The Flesh Is Weak: Cybernetic Limbs & Digitizing Consciousness

Game Talk The Drawing Board
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I saw that there was some discussion a few years ago regarding adding cybernetic replacement limbs, but I haven’t seen any mods for this or any recent discussion. Has anybody made a mod for this yet, or are there any plans to implement it in the future? I would love to be able to replace my body parts with superior mechanical versions, or even add extra limbs and parts (EX: 40k Techpriest Mechadendrites, Doctor Octopus’s robo limbs, or Predator’s Shoulder Gun).

Another interesting concept that I have not seen proposed would be for you to be able to build your own robot body, and either install your brain inside or digitally transfer your mind into it, like Samuel Hayden from Doom (2016). Obviously this would require using an Autodoc or some new device found in labs.

Not much of a programmer myself unfortunately, but it might be set up like this:

Your character model would be replaced with a new bare bones robotic version to start (I’m imagining Schwarzenegger’s Terminator without its skin).

Advantages:
You are no longer damaged by fire (but attached parts might be), poison, smoke, immune to disease, immune to mutation, immune to bleeding. No food or hydration requirements, but perhaps a reduced “sleep cycle” to simulate digital maintenance processes.

Disadvantages:You are no longer able to use any version of Power Armor, RM13 Combat Armor, or the thermoelectric clothing. Your body parts must be repaired, cannot heal over time without a rare component (maybe something nanotech based). EMP and electricity are very damaging, but might be reduced (but not eliminated) by shielding components. Highly irradiated areas will cause damage over time while you are being exposed (to simulate the effects of radiation on electronics). You must regularly recharge, and if power drops to zero, you shut down (though perhaps you might be reactivated if you next character finds your body).

Alternative to storage clothing such as bandoliers or holsters you could have magazine or weapon storage built into your limbs as equippable “parts” Robo Cop style (this would be a fanastic CBM as well). Modular armor plating, and other components would also be available. However, if you want to “blend in” with other human survivors, there could be a synthetic skin covering component, which would be required to be equipped in order to wear clothing.

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So you don’t like the Fusion Blaster Arm CBM?

Oh, come on, there are sensors, hoses and covers. Those are going to suffer.

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Hmm. You have a point about the fire. Plus high temperatures wouldn’t be good for the electronics either.

As for the Fusion Blaster Arm, I haven’t had a chance to find one and try it out, but from what I’ve read it doesn’t look like its useful for anything other than making a lascannon or the fusion rifle. Sacrificing a limb is pretty hampering; you can’t carry heavy things anymore, such as corpses for butchering among other things. As cool as having a gun arm like Samus would be, the reduced flexibility does not seem to made up for by the integrated firepower. I’d rather have a shoulder mounted weapon, even if I can’t wear power armor while its turned on for example, and it is weaker than the FBA.

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You would still need to power yourself somehow. So food would need to be replaced by a power source of some kind or a metabolic interchange that only accepts “nutrient slurry” and the joint torsion ratchet would only really serve to slow your power uses. Obviously you wouldn’t gain back more energy by walking than you would actually walking.

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Yeah that sounds good, but your energy useable for powering abilities or cybernetic parts should be separate from your life support power supply by default, so its not easy to accidentally kill yourself using a laser rifle with UPS or something. However, you should be able to override this in a pinch, and divert a bit of life support energy to your other systems. In addition, you should be able to make a couple different versions of fuel slurry from basically anything organic (food, rotten food, wood, tainted meat, plant matter, etc) or substances that react exothermically (gasoline, diesel, incendiary, thermite, gunpowder, alcohol, etc). Maybe have a new tool you can build to grind things up into the fuel slurry variants in bulk, like the metal recyclers you can occasionally find in cities. You could still use versions of most of the power source CBMs (I’m thinking they should be equipable items that the CBM itself is a component of, some combined like the ethanol burner and metabolic interchange), but as you said, joint torsion would just be an energy reclamation system and not 100% efficient.

Something like this:
Chemical Furnace: Accepts Fuel Slurry, made from gasoline, diesel, plastic, incendiary, gunpowder, thermite.
Metabolic Furnace: Accepts Organic Slurry, made from any biomass, wood, or alcohol.
Internal Reactor: Accepts Plutonium Cells.
Integrated Solar Panels: same as solar panels CBM.
Vehicle Adapter: Plug into vehicles to recharge.
Battery Adapter: Recharge from batteries.
Kinetic Reclamator: Reduces power consumption while moving.

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I don’t think the kinetic reclaimed would do much. It’s like putting an alternator on an electric engine you wouldn’t be really reclaiming anything you’d just be waste kinetic energy on the generator. Unless you made the joints into a generator somehow possibly by putting wire on one end and waving a magnet over it but it wouldn’t make much power(maybe a 1 volt for every hundred put in as you require a high rate of rotation to produce meaningful power).

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Not necessarily. The joint torsion ratchet basically just harvests waste energy generated during the stepping motion. It’s like regenerative braking in modern hybrids. It just harvests energy that gets wasted otherwise. But it obviously takes more energy to walk than you would generate on the backswing.

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Braking is different though that’s using a pad to collect energy from removing kinetic energy from a vehicle. That works kinda like what I was saying though as in cars like that the brakes and wheels act as a kind of generator by using forces from the wheel pressing against the brake pad to produce energy as well as using if I recall rightly a magnet and wire(which is what most of not all kinetic energy generators use IE not solar, wind or the like). But to put something like a micro alternator into the leg is just attaching a alternator to an electric engine. If it’s the joints like how I said it would produce a forgettable amount.

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piezoelectric materials integrated into your limbs is a possibility for reclaiming energy from motion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity

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Might work but you would need alot of such materials to have an impact on electric drain. However if you were to do such you might as well install them into the arms unlike the joint torsion racket so you could reclaim some power while crafting.

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Could also plug into a solar backpack to get that extra bit of juice. This would be a nice addition, full on Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko Kusanagi. All that you ever see nowadays are failed cyborgs, you could be the result of a successful one.

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I mean the human body already in current CDDA has no reason to be able to heal bionic body parts and internal armour plating among other bionics that would be subject to damage should be able to be damaged, possibly cutting max hp by 10, 20% on the body parts until healed.

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Actually I think that bionics can be damaged. If I recall rightly there is a cataclysmic failure for installing bionics in which it fails has a chance to install faulty and destroys or makes faulty up I think 5 with a minimum of 3 also it can destroy faulty bionics it also rolls to deal damages like bleeding and actual damage.

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One can fail to install them and damage them then, but the player say, can’t be shot and have the bionic be damaged that way or have the bionic damage be beaten into them by a hulk

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I think limb based ones can if the limb breaks. Not sure though.