlas could use - Though we probably wouldn't have seen what long term effects might still be going to happen for them - Each of those game's time spans were of really only days at the most(?) ).
ADAM also may have been rare(r) by the time of the Player's BioShock playing (BS1), and it just may have been too hard to amass enough of it for more than a few Plasmids ( ontop of all the Tonics you could also want ). 
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Gene Bankery Element Facilitating Game Play :
"Gene Bank" machine : A game mechanism to facilitate changing between the Plasmids and Tonics the Player accumulated as the game went on.
Otherwise for the bottle version application, or via some machine as the Gatherers Garden, a bottle you would have to get out of a machine ( buy from shop ? ), and then either use it immediately-on-purchase/on-finding, OR have some extra game inventory complexity to hold it til you wanted its use. 
IT WAS Simpler game-wise to have a menu-oriented machine to do this function with a separate purposed/dedicated-interface, and the Player ( WHEN you wanted to change your ADAM config ) now had a minor quest/activity required to do so ( find/get-to a Gene Bank ).
I found I hardly ever used it ( and mostly only when I was experimenting on Replays ).
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Gene Bank - How Exactly Would That Work ? :
Disabling gene-controlled tissue ?? How do genetic 'mod' things get undone in your body ( Do they just stay, but are 'turned off' ?? ) Washing out the RNA (which might control the 'Power') out of your system ( put back into its 'magic bottle' - to be restored at some time in the future ... ) ?
The Gene Bank machines would be closely related to the Gatherers Garden machine in that they adjust the products 'sold' in those machines ( control of them would be a 'feature' the better Plasmids/Tonics had ) - and would be marketed as such. They would thus have to match with the technical specifications of the standard Tonics/Plasmids ( and possibly competitors products ) to manipulate them properly.
Various Plasmid/Tonics may share similar sub-functions ( like common energy generation in the body usable by all/some Plasmids ). Those would not have to be removed, and may be a significant proportion of the person's "mods" (Splicing).
Rearranging tissue is kind of an ugly process ( ie- the hand projector tube structure that spurts blobs of inflammable fireballs ). Constant subtracting and adding of genetic modifications had to have some negative effects. Cruder ADAM products might not be easily removable/controllable and conflict with others.
The Gene Bank machine would be fairly sophisticated to be able to figure out what Plasmid/Tonic sub-functions (partial mods) to add/remove, and what component can stay and be reused in order to minimize the changes required. Likely, the Gene Bank would have ways to restore/reassert the body's original tissue when undoing these 'mods' ( Ryan pushed for better features like that once he took over the majority of the ADAM Industry ).
Conflicting Plasmids was alluded to as the cause of much of the genetic disruptions/turbulence which caused the deformations/tumors and led to secondary effects like insanity.
Note - most Splicers we see in the games don't really have that many different Plasmids/Tonics active. We ourselves are probably the worst example of a 'devils brew' of Plasmids/Tonics in combination ( perhaps if we ran around in Rapture for much longer, a huge number of negative side-effects would 'catch up to' us ). The Splicers who tried too many Plasmids ( especially at the same time ) may just not last/survive very long -- and this was probably even worse with the cruder early ADAM products ( and always with bootleg ones ).
"That's just the Plasmid blues, Mary. You just need to slow down a bit on the splicing. Before you know it, you'll be as right as rain..." ( http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/BioShock_Public_Address_Announcements )
Jack (you) apparently survived his(your) 'devils brew' ( in the 'Good' Ending ), but Tenenbaum may have known the best process to eliminate much of the genetic modifications. We did not see the intervening scenes ( leaving/returning to The Surface ), so you may have been 'purged' largely via one of the Gene Bank machines before you left ( you were eventually de-Daddy-fied also ).
Delta was hamburger, but Porter must've had something similar take place.
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How fast did these machines do their work ? In a FPS game Players don't want to wait and you get a '2D' interface anyway ( freezing the game ) so it might take much more time than what is shown. I would expect originally it was done by a 'doctor' or ADAM technician in a 'Mod-Shop' with a 'comfy chair', for proper 'adjustment'. Later, as the ADAM products got more sophisticated, and supported 'quick-change' features, these Gene Bank machines would come into being. Most people would NOT possess or be using the huge number we accumulate in our BS1/BS2 adventures or use so many simultaneously. Some of the Gene Bank machines we use in game might have rightly given a 'Tilt' warning when we used them.
