Can cyberware exceed it's capacity?, Essence, metal, and you Options

[ARKARY]

I've been messing around with cyberware options for some character concepts, and something occurred to me. On the surface, it seems like the capactiy limits on cyberware really limit your ability to be creative with what you can cram in them.

For example, if you have a human sammy with strength 6 and he gets a cyberarm, in order for the arm to equal the strength of his meat arm (since it starts at 3) he'll have to sacrifice quite a large chunk of capacity to boost it up there. It's even worse if he also wants other stats increased, or wants some armor on it.

But I was thinking, this only applies to the capacity for installed components, which cost no essence beyond the limb itself. If the sammy were willing to spend the essence on it, could you fit more equipment in an arm than the limb would normally allow? For example, if the previously mentioned sammy augmented the stats of the limb, could he still pay the actual essence cost and have a cybergun installed in that same arm? Heck, if he really wanted to blow all his essence, could he find some way to cram half a dozen guns into it for some sort of super gun-arm of death?

While there would obviously be some limits on what's reasonable to put in, I don't see why someone couldn't add more gizmos if they were willing to pay for them, the capacity slots just give you a little "free" space.

[Abbandon]

If you took a cyberlimb and maxed out its capacity there is no way in heck you could add more cyber that took either capacity or essense to the limb. There is no essense in the limb to get rid of its already gone. Essense reflects nerves and blood and bone and living material.

As far as enhancements. You dont really need to raise all its attributes. You are either gonna shoot with it or punch with it. If you want it to do everything your gonna have to except that it wont specialize in anything.

I havent looked it over in to much detail. Does higher grade cyberlimbs/enchancements give more or take less capacity ??

On a totally unrelated note. I wonder if you hack off both your arms or hands if you would gain the ambidextrous qaulity ? Maybe its a brain functionality and limbs are irrelvant.

[Abbandon]

Man did they spend any time with the cyberlimb section it seems really fubared. You cant boost the stats on a limb unless you get a cyber torso?? Sythetic arms have pathetic capacity.

If i got 2 lower arms and 2 lower legs and enhanced the armor on them would that mean my guy would have....ooops forgot the torso

+20/+20 armor before he puts on any armor ?? lmao.
W/ armor jacket 28/26 ??
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I'd say you could treat your limbs like weapons. You could have 2 arms w/ maxed out agility and some body, and then you could have 2 more arms w/ maxed out strength and some body. Then you could switch them out whenever, just dont lose them.

[ShadowDragon]

Until Augmented comes out I houserule that cyberlimbs just have the same stats as your stat block and that you can't boost the limbs (including armor). It's unrealistic, but the rules for cyberlimbs are so aweful anyway - this just makes them simplified.

Another thing that always bothered me - I've been involved in boxing and martial arts for the past 2 years. I'm not an expert, but I know enough to tell you that the strength and agility of a limb is NOT the determining factor in the accuracy and power of a punch. It's an entire body effort. I can see aiming a gun being the same way to a lessor extent. I've never liked the official rule that if you punch with a cyber arm, you ONLY use the stats of that arm. Aweful aweful rules :(

[hobgoblin]

problem is, what happens when you have more metal then meat?

hmm, maybe have it so that when the torso and all 4 limbs are replaced you have to buy new physical stats as the meat no longer apply. and the capacity cost can be distributed over the diffrent areas.

still, i would have no problem with cyberlimbs being able to have a benifit from the normal cyberware versions for strength and agility boost (alltho i think they are now semi-bioware so) and only added a bit more damage (pr limb) and changed the type to physical.

allso, with a torso, the lifting capacity would go thru the roof, as you now have hydraulics and so on rather then meat and bones doing the lifting. and no fatigue for long times running and/or carrying ;)

as for the armor stuff, i never understood why they required us to avarage it out. just instead state what the avarage increase in armor will be and then have us multiply by 5 or so if ever the limb only comes into play...

[Butterblume]

[ShadowDragon]

[hobgoblin]

[Samaels Ghost]

Or the other way around. Some enhancements can only be installed in cyberlimbs, like 'jacks

[James McMurray]

[booklord]

[Abbandon]

What booklord? What are you talking about when you say 3+3=6 ? The max enchance rating you can have is 7 for attributes and 4 for armor....

Yeah 8 is pathetic, If you