What's the rationale behind harvesting CBMs from corpses?

ryvn · 2014-10-27T12:22:22.000Z

As I understand it, a CBM contains not only the bionic itself, but all the specialized, disposable equipment one needs to attempt DIY cyber-surgery with minimal medical supervision. It’s sort of a field upgrade kit for cyborgs.

So when you harvest bionics from shockers or zombie scientists, you shouldn’t get a CBM, right? You get a power supply, or a retractable monoblade, or a scent-sensor with associated neural interface… but none of the miscellaneous equipment that makes installing it (relatively) simple and safe. If you want to install that lightly-used Ethanol Burner you ripped out of the recently-unliving dead, you’re going to be rearranging your digestive system with nothing but a makeshift knife and your suicidal disregard for personal safety.

Shouldn’t installing secondhand 'ware have consequences similar to attempting to remove bionics?

EkarusRyndren · 2014-10-27T12:30:53.000Z

You… make a good point.

Valpo · 2014-10-27T13:14:02.000Z

Yes that sounds reasonable. It would also make bionics harder to atain which i am all for because they are pretty powerfull.

Coolthulhu · 2014-10-27T13:49:09.000Z

For bionic installation to be sensibly realistic, you’d need an NPC to perform the installation.
While there were recorded cases of people operating on themselves, those are quite rare and typically involve simple surgery and painkillers.

There is simply no way you could install a dexterity boosting bionic on yourself. You’d have to dig into parts of your brain responsible for movement. Unless the bionic was some sort of a semi-autonomous automatically installing monstrosity - but then it shouldn’t use your skills.

Bionic removal requires a first aid kid. While it would be reasonable to require one to install a bionic, at the time you’re installing them you probably have 30 kits lying around. With removal it makes more sense, because you typically get faulty bionics from a background, not in game.

ryvn · 2014-10-27T14:20:15.000Z

Well, as unrealistic as it might be, we at least have the excuse of “The (unspecified) contents of the Compact Bionics Module make it easy to install!” for CBMs. We can handwave as much as we want by pointing at the kit and saying “It helps with that too” (as long as we’re coy about how).

But when you get them from corpses, they don’t come with a kit. Unless, as you said, they’re actually self-installing, and all the necessary equipment is contained inside the implant.

Pthalocy · 2014-10-27T14:21:33.000Z

Faulty installations can botch previous bionics installed, so it’s common enough if you haven’t bothered grinding your medical skills way up.

Either way, I do like the rationale behind this suggestion. My question is: does it make attaining CBM’s too hard, and compromise the game’s fun more than it adds to it/adds to the challenge?

jokermatt999 · 2014-10-27T15:05:23.000Z

Maybe a midpoint of having a reusable CBM installation kit with batteries (or even one time install kits without CBM), most CBMs found with one time kits (same as it is now), and scavenged “pre owned” kits requiring a kit, but maybe having a little little less volume to balance it out? It seems like a good midpoint to me, and it balances flavor and difficulty imo. Thoughts?

Logrin · 2014-10-27T18:43:42.000Z

How about instead of functional bionics we get the parts to craft functional bionics from butchery and expand the list of craftable CBMs? That or have single use installers spawn–an item required to attempt CBM installation on yourself but gets expended during the process?

EkarusRyndren · 2014-10-27T19:29:01.000Z

[quote=“Pthalocy, post:6, topic:7684”]Faulty installations can botch previous bionics installed, so it’s common enough if you haven’t bothered grinding your medical skills way up.

Either way, I do like the rationale behind this suggestion. My question is: does it make attaining CBM’s too hard, and compromise the game’s fun more than it adds to it/adds to the challenge?[/quote]
…You also have a point…

HunterAlpha1 · 2014-10-27T19:35:28.000Z

[quote=“Logrin, post:8, topic:7684”]How about instead of functional bionics we get the parts to craft functional bionics from butchery and expand the list of craftable CBMs? That or have single use installers spawn–an item required to attempt CBM installation on yourself but gets expended during the process?[/quote]I like this idea, it’ll allow me to not savescum when I fail installing an effectively unique CBM, I can simply take the effort to make another one.

TheFlame52 · 2014-10-27T19:58:19.000Z

[quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:9, topic:7684”][quote=“Pthalocy, post:6, topic:7684”]Faulty installations can botch previous bionics installed, so it’s common enough if you haven’t bothered grinding your medical skills way up.

Either way, I do like the rationale behind this suggestion. My question is: does it make attaining CBM’s too hard, and compromise the game’s fun more than it adds to it/adds to the challenge?[/quote]
…You also have a point…[/quote]

BigLie · 2014-10-27T20:22:42.000Z

Coolthulhu:

For bionic installation to be sensibly realistic, you’d need an NPC to perform the installation.

Or a bot, like in Deus Ex.

My question is: does it make attaining CBM's too hard, and compromise the game's fun more than it adds to it/adds to the challenge?

This is a very reasonable question.

Valpo · 2014-10-27T20:53:01.000Z

The easier something is to atain the closer it is in effect to just cheating it into existence. then again this concept wouldn t automaticly make it harder to get cbms. If youd just have to take the raw bionic and put it into an installing device (craftable maybe) it would simply make getting bionics from monsters more logical if anything else. And one goal of this game is realism (i guess) so if one can avoid logic errors one should.