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Now we might discount these machines as just a game facilitating mechanism, but if such Plasmids/Tonics existed, there would need to be further Convenient manipulations for the customers beyond simple 'installation' and adjustments might commonly have been made in their common/widespread use.
And like the working Gatherers Gardens ( which we saw existing as late as BS2 ), the machines either were really well built, or had to have had maintenance/repair on them continued. Gene Bank machines would have been an important component for Ryan's seeking to stabilize the ADAM addicted population, to try to maintain order while he moved forward with rebuilding his City. Like the Gatherers Garden machines ( and maybe other vending machines and the food supply ) they may have been the avenue through which the Pheromone Control components were disseminated to Rapture's Splicers.
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MMORPG - Return of the Pneumo Trading Machine Idea :
A "Buy N Sell", BioShock game concept picture showed a Pneumo tube fashioned with various equipment, wiring, and parts, such as a microphone, antenna, and projector ( and a reference to "Survivors" whom you traded with ). 
MMORPG Players traveling all the way back to some specific City Limits 'store' (or set of them) constantly can be bothersome, (gamewise) so you could have some remote trading/buying/selling available. There could be :
* Access to the equivalent of the typical MMORPG Auction House ( posting items and bids ) 
* Ordering from stores remotely ( fixed priced over the phone, and delivered to nearest working Pneumo Kiosk).
* Selling to a Clearing House with its fixed (or supply adjusted) prices ( transport trundles around to make pickups/deliveries in 'safe' areas ).
* Dealers who have fixed Prices for mundane items ( obviously ones that fit in a Pneumo Canisters and for which the Postage is NOT too much for the Value of the item ).
* Your NPC Team to store/retrieve items and go do buying and selling of mundane stuff on Autopilot ( using their developed NPC skill to get better deals ... ), and doing pickups/delivery/hauling ( particularly bulk stuff ). Relations/contracts with various business as a supplier...
* Direct Pneumo 'mailing' between Players (Private deals)
* There probably will be some Remote Outposts with stores/vending machines, and where the Pneumo has reached ( been repaired ), which would shorten routine (tedious) hauling distances ( probably with some 'Fees' involved to pay for the effort that went into the repairs - they are business ventures after all ). No doubt there would be Player 'Missions' to do some work like this.
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No more of that converting Distilled Water and Brass Tubing into Heat-seeking Grenades. Doing genetic chemical processing (ie- Lazarus Vector) also was a bit outside their scope. I would have had you use a Gatherers Garden ( better -- one Langford had modified ) for the Lazarus Vector in the game, myself.
Building up even fairly simple things takes a bit more than most of the things we fed into those U-Invent machines ( don't worry, in MMORPGs you have lots of time to do this stuff, and to remember not to throw away all the little bits and pieces you find ). There are still lots of simple things that can be made which are useful for minor repairs.
They are a little less than a 'Rent-A-Machine-Shop', but were good for those Citizens who couldn't afford the bunch of machines to do such work piecemeal. When using it, you also would be continually feeding money into a coin slot as you used it ( the Game Developers didn't want that complication - so that feature was missing ).
'Power To The People' machines were actually modified U-Invent equipment, customized for the standard weapon upgrades they were preprogrammed for -- and for the MMORPG you would spend a bit longer at work using it than imagined by the ADAM_Addled characters ( Jack and Delta ).
If you do some of the Fabrication (crafting) training in the MMORPG you will probably be using a reconditioned U-Invent machine for some of the simpler tasks. ( So, there would be a City Bounty for ones retrieved from 'The Ruins' ).
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U-Invent is Back In The MMORPG :
In the MMORPG, the U-Invent mechanism will be a little more realistic in the components the various standard 'invented' items would require ( example - the "Heat-Seeking RPG" will take a bit more than : 3 Distilled Water (Huh???), 2 Kerosene, 1 Brass Tube ). The skill(s) to properly use the machine will also be subject to Player's development for the different items ( higher yield, as unlike the simplified BS1] version there is a chance of failure ).
These machines are handy to use up all that trash you keep picking up as loot ( now with the encumbrance/capacity mechanics in the game ).
