Non-bionic bionic equivalents

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

So, there’s this nifty little bionic that pulls water out of the air… but no way to do that without the bionic. There’s another one that will pull water out of a corpse… also not available any other way. And there’s the Joint Torsion Ratchet, but no wearable equivalent…

You see where this is going. The vast majority of bionics should have non-bionic equivalents.

OK, there are some that wouldn’t make sense (Exapanded Digestive System, for instance), but most things should be doable without having to implant them in your body.

A wearable Joint Torsion Ratchet that charges a UPS you carry, for instance, would make a LOT of sense. An EXTERNAL version of the Internal Furnace would, too. A power-hungry Hydraulic Muscles suit also exists in the real world today!

Some of these things should be relatively small and convenient, making the bionic version of limited utility (Aero-evaporator, for instance), just more convenient. Some of them should be a big pain in the butt (the muscle suit should be VERY encumbering and heavy when not powered, for instance, not to mention quite bulky).

But most of them should exist - even professional soldiers would generally want to be able to take off their gear at the end of the day.

2

Water from air sounds fine (exists IRL, makes sense mechanically in the game), wearable ratchet (at low effectiveness, with a “do jumping jacks to charge it” action) could work.
“External furnace” could be a car part, but as item it would be very clunky.

Water from corpses is a sci-fi thing. It’s tedious to use and also very weak. I’d just drop the whole bionic altogether.

Muscle suit would be better integrated in a power armor. After all, that’s what the “power” part is all about.

For many bionics, duplication simply doesn’t make sense:

[ul][li]Solar panels on armor would either obsolete the bionic (if comparable in output) or be uselessly weak (if realistic)[/li]
[li]Monoblade wouldn’t be as good without being unarmed[/li]
[li]Situational bionics like EMP or flashbang would obsolete the bionic, so either should be bionic-only or item-only[/li]
[li]Blood filter, nanobots, radiation fix - all internal[/li][/ul]

3
without having to implant

This actually shows how overpowered many bionics are. Solar panel cbm, for example, should not work at full extent when torso is partially covered by armor.

4

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:2, topic:13400”]Water from air sounds fine (exists IRL, makes sense mechanically in the game), wearable ratchet (at low effectiveness, with a “do jumping jacks to charge it” action) could work.
“External furnace” could be a car part, but as item it would be very clunky.

Water from corpses is a sci-fi thing. It’s tedious to use and also very weak. I’d just drop the whole bionic altogether.

Muscle suit would be better integrated in a power armor. After all, that’s what the “power” part is all about.

For many bionics, duplication simply doesn’t make sense:

[ul][li]Solar panels on armor would either obsolete the bionic (if comparable in output) or be uselessly weak (if realistic)[/li]
[li]Monoblade wouldn’t be as good without being unarmed[/li]
[li]Situational bionics like EMP or flashbang would obsolete the bionic, so either should be bionic-only or item-only[/li]
[li]Blood filter, nanobots, radiation fix - all internal[/li][/ul][/quote]

The weapon and armor bionics are bionic versions of things that already exist, not the other war around, so yeah. Dropping the water extraction bionic makes perfect sense to me, too.

Power Armor should indeed boost strength, but non-armored suits that boost strength still make sense and should be more common than power armor (there are completely civilian applications for them, and they exist today).

Many of the these things do indeed make more sense as a car part, and that’s fine (furnace in particular, as you said) - I wasn’t commenting on method.

Solar panels SHOULD NOT be a bionic, anyway - at least, not one that is useful in all but the most extreme circumstances. Heck, solar panels on power armor make more sense than that! I’m wearing an ANBC suit, but my solar panels BIONIC works just fine? Um, no - a solar array that you could plug into makes MUCH more sense. MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more. (Being able to “charge up” from a free standing system is also a complete DUH - the military would insist on such a thing, and most consumers would, as well!).

The EMP bionic is already essentially useless, anyway, so no loss there, not to mention that one EMP/laser rifle that completely obsoletes it in every way is already in the game (it’s just really rare). The cloaking device one already has an item that does exactly that, as well… but having a bionic to do it is MUCH nicer, as the gear equivalent is crazy encumbering for a melee character.