+i realy think bionics are faaaaaar to easy to get.

jokermatt999 · 2014-10-27T21:24:55.000Z

I do agree that CBMs are too easy to get. Even with very little skill, you can easily pop some Adderall to get a successful install. What do you think would be a reasonable recipe for an install kit? Would it be autolearn? What would be a good skill level?

It might be a good idea to make a poll on all this.

Nathan · 2014-10-27T21:46:12.000Z

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:4, topic:7684”]For bionic installation to be sensibly realistic, you’d need an NPC to perform the installation.
While there were recorded cases of people operating on themselves, those are quite rare and typically involve simple surgery and painkillers.

There is simply no way you could install a dexterity boosting bionic on yourself. You’d have to dig into parts of your brain responsible for movement. Unless the bionic was some sort of a semi-autonomous automatically installing monstrosity - but then it shouldn’t use your skills.

Bionic removal requires a first aid kid. While it would be reasonable to require one to install a bionic, at the time you’re installing them you probably have 30 kits lying around. With removal it makes more sense, because you typically get faulty bionics from a background, not in game.[/quote]
a hospital could probably do the install.

What do you think would be a reasonable recipe for an install kit?

You can make them yourself for certain bionics, but it might depend on just how invasive the bionic is.

HunterAlpha1 · 2014-10-27T22:13:12.000Z

[quote=“Nathan_, post:15, topic:7684”][quote=“Coolthulhu, post:4, topic:7684”]For bionic installation to be sensibly realistic, you’d need an NPC to perform the installation.
While there were recorded cases of people operating on themselves, those are quite rare and typically involve simple surgery and painkillers.

There is simply no way you could install a dexterity boosting bionic on yourself. You’d have to dig into parts of your brain responsible for movement. Unless the bionic was some sort of a semi-autonomous automatically installing monstrosity - but then it shouldn’t use your skills.

Bionic removal requires a first aid kid. While it would be reasonable to require one to install a bionic, at the time you’re installing them you probably have 30 kits lying around. With removal it makes more sense, because you typically get faulty bionics from a background, not in game.[/quote]
a hospital could probably do the install.

What do you think would be a reasonable recipe for an install kit?

You can make them yourself for certain bionics, but it might depend on just how invasive the bionic is.[/quote]How about requiring some kind of power jack CBM in order to install power storage CBMs, then all you have to do is plug them in?

bahihs · 2014-10-27T22:24:21.000Z

One word: Dissectors.

Always imagined these things to be robotic surgeons connected to an operating table, why not add a programmable computer that can install bionics for you? Then you can either make the install program yourself (comp and med skill check) or find it somewhere (usb sticks) or try your luck (suicide).

Bonevomit · 2014-10-27T22:58:56.000Z

[quote=“bahihs, post:17, topic:7684”]One word: Dissectors.

Always imagined these things to be robotic surgeons connected to an operating table, why not add a programmable computer that can install bionics for you? Then you can either make the install program yourself (comp and med skill check) or find it somewhere (usb sticks) or try your luck (suicide).[/quote]
For that matter why do dissectors fling gore all over the place? These are scientific pieces of equipment after all. They should place all removed parts neatly on a nearby table

Caprice · 2014-10-27T23:10:10.000Z

Pthalocy:

Either way, I do like the rationale behind this suggestion. My question is: does it make attaining CBM’s too hard, and compromise the game’s fun more than it adds to it/adds to the challenge?

Using the Integrated Toolset as a point of comparison…

At 10 Int, 6 Electronics, 3 First Aid and 3 Mechanics you’re no longer risking a bad install for any of the CBMs. (A mutation, maybe, for the toolset itself. But that’s relatively easy to fix, for a starting character - using a purifier won’t cost you anything at that point, and they show up in chem basements.)

Even if you’re not abusing stims for extra Int.

If you started with 13 Int, you can lower electronics to 3 - again, before abusing stims.

Eating a fourpack of s’mores gets you 3 Int from stims and probably one from morale, nevermind anything addictive like, say, caffeine pills.

You can reach 3 in each of those skills with very common books.

That’s a little harder than the makeshift welder, and arguably lower than the welding rig - which requires a 2nd tier book.

Most significant cost, then, is actually finding the CBMs - and “a battery, a power source, and a toolset or three” isn’t horribly rare.

Personally, I’d be in favor of making them harder to install - at least, from the infrastructure end. Getting the skills needed for the higher-end ones can be rather more tricky.

Pthalocy · 2014-10-28T04:51:52.000Z

Caprice, those were all incredibly useful pieces of data. Thank you.

Frankly, I just stockpiled CBM’s until I was good enough at fighting to delve into a lab and another mansion to get the necessary skills to do safe installs. I found CBM’s incredibly easy to collect, due to power stations outside of cities with nice numbers of shocker zombies and various electrical workers. A few dead scientists later by luck, and I had no problem at all.

In addition to the stats Caprice listed, I think that crafting some kind of single-use auto-installer for each CBM to use might be a good way to go. A sufficiently high enough medical skill and some painkillers might then allow one to bypass the need and install the item yourself, at potentially higher risk. The auto-installers would also employ some level of risk, I would think. My impression that people went to medical facilities to get CBMs installed professionally may be misinformed, but it is the conclusion I arrived at concerning their flavour. Hence, the retained risk.