When was the last time you saw a Splicer using one of the U-Invent machines ? They then (if they did) would also value the machines, and would likely keep them better protected. Of course, damaged/inoperable ones would be strewn about the city, and to a Player possibly be worth you 'hauling away' ( easier said than done ) to repair them -- move them to a common 'safe' location, repair them, add a coin slot, and voilà! 'Instant' Business.
The U-Invent unit might not do as quite a complex operation as composing a RNA modifying plasmid/tonic any more ( maybe the one in Langford's lab was a special model ?? )
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U-Make-It ( U-Invent Machines For New Rapture ) :
This game mechanism is to facilitate making common useful items ( with less bother than the full blown fabrication training stuff or tedious finding and buying things from vendors/auctions ). There are lots of bits and pieces to pick up out in the ruined parts of the City.
Makes use of the old BS1 U-Invent technology type auto-fabrication machines ( which have fixed formulas for relatively simple items ) but will have somewhat better (logical) list of scrap components to create the different 'useful' items ( more components for players to scrounge for out there to raise cash for 'ammunition' and adventuring equipment ).
The MMORPG would add new Formulas of useful common things to make ( ie- electrical repair gizmos, basic items useful for repairs, modified ammo, etc ... )
Similar machines can also 'clean'/'renew'/'recondition' simple components (ie- nuts & bolts)
Players making new U-Invent machines ( and repairing old ones ) -- More customized machine for specific item flavors -- located in appropriate places ( City Center Training workshops will have a plethora of different machines ).
Entrepreneurs (Players & NPCs) supplying the machines - put a coin slot on machine. Convenience and inexpensive 'fabrication' without labor cost. Smart owners move their machines to better 'convenient' locations to meet demand, etc ...
Mission/Quest to 'upgrade' existing machines to be able to use an additional new formula.. ( You are tasked as the 'installer' and go out to enhance a particular machine, which from then on will have that enhancement available to its customers ).
Auto-Sausage making machine just didn't work so well ( 'Rat Sausage' still tastes like rat, no matter how much 'sea-peppercorn' you mix in with it ... ) Maybe other 'do-it-yourself' machines will have more success.
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Making specialized Ammo, this time with a little more realistic parts lists ( ie- when you make a special bullet it requires normal bullets/casings for a good part of the object --- instead of 2 Kerosene + 1 Brass Tube + 3 Shell Casing, to make 20 Armor-Piercing Auto Rounds ) ....
Players will find all kinds of junk laying about during their adventures, and some will be useful for using this U-Invent type machine to make something useful.
Since working U-Invent machines wont much be found out in The Ruins, they would be brought back to the new city and attempts made to repair them.
A much wider selection of produced object-types for various standard weapons and tools ( including basic things like nuts and bolts, nails, shrapnel ).
Yes, Shotgun Shells can be refilled/loaded with nuts & bolts and broken glass, but also might be filled with some kind of anesthetic/irritant/flammable/caustic powder.
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U-Invent U-Make-It Components :
Alcohol, battery, brass tube, enzyme sample, glue, empty hypo, kerosene, rubber hose, screw, shell casing, distilled water, chlorophyll solution, RJ-34 switches, Nitroglycerine, Ionic gel ...
No doubt the MMORPG would be adding all kinds of other similar salvage goodies to the components. Since most of the companies aren't around any more to make new items, and the spares stockpiles are getting depleted ( and old things decay over time ), we can still make use of the techniques those U-Invent machine used ( and some Players could fix up (repair) old U-Invent/U-Make-It machines still lying about out there ... You would want to haul it back to a 'safe' location and add a coin slot to charge for its use.
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Newspaper Vending Machines :
The Rapture Tribune Newpaper Vendor/Dispensers - must be made with Ryanium - I tried to bust one open and only dented it (funny it also had a paper from just after the Kashmir Incident - and this was in BS2, 7 years later. You would have thought the Splicers would have good uses for any remaining newspaper - and cash lying around like confetti to open the machine.
Interesting thought -- classic RL Newspaper Dispensers allow you to take a whole stack of newspapers ( simple machine - easy to quickly load ). Newspaper Vendors in Rapture could have been more sophisticated - Shock you if you take more than one or somesuch. Could have been Hackable ( Not sure why you would want to in the game though ... )
SO there shouldn't be any shortage of the machines in New Rapture.