I’m OK with several of the more situational bionics having item equivalents that obsolete them for most situations - seriously, a bionic to do what a flashbang grenade can do for you with going under the knife only makes sense for extreme undercover agents… or an apocalypse where you can’t easily get more grenades. Stuff made just for the apocolypse doesn’t make much sense.

The benefit of a bionic is not having to carry the gear - gear for essentially everything bionics do is EASIER to make than bionics and would have FAR more marketability. Heck, even the repair nanobots and radiation scrubbers would commercially be available as some kind of “bacta tank” type thing in hospitals, not to mention free-standing machines that would filter your blood (those already exist!).

Now, several of those would indeed be useful enough to soldiers and/or extreme sports types that bionic implant versions would probably also be common (Repair Nanobats? SIGN ME UP!), and a few only make sense as bionics (the digestion ones, for instance, or the int-boost CBM), but only a VERY VERY few.

Oh, and the Fusion Blaster Rifle should only exist as a shoulder mounted “turret” kind of thing (say, you count as needing XL clothes when you have a weapon mounted on it… and of course, that functionality would make even more sense on power armor) - there would not be enough willing participants to justify the development of something like that which permanently cost you a hand. Now, a more powerful version of the Finger Laser (say, one that fit between the bones of the forearm and fired through a port in the palm) would make sense for undercover operations, but that’s not the same thing.

[quote="§k, post:3, topic:13400"]

without having to implant

This actually shows how overpowered many bionics are. Solar panel cbm, for example, should not work at full extent when torso is partially covered by armor.[/quote]

Meh, solar panels is really the only completely silly one, as you pointed out. Nigh-infinite power storage is at least that big a problem, but that’s being addressed with the new bionics limit (I think). Most of the others aren’t TOO bad… or they wouldn’t be, if equivalent gear was available (which it would be, if such things existed).

5

This one literally exists in a lab right now, and generates a charge from simple walking. The 2040 version should do that just fine. The non-implant version will pay for it’s ability just fine by having weight and encumberance like any other worn gear.

6

This one literally exists in a lab right now, and generates a charge from simple walking. The 2040 version should do that just fine. The non-implant version will pay for it’s ability just fine by having weight and encumberance like any other worn gear.[/quote]

There’s a (real life) weaker version that’s only in the shoes, actually - that one wouldn’t give much, but wouldn’t cost almost anything (encumbrance-wise). Don’t think it’s made it to production, yet, though (last I checked).

7

Im going to put it out there that I think that bionics should have a niche.

Id be more for making bionics more crude than making them redundant.

8

[quote=“pisskop, post:7, topic:13400”]Im going to put it out there that I think that bionics should have a niche.

Id be more for making bionics more crude than making them redundant.[/quote]

Nothing to add here, just posting to support you, as we both think the same way here.

9

I do like the idea of being able to charge a UPS on the go whilst having a mad max style leg brace alternator or a solar panel on a backpack (which does make more sense than a cbm) strapped to my Transhumananist biker

I don’t know about other implant’s though as they are already overpowered, the furnace is basically a engine or gasifier that is used to charge batteries (one of which exists and the other is overpowered) and should power Armour not fulfill the purpose of hydraulic muscles…Yeah basically what pisskop said only while stating like a idiot that I love the concept

10

[quote=“pisskop, post:7, topic:13400”]Im going to put it out there that I think that bionics should have a niche.

Id be more for making bionics more crude than making them redundant.[/quote]

I’d see their niche as buffs, debuff removal and mobility.

Examples of bionics I consider good (as in, properly designed, not strong) would be:

[ul][li]Melee weapon bionics (except the energy cost - would be well designed if it drained it continuously)[/li]
[li]Hydraulic muscles (the idea, not the exact numbers)[/li]
[li]Blood filter (though it should work slower)[/li]
[li]Electric immunity (though it should not drain power when not being zapped)[/li][/ul]

Bad ones:

[ul][li]Solar panels, ratchet, furnace, metabolic (they make bionic power cheaper than non-bionic power)[/li]
[li]Power storage (infinite energy storage is just a horrible idea)[/li]
[li]Battery system (it’s OK early on, becomes stupid once you have essentially infinite batteries)[/li]
[li]Time stop (horrible idea with infinite power storage)[/li]
[li]Passive stat boosts (duplicates mutations but stacks with them)[/li]
[li]Night vision (horrible filter, duplicates mutations. If it was better than NV mutations or NV mutations weren’t “free”, it would be a well designed bionic, though)[/li]
[li]Toolset (convenient, but quickly becomes obsolete)[/li]
[li]Water generation (duplicates functionality of a fucking funnel)[/li]
[li]Clock (pocket clock is ~0 volume, so only nudists could ever benefit from clock bionic)[/li]
[li]Storage (could be fine if it allowed quickly pulling items out of storage, but pure storage itself is obsolete quickly)[/li][/ul]

