Are those professions going to be completely removed? Untouched? Something in-between?
They’ll hopefully become late-game starts where you would start as a survivor who already made contact with the Exodii. But the exact details are still up in the air and pending a bunch of code support.
On a semi-related note will cbms still spawn in labs after the change?
it would seems to make sense that any found pre-collapse would have been taken there for study but what are the devs plans?
This actually makes more sense, as ever since the world lore was changed to not be taking place in the near future. Be it our world, or a neighboring universe version. Does kinda suck though, that I won’t be able to organically create a “Bionic Commando” start, but ah well.
I plan to remove CBMs from labs and refluff the bionic starts, probably removing some and adding some others. For example the bionic monster and failed cyborg starts would probably both represent attempts by other groups to make cyborgs using salvaged cbms.
CBMs won’t fit in labs anymore but I would like to have new places you can get them from, like an exodii storage cache that’s been overrun by zomborgs. At some point I would really like to let you volunteer to jump to an old exodii dimension and face extreme risk to help them retrieve old caches.
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At some point I would really like to let you volunteer to jump to an old exodii dimension and face extreme risk to help them retrieve old caches.
Now that would be something I’d be game for. High Risk, high reward, and a near-guaranteed reward (In the same sense looting a police station guarantees ammo) atop that? Could be real fun.
This confused me and seems contradictory. If CBMs are removed from labs, then how would there be any experiments on people regarding CBMs, in order for CBM experiments to take place?
Labs: No CBM= none to be stuffed inside a person= such monsters wouldn’t exist 
Any information or deeper thought about CBMs would be welcome 
On a side note. It wouldn’t have to be a far flung future for people to experiment with CBMs. Any number of events could create extreme rare occurances of technology that would have humans finding and tinkering. People have found ancient tech in real life that made the oldest known occurance seem rather new.
Example:
Antikythera mechanism
Implicit in Erk’s post there is that bionic starts are advanced starts, not normal starts (though it is not obvious at glance, perhaps).
Is this not the reason why faulty bionics exist? to balance out the working ones?
as an extreme example the prototype or failed cyborg start are more of a challenge than boon.
When could we expect these changes to occur?
Okay, I don’t get it. Why would aliens (if CBMs are alien tech) bother to make cybernetics compatible with humans?
And if CBMs are human adjusted offshoot of alien tech, wouldn’t it make sense for them to actually be in the lab?
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Well there is an explanation, but might qualify as a bit of a spoiler, so fair warning for folks who wanna dig stuff up themselves.
The Exodii seem to either be comprised of, or partially comprised of, alternate dimension Earth survivors. They already make heavy use of cybernetics, and it makes sense they’d have cybernetics be compatible for their parallel human allies, and we presumably aren’t much different from the other humans.
At the end of the day though, it comes down to “They’re a lot more technologically advanced and that tech is pretty good at what it does”.
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Interesting tidbit… Thanks!
Since CBMs were one of the main focus of some labs, what would be the replacement for it? More interdimentional travel focus? Weaponry development? Robotics, drones, and exoskeletons? Something else entirely? Or maybe something more mundane as medicinal development?
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Exoskeletons might be a good start, but what about utility bionics? The faraday cage bionic that I’m pretty fond of makes fighting electric zombies much less of a death sentence, how am I supposed to change and adapt my tactics for dealing with special zombies before I get my hands on advanced bionics retrieved from ayy lmaos?
Meet the Faraday chainmail suit
The even lower tech solution is “Shoot them in the face”. You can pull a handgun off a zombie cop/soldier or a shotgun outta a security van well before finding exotic chainmail suits or bionics.
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Pretty expensive solution, but a solution nonetheless. I wouldn’t be able to utilize this early game, but maybe I would later on during the play through.
Early game I prefer to keep as silent as possible. Guns are easy to find, ammo really isn’t though.
Might experiment with the effectiveness of crossbows or bows, but I haven’t touched those in a long long time.
With the update my usual strategy of dissecting zombie technicians for bionics to get the dielectric capacitance system CBM then upgrading to shockers then to bio-operators might be null within the new update, but it’s exciting to see new things pop up to change the game for me.
Two questions still stand, Will I still be able to rip bionics out of the original zombies they were in or will that be changed? Do I have to continue using the aftershock mod to use discontinued bionics due to them being “too sci-fi”? Or will they be added back to the mainline?
I don’t think being too sci-fi is a limiter for CBMs, now that they’re alien technology. The possibility space for them is now more “theoretically possible” instead of “could we build it tomorrow”. CBM’s from zombies in vanilla is zomborgs and broken cyborgs (Do these guys still spawn in Vanilla? not sure) right now, don’t think there’s plans to change that at this time. Any new additions would likely be rare, late game, or more Exodii stuff. However, Mad Scientists seem to be able to drop CBM’s, and they are still loot in assorted labs and other sites.
And while its good to stay silent early game, You don’t always get that choice, and the Cataclysm often offers you “do or die” moments. When the electro zeds come up and negate your melee options, its shoot them or run. Don’t need much ammo to make that decision work, as long as you are not planning to shoot your way through everything else that follows. Even with a limited supply of ammo and a looted handgun, you can use it to selectively eliminate threats you otherwise wouldn’t be able to fight off. Better to use up 17 of your 34 rounds, than die with a loot stash full of ammo.
If anything, the fact that a dangerous evolution chain can be easily negated with CBM’s harvested from a relatively weak enemy is indicative that this was probably a good change overall. The Faraday chainmail is a much better option in the gamespace. Lets you negate shockers with a craftable solution, but its has major drawbacks. 30 Encumbrance (Guessing 15 with being properly sized, been a while since I read the json) and weighing 24kg is nothing to just ignore.