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Burial At Sea DLC - Blind Copying Without A Thought :
DLC regurgitated rubbish -- They just reused the Infinite BS Kinetoscope mechanisms to push Backstory, NO MATTER THAT IT WAS COMPLETELY WRONG FOR 30-50 years later. The whole concept of "Ryan's Propaganda" via these machines is asinine. Remember the TV sets used to link events in BioShock ?? ( You were locked into a cutscene just the same, or trapped in a small room with a discombobulated face glaring at You ).
AT least the ones in Columbia you (the inhabitants) would 'USE OR ELSE' in that Nutty Cultish Police State. But SERIOUSLY, It makes absolutely NO Fricken sense to be in Rapture.
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A Porn-O-Matic Mini-Theater with its 'entertainment material' ( SELECT FROM EIGHT DIFFERENT SHOWS !!! ) changed weekly -- THAT would make sense, but that wouldn't really work to push the Backstory to the DLC's Players. 
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Caricature mutation of the Fortuneteller Cliche. You might Find these in the MMORPG in New Rapture which give clues for Missions. Their message was a 'bit of a downer' ...
You might find ones that have been modified by Splicers ( including ones Worshiped as 'gods' by some deranged Splicer Factions )
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One group of Splicers the MMORPG adventurer might encounter were a splinter group of the old 'Rapture Family' who worship an "Epstein The Swami" machine as their new 'god'. Its answers are mysterious and have been seen to foretell fates. One group found a second such machine to worship and placate (the Anti-Epstein), and a 'religious' schism happened that left many of both groups dead, until one side ( the 'good Epstein' sect ) managed to destroy the other's "False god".
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"Sell Your Gravy To The Circus of Values" ... ??? : 
Uh, last I looked, you only BUY from these machines, and you don't spend *ADAM* which might likely have been referred to as the real 'Gravy' ( good idea for MMORPG to use that as a slang term ). It doesn't then really even work as a euphemism for THESE machines. Perhaps at one time in the game's design all the Currency was to be ADAM ? ( Weapon vs Plasmid/Tonic dichotomy was needed for Players 'leveling', resulting in two 'currencies' being used in-game ).
Maybe, if it was a smart 'Pawnshop Machine' : Could be named with some adequate 'P' starting name -- "Poirot's Portable Pawnshop" ... ? Maybe like those absurd machines in Infinite BS that magically take Bullion and Jewelry in place of CASH ( and able to take thousands of dollars in Coins too - for those absurdly priced gimmicky Player upgrades. )
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Oxy-Fill Station (More Contemplations) : 
Implies commercial use ( like a gas station ... ) ?? Who would be outside ( does NOT look automatic enough to fill a Submarine without a "gas station attendant". ) A frequently used operation like this might actually be worth developing an anthromorphic robot mechanism, with an operator at a safe inside location (a booth). Managing a diver to serve outside is alot of work/trouble ( and overhead cost ), though use of a maintenance cyborg could work -- if manning a busy enough station warranted it "OOOMMMMARRGGGHHHHH HOMMMMM" ( Check your oil, sir ? )
The Oxy-Fill stations we've seen don't look properly placed to service submarines - area is too closed in around them. Subs would be logical customers as well as Divers and Equipment ( which uses compressed gas ). 
The city construction used alot more mini-subs ( to run massive automated construction machinery of many types ) than what the 'Memorial Museum' portrayed. So constant routine use would have many such non-commercial re-fill stations ( at minimum to 'top off' onboard supplies to maintain a sufficient safety margin ).
Automated billing (probably thru a membership) - not likely a 'coin slot' would be employed for the station mechanisms.
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Seen in Ocean Outside Fontaine Futuristics ( and advertised inside ) :
"Oxy-Fill station ($5)" used by ??? Submarines/Divers ( [Big Daddy|[Big_Daddies]] recharge for free - somewhere ). Requiring High Pressure, if used by Daddies - as their Diving_Suits operate at Deep Sea Pressure ( ambient 280 psi at 600 ft ), and those tanks have to hold a substantial charge at even higher pressure. ( Heh- Big Sisters use a 'credit card' to pay ... ) Welding Oxygen Gas tanks typically use 2200 psi in common welding equipment, so tech like that are not difficult to achieve ( just require really heavy gauge steel tanks ).