I’d see bionics as something that consumes resources other than time and produces consistent improvements over baseline without downsides other than cost.
In that system, mutations would have downsides (wasted slots, permanent debuffs), but be cheaper to keep up and have stronger effects in most cases.
“Itemized bionics” would have to be weaker than either of bionics and mutations.

For example:

[ul][li]Bionic would boost strength heavily at the cost of expensive bionic power[/li]
[li]Mutation would boost strength moderately but would require having negative mutations to compensate[/li]
[li]Worn exoskeleton would boost strength moderately, but cause encumbrance and consume (cheap, non-bionic) power[/li][/ul]

11

Your good/bad list is entirely based on gameplay, and that’s not necessarily bad, but there’s a “realism” aspect to at least consider.

Internal Chronometer - that’s going to be popular with consumers. It should be among the most common CBMs, even if you only need one and it’s easily replaced by a pocket watch. Internal CellPhone and Internal PDA should also be VERY common.

Ratchet - again, this one’s going to be VERY popular with the outdoors/extreme sports set, and something like it can be done today (at a smaller scale). Should be fairly common, but probably weaker.

Metabolic - needs to be nerfed, but if possible, it would also be popular with consumers, for both convenience and weight loss (!).

Night vision - same as ratchet, plus obvious military/deep cover applications. Infrared vision, too - popular with hunters!

Internal Storage - should definitely exist, but be a rare/military one, as the primary usage would be spying/deep cover/smuggling situations - should probably be smaller, though
Edit: actually, I’d go for making this a “holster” type thing - give it a volume (quite small), and enable storing any one thing in it that fits (or any number of things up to the volume would be better, but harder) - that fits what this sort of thing would actually be used for

Aero-evaporator - same as ratchet, but water extraction can certainly go

Battery System - should be inherent, not a CBM - the time it takes to reload plus removing the infinite internal power storage problem should balance it just fine

Passive stat boosts - CBMs were made before mutations were discovered - if passive stats boosts are possible, these would exist and be VERY popular. CBM/mutation interaction is a problem, but that’s a MUCh bigger problem than any one CBM or set of CBMs

Toolset - I actually see this one as being very unpopular on the whole, simply because it’s so intrusive - extra appendages? Yeah, no thanks. Having a toolset ATTACHMENT of some kind that uses UPS power would make a lot more sense, from a consumer standpoint.

Bionic weapons - these would be highly controlled, military only, and even then, probably really only spy/deep cover, so they should be rare even for military stuff.

UPS CBM - absolutely essential, should be incredibly common (right up there next to the Internal Chronometer), and should be able to give OR RECEIVE charge. This is consumer products 101, not to mention the military!

As I said, this isn’t about game balance, this is about what would actually happen in a society where this stuff existed. Yes, game balance is the most important, but these concerns are still significant, especially for stuff like the Internal Chronometer, where getting more of them is annoying, but finding glass plates or your ten thousandth fork is annoying, too, and very few people are agitating for their removal…

12

If we’re talking realism:

[ul][li]Aero evaporator would lose to recycling system. Unless we got rid of recycling system, because inefficiencies of biological systems can’t be cut down just like that.[/li]
[li]UPS is full on sci-fi. It makes sense from game design point of view, but to be realistic it would need to be rethemed as a bunch of cable ports sticking out of your arm/shoulder/back.[/li][/ul]

But then, the whole discussion about common/uncommon bionics doesn’t really affect realism that much: installation of bionics is currently very unrealistic by itself. You grab a knife, cut open a rotting corpse, grab a piece of electronics from its brain and then ram it into your own brain, where it takes root somehow.
So even if 50% of humanity was using internal clocks, they would still be worth scrapping because post-apocalypse there would be no way to install them without wasting something more valuable than the bionic itself and without risking infections and brain damage.

