As it stands, the integrated toolset does pretty much everything crafting related. Almost all relevant tools, welding, and soldering. I propose that the toolset be split up into multiple CMBs so that crafters CMBs are more nuanced. Proposed new bionics below:
[ul][li]Integrated Toolset: Remove welidning, soldering, and any large tool. Now more like a toolbox sans woodsaw with hammering, bolt turning, (fine) screw driving, hammering, metal sawing, drilling, and butchering. Possbible inclusion of tongs and chisel if these are made into qualities. Perhaps throw in food cooking 1 as a bonus.[/li]
[li]Rubble Clearing Tool: This CMB would be framed as a tool for firefighters and rescue workers to clear rubble in car crashes and collapsed buildings. It could include prying, digging, jacking, wood sawing, wood cutting, and metal sawing. [/li]
[li]Bionic Welder: This would simply be the bioninc acting as a welder, soldering iron, and hotplate. Perhaps you could fold in the mini-flamethrower into this bionic.[/li][/ul]
Personally, I just wish I could use the mini-flamethrower as a lighter. I’d be happy to pay 1 (or maybe even 10) bionic power per charge just to not have to worry about collecting (and especially carrying around) lighters or matches ever again!
if it does get split up i hope the amount of space in your body it takes up gets adjusted accordingly so it doesn’t wind up being a nerf but more of a straight up refactor, i love to mess around with vehicles early game so i almost always go with industrial cyborg to have the integrated toolset, i feel lost without it.
i had a sort of inverse idea, but it can work with yours. have the “toolset” CBM be a sort of “base parts” bionic and you can add many of the other hand based bionics as attachments and augments. like the mini-flamethrower is an enhancement to the heating elements, and the fingerpick adds some finer tools to the screwdriver section. while things that are all in one by themselves would conflict with the toolset, such as the finger laser. but it also means that some CBMs are simply unusable without the base toolset since they were designed around the idea of being toolset upgrades.
this also leads me to my idea of what is needed to balance CBM slots if they are implemented, 0 slot CBMs. such as the cranial flashlight, it’s so minor that trying to make it take even one slot is pointless and just conflates the value of a slot. same with the glare compensators, they are just sticking sunglasses to your face. having some ‘free’ CBMs would let everyone have the really minor utility ones so they can focus on which of the bigger ones they care about instead of worrying if getting a flashlight would make them unable to use diamond corneas. it also helps that the flashlight doesn’t really conflict with anything in it’s description, it’s a powerful LED between your eyes, not in your eyes, so it makes sense it wouldn’t take up any eye slots.
as far as the cranial flashlight, there’s no real reason it has to be a proper flashlight in how it functions anyway, software based light amplification would probably be more advantageous in any/all situations anyway and that’s just pop in an SD card and press install.
just saying, there’s no reason for the flashlight and a lot of others to be anything but a 0 slot, a lot of CBMs could be 100% software based with the way they work.
come to think of it, glare compensators could be mostly entirely software based as well, special bionic eyeballs with ferro-magnetic fluid inside of them which compare the source of the glare and then move a shade of the magnetic fluid in front of it would be functionally identical.
to be entirely honest, i’m really amazed there isn’t something like that available for modern day vehicles, making the vehicle screen a gigantic screen (or projection) and comparing the drivers eyes to the position of the sun isn’t really that hard, vehicles would need to come with some form of eye tracking, but it’s 100% doable realistically with current technology to have vehicle windshields that only darken the exact size and location of the offending glare.
well the glare compensators the way i was thinking would be bionic, yeah, but light amp wouldn’t need any modification to the ocular organs, just interfacing with the nervous system, maybe intercepting the real perception, modifying it and then passing it on, more or less.