There would be (had been) many outside activities that would require divers - sign construction, sea industrial machinery, utility maintenance, window cleaners, window view landscapers, sea farmers, submarine repairs, Bathysphere Cable maintenance, Atlantic Express section crews, etc ... which were not 'city jobs' ( really bad if city workers had to pay for the air they use while doing their jobs ... Fontaine probably would do something like that with his workers. )
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Entertainment Machines - Pinball Machines in Rapture :
In 1942, when New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia sent his gendarmes to seize the city's pinball machines. New York did not relegalize pinball until 1976. ( Note - pinball machines were often employed as a type of GAMBLING Machine - not just the entertainment they later were used for. )
So in response to this remembered government tyranny, several businessmen in Rapture took the opportunity to express their creativity and freedom by creating all manner of pinball games with and without gambling features and various other gimmicks.
Lots of opportunities for Mini Games ( I saw pinball computer games more than 30 years ago, so such should run on a handheld easily ). Creation Tools for pinball games would be available to Players wanting to try their hand at creating such Assets. There would be all the usual pinball machine features, along with ability to insert artworks/sound-effects/place specialty 'themed' gimmicks into the Pinball games.
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"Doogey and Dipshit" : Rapture's Answer to "Dimwit & Duke" -- The Pinball Game 
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GATHERERS GARDENS :
See Gatherers Garden - about these very special 'vending' machines.
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Additional New Vendor Machines for New Rapture :
* The Research Machine - tapping into the files maintained at Minervas Den and New Rapture's City Hall. Coin Slot to pay your way to knowledge.
* Clean Water machines -- Plumbing still is not what it was, and people don't all want to pay or have the opportunity for the hookups and repairs needed to bring their 'base' residences upto non-fishy-tasting water. Bottled drinking water ( and convenient refill stations ).
* TV 'News' machines ( 'Need To Know' Theater being a-bit-odd version of the Kinetoscope mechanism used in Infinite ) -- TV still doesn't give in-depth info ( and resolution isn't HD or Color ) as compared to newspapers or even Newsreels
* Newspaper Machines (??) with Displays of changing headlines dealing with current events and happenings in the City ( to encourage buying a paper ... ). Can double to show emergency announcements.
* Air-Tite Service Kiosk ( essentially the same as Pneumo-ing loot back to your 'Team' base ) but that is a good idea for handling the classic 'Bank' problem in so many MMORPGs ( at least for the small valuable stuff as "It ain't for free" ). Still the system is limited so you wont find it working too far out from New Rapture ( might save you walking all the way back to your base ).
* Repaired standard Circus of Values/El Bandito type machines ( now under new management ), likely have more varied mix of new city-made products. 
* Porta-Potties - due to transportation difficulties usually are located in Trolley System and AE Train stations which allow easy servicing. 
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Circus Of Empty :
Consider : By 1968 it would not be likely that anyone would be reloading the Vending Machines -- particularly in Sofia Lamb-land, where any remaining supplies get allocated to (bribe) only 'trusted' minions. So the BS2 Writers should have come up with some other differences, like 4 out of 5 machines being broken, and to compensate there being more random Splicer Stashes/Corpse Loot to find to get yourself (Player) more supplies. Perhaps even supplies in 'Caches' from Sinclair ( for a nominal fee/favor trade - "Bring me that bottle of Old Whiskey there Old Sport" ... ).
Similar for the MMORPGs Rapture : Which would have more 'Home-made Stuff' in some Player-repaired vending machines ( but out in The Ruins, they would still be largely inoperable/destroyed/gone ).
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"In the original BioShock design, the Vending Machines and other computer-run-devices were actually Splicers whose Brains had been transplanted into the machinery." :
This was an idea for the 'Hacking' mechanism, where you somehow 'bribed' the device to your advantage.
Maybe parts of human brain tissue might find their way into Rapture's Bio-Electronics mechanisms, but that's more as components ( ie- memory functional circuitry ) than as 'a complete will-possessing brain'. Sea Slug brains ( or parts of them ) no doubt were easier to train for the logic/processing functions needed ( their whole input-processing-output structure is magnitudes simpler than the same cell logic/data paths in a human brain ... )
(( See "Red Dwarf" - the Artificially Intelligent Toaster - "Lets discuss the meaning of Existence, but first, would you like some Toast ?" ))
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== VENDING MACHINES IN COLUMBIA ==
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Owe My Soul To The Company Store ... :
Fink Tokens ( Paid to his workers in the Game World to imply a 'Company Store' system which devalued/controlled the workers pay further and restricted their access outside his 'system' ).