13

Oh, I can’t disagree on that last bit. I’ve thought several times about suggesting some kind of “salvage” system when it comes to getting CBMs out of corpses, probably involving lots of bits that you have to piece together, with the installing part being salvaged from what’s left after a regular CBM gets used (and several kinds of those, depending on area(s) of the body involved) or, preferably, using a dedicated machine of some kind (found in hospitals, if it hasn’t been broken by the Zs yet and you can find power for it), but the level of overhaul there would be pretty large.

The aero-evaporator makes sense, even WITH the recycler. The recycler makes the water you’ve already had last longer, but it won’t last forever - the aero-evaporator is for getting more water. Also, it’s quite a bit simpler, both conceptually and in execution (such a thing could be made today, though not nearly as effective).

On the UPS, we actually have wireless power systems today, so no, it’s not really that crazy. I always assumed there was some kind of cabling assumed, anyway, though.

14

The problem is, if we are talking realism, the evaporator would need a big nerf. It would probably not produce enough water to extract out of it and only be really useful for slowing down thirst. Condensers generally work by cooling down water vapor and it’s hard to do when surrounded by a warm-blooded body.
Meanwhile a deployable, full-sized variant would be much more efficient, produce much more water and wouldn’t need to be mounted inside your body and thus wouldn’t require venting (possibly contaminated) air through something mounted inside you.

It is when you compare what we have to what we’d need for UPS. UPS works through power armor, through a cyborg full of coils, with no loss of power and no limit on transfer rates.
It’s like the difference between maglev trains and flying cars.

15

The problem is, if we are talking realism, the evaporator would need a big nerf. It would probably not produce enough water to extract out of it and only be really useful for slowing down thirst. Condensers generally work by cooling down water vapor and it’s hard to do when surrounded by a warm-blooded body.
Meanwhile a deployable, full-sized variant would be much more efficient, produce much more water and wouldn’t need to be mounted inside your body and thus wouldn’t require venting (possibly contaminated) air through something mounted inside you.[/quote]

Oh, I don’t disagree that a free-standing one would be MUCH better (that’s one of the specific reasons I started this thread! the very first example, no less), but if bionic power is limited, I don’t think it needs THAT big a nerf (some, probably, or cost a little more power) - even if a freestanding one is much better, even if the bionic one can’t provide ALL your drinking needs, survivalist types (campers, extreme sports enthusiasts, military black ops) would still want one.

It is when you compare what we have to what we’d need for UPS. UPS works through power armor, through a cyborg full of coils, with no loss of power and no limit on transfer rates.
It’s like the difference between maglev trains and flying cars.[/quote]

Actually, the UPS is explicitly inside the armor (check the armor description), and the “loss rate” is indeterminate, as stuff takes “UPS charges”, which might be cheaper if it was directly plugged in. Also, as I said, I don’t think there’s any reason that some kind of cabling can’t be assumed.

16

I don’t see why you’re assuming the UPS is wireless, nothing about it says it is. The cabling is assumed to just work, and we simply don’t bother with enforcement in the few scenarios where that doesn’t make sense. The top one that comes to mind is powering something both inside and outside an ANBC suit. For power armor I’m more inclined to assume that the power armor has ports compatible with the UPS that allow passing power through.

One piece of feedback on the thread, it’s problematic to approach this as “bionics can do it, therefore it can be done, therefore non-bionics can do it”. Bionics are explicitly part of the “super science” part of the game that isn’t required to make sense, that’s the intent anyway. If you want bionics to be realistic, most of them would just go away since there’s no way to make sense of them. If you want non-bionic super science items, they shouldn’t be craftable, many need to run on plutonium, etc.
The third option, and the most productive IMO is pointing out real-world tech that accomplishes some of the same goals as bionics, the standalone aero-evaporator is a good example of this, which we already have in the game, it’s called a raincoat Cher.

Tl;dr you’re not going to get very far trying to translate bionics directly into non-bionics items, unless they’re super useful, exitic, and rare.

17

The problem is that at least some of this stuff ISN’T super science - we could literally do it TODAY.

  • Joint Torsion Ratchet as a suit? Check. (Lesser versions already exist)

  • Strength enhancement suit? Already exists - power requirements are the only thing keeping it from mass production.

  • stand alone Aero-evaporator? Already exists.