Did you find any of them as Loot ? (( Remember for REDO ))
Would have been interesting to find a Company Vending Machine with low-quality product 'Gruel', Cheap Beer, crude Toilet Paper (the Scourge of Fink), Candles, etc ...
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Vending BS :
Funny (Idiocy) -- When You See 'Vending Machines' in Columbia Take as Much as $4000 in payment ( when a Nickel bought you a Coca Cola in REAL 1912, and a quarter dinner ) :
Bad enough in Infinite BS that they had Manic_Magpie loot of bullion and jewelry (and stranger things) automatically changed into money the Player accumulated. Columbia - It is a place so rich they just threw money away into the trash containers all the time.
Rapture - Machines taking currency bills instead of coins - look how long the Real World took to get mechanisms like that working. It is possible Rapture's technologists could have come up with it, but the expense of retrofitting so many machines would likely have only the most important/newer machines having this feature ( as in our world change-making machines would exist ).
Higher denomination coins could fill in a little of the shortcomings ( America had Gold Half-Eagle($5), Eagle($10) and Double Eagle($20) coins before 1934 ) So Rapture can have them, too.
I doubt Fink had time to steal Bill Slot technology ( or to allegedly just 'see' it and then make it work, and then manufacture it -- I laugh in derision when I think of people thinking this could somehow work for anything more complicated than a paperclip ).
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Infinty_machine.jpg
VigorVender.jpg
NutherFailz.jpg|No Coin Cost To Use. That does not seem as Capitalistic as so much else in Columbia
SALTS.jpg|Free, but seems not many customers ...
MoreGunz.jpg|Sorry Levine, This Ain't Rapture where EVERYONE has a Right to own a Gun. Machines everywhere - PERFECT to be broken into to Arm the Vox ...
TheseThingsEverywhere.jpg
VendingBosh.jpg|Elaborate Interface instead of pullin a knob after 'puttin in the nickel'
Kinetoscopee2.jpg|Vendin' Propaganda ...
DollarBillVender2.jpg|Too bad Elizabeth could not pick the locks on these things - woulda save alot of tedious Scrounging for Booker
HugeStrangeProduction.jpg|Being made on Assembly Line ??? These gamemakers really are clueless - aren't they.
HowManyAbsurdity.jpg|Making so many of thise Puppet Show Propaganda things - Are they gonna be put in every home ?
TheseThings.jpg|Columbia Slurpie Machine ??? Blue is the Shade of Oppression Flavor - Aint it ?
CuriousLiz.jpg|"Booker Does This Machine Vend Money??" - Books teach you only so much ...
Glasses22.jpg|Too bad they Didn't have Machines Vending GLASSES ....
Tootler.jpg|A Redo could have these things Vending Tunes ....
DimMachineSelection.jpg
DrugsOldenDays.jpg|Wouldn't THIS be found in a Columbia Vending Machine ( In the 'Founders' section of the City ) ??
Snake.jpg
SkyTurretThing.jpg|HEY, WE COULDA HAD FLOATING VENDING MACHINES !!!
FillerItUp.jpg|Filling a Bottle with Enhanced Vigor - Very Mechanical 
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"The earliest known reference to a Vending Machine is in the work of Hero of Alexandria, a first-century engineer and mathematician. His machine accepted a coin and then dispensed holy water ( likely for a Temple ). When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counterweight snapped the lever up and turned off the valve..." ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vending_machine )
Sounds like something Father Comstock would have endorsed ... Never can have enough Holy Water used ( Or Coins -- he IS the Great 'Profit' after all ).
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Stolen Technology : It would have been amusing (imaginative) to see a Circus of Values or El Ammo Bandito machine ( or even a lonely Rapture Tribune machine ) in Columbia, since they seem to have stolen so many (some) other things (( Sorry gamewriters, you can't 'make em' after just 'seeing them', as you seem to ignorantly/stupidly believe )). 
Have them, at least, in Fink's place (Fink Mfg), where they would have them in pieces (?) -- Attempting to reverse-engineer them ( and not doing so well - there actually would be a hole YARD full of such attempts, and messy corpses fried by boobytraps ).