  • stand alone Blood filter? Dialysis machine (among other things)

I’m not asking for the crazy stuff (teleporter, Probability Travel, etc). Heck, I’d even go for NERFs to quite a few of them (the cloaking device, for instance, should probably just increase your effective distance for enemy sight purposes, not actually render you fully invisible).

18

Please read what I wrote,

Which is part of what you’re doing, but another part of what you’re doing is assuming this stuff will be ok in part because it’s already part of a CBM, just drop that part and suggest additions on their own merits. The CBM angle is irrelevant and just derails your suggestion into arguments about existing cbms.

Lesser versions are fine, but are also mostly useless. You can make a perpetual-ish watch or similar, but as far as I know that’s the only practical application of this kind of thing. If you have a reference to a product that demonstrates otherwise, feel free to link it.

As I understand it the state of the art is tens of lbs of carrying capacity, we could add that but it’s also more trouble than its worth.

Need a source, there are various devices that capture potable water, but I don’t know of any that do so productively from air. In nearly every case a raincatcher is better.

That’s a thing, we could certainly add them to hospitals and let the player hook themselves up to one to clear certain toxins.

19

First, I would like to acknowledge the value of your time - you already spend a lot on this game that enjoy, and I expect no obligation to give me more stuff just because you’ve already given me stuff. Thank you for that. If none of this ever gets any farther than this discussion, I have no right to complain (and I won’t).

The CBM angle has to do with how immersion-breaking some of them are to not have the equivalent non-CBM item - CBMs would be the niche, not the norm, for most things. Think watches and Internal Chronometer CBM. Game balance IS more important, but I still find it annoying.

Lesser versions are fine, but are also mostly useless. You can make a perpetual-ish watch or similar, but as far as I know that’s the only practical application of this kind of thing. If you have a reference to a product that demonstrates otherwise, feel free to link it.[/quote]

Perpetual “self-winding” watches have existed for years, fully self_contained.

What you’re thinking of might be something more like this:

So simple that it’s a DIY project (from last decade) and produces enough power to charge a smartphone, as a DIY project, not a actual production device, just from one shoe.

More directly relevant would be links like these:

And there’s this recent development with “folding” materials that produce electricity:

In particular, though, is this last link, which talks about the Bionic Energy Harvester (which is what I was remembering).

From a device on only one knee, “The prototype, which Donelan unveiled last February (that would be 2008), turns a one-minute walk into enough current for a half-hour cellphone conversation.”

So yeah, that’s a lot of juice, actually, and that’s only the prototype, only on one knee, and that was 9 years ago.

As I understand it the state of the art is tens of lbs of carrying capacity, we could add that but it’s also more trouble than its worth.[/quote]

Your understanding is several years out of date:

Here’s a full-sized suit, which lifts 200 pounds easily and for as long as the power lasts: https://youtu.be/-UpxsrlLbpU

That’s from 2010.

(more info and other projects: http://gizmodo.com/how-close-are-we-to-a-real-iron-man-suit-1636424816 )

Need a source, there are various devices that capture potable water, but I don’t know of any that do so productively from air. In nearly every case a raincatcher is better.[/quote]

In the area of US north east, that is certainly true.

That said, for a free-standing device, I’m no handy-man, but I could MAKE a device that produced water from air with any cold source, a means of moving water around (like rubber tubing), and a bucket to catch it in. The science is so easy we do it all the time by accident (that’s why coasters exist). I should be able to make a continuous water-from-air device from a minifridge that uses the same slot and power, but holds less (or even none, if you want to be harsh about it). Kids do that sort of thing for science fairs in high school or even junior high.

That the sort of “pointing out real-world tech that accomplishes some of the same goals as bionics” that you were after?

Also, the “external furnace” could be as simple as a steam engine that you burn stuff in to power it - as long as it’s attached to a battery that can capture the charge, we’re good to go. A good old-fashioned windmill would be good, too, but that’s obviously beyond the scope of “non-bionic bionics”, eh? :slight_smile:

20

This is somewhat off-topic (but on-topic, kinda), but some bionics may as well be added as mutations too - the thought comes to my mind because I was convinced Scent Vision was a mutation until I debugged it and found it to be a CBM.

This is just a suggestion for more mutations though, and the way they’re balanced is different to CBMs, so I’m not sure what’d be plausible.