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Fink's Vending machines don't make alot of sense ( especially those dim scenes of them being produced on an assembly line ). Vending Machines in that age were few, and worked only in very limited ways (postcards/gum), and the ones in the game also would have a way of pissing off Shop Owners they competed with ( assuming there's anything that might be being sold in that fashion - besides postcards/gum in the original 1893 Exhibition/Exposition ). 
In Infinite BS, you should have seen at least every other one SMASHED ( scenes suitable for that 'Machine vs Luddite' theme the writers abandoned ). Vending Machines make perfect vulnerable targets for Vox also ( pilfering as covert Vox actions most suitable in the Police State Columbia was ).
Unfortunately, the game makers decided they had to copy the BioShock game mechanisms, so they cloned the more modern pattern/designs of the later period quite-complex Vending Machines, when they were quite inappropriate and illogical for that era with that kind of functionality. REAL vending machines in Columbia's era were extremely simple.
The machines Selling 'Vigors' for what was actually near Yearly Salaries -- THAT too helped make it even more bizarrely contrived. ( Stupider yet was : Burial At Sea retaining that clunky-weird Columbia style interface in Rapture -- Levine must've run out of time/money/caring by that point ).
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Clodumbia Minuteman Machine :
Good idea to have a vending machine where any Vox or other rebel/criminal could buy ( or break into and steal ) guns and ammunition. If any had existed BEFORE the Vox were organized, they should all have been removed AFTER. But such missing logical storyline considerations don't seem important alongside the game bigger illogics.
That IS avoiding reality : That in 1912 you would NOT have ANY such workable 'vending' machine selling more than postcards/stamps/gum/packaged-cigarettes - Simple mechanisms able to be made by the technical Caveman Fink and his 1893 thinking/understandings. Why not a computer 'Replicator' thingee 'Tear'-stolen from 2300 AD, which would be far more likely to be possible IF a logical universe cosmology ruled the game.
IT WAS Simple Lazily Copying a game element from Rapture BioShock - Into a setting's context where it really DID NOT FIT.
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Consider : having the 'mentally primitive' reactionaries Levine implies all Americans were in 1900 ( to be consistent within HIS story ) -- THE PEOPLE IN COLUMBIA would have been afraid to go near any such machines and would have condemned Comstock for WITCHCRAFT and burned him. The setting was too sloppy and chaotic/contradictory in the themes they glombed together for Infinite BS.
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Linear Game. Long Game Padding Filler Terrain. Quite Far, so they couldn't have you travel all that way BACK constantly to access the machines.
INSTEAD, they just place these things ( which already had little reason to exist ) EVERYWHERE. 
SHANTYTOWN ? A Hidden Corner In Finkton ??? As illogical as so many Vita-Chambers location in Rapture ( again done as a GAME facilitation and not really justified in their placement ).
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The guts of one of Fink Mfg. Vending Machines in Columbia. Are all those strange openings the slots for Bullion and Jewelry which somehow were 'money' in Infinite BS ? Somewhere there is a Bill Slot so customers have less a problem when some of the vended items costs as much as $4000 ( Is it any wonder virtually no one in Columbia used Fink's Vigors when they cost the equivalent of someone's yearly income ? )
(( I love the 'mechanism proper' extending down to Toe Height, which tells me the artist "Don't Know F*ck All" about real world things and certainly vending machines. ))
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== REAL VENDING MACHINE 1920s ==
Note How simple it is. A fairly inexpensive machine which does what it needs to do, with the customer paying a Price for Convenience. This mechanism is REAL WORLD from a period decades after any gamemaker's Fantastical/Extravagant/Magic/Infinite/Anachronistic Columbia-seen Vending Machines. This one was in a Police Station in Los Angeles.
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== REAL VENDING MACHINE 1880s ==
 
VERY simple mechanism, and no need to take currency bills or "bullion" for payment.
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But Compared to the Machines in Infinite BS these are good.
Of course, as to WHY such machines would even exist -- Except Rapture being an utter Ruin, with no inhabitants to interact with to do the game's Ability-Ramp/Ammo-Access activity ... ( and then Infinite BS simply copying THAT with far less reason -- Other than realistic NPC interactions being really really hard to create by these gamemakers, and it not fitting the chronic Slaughter Everything Player Activity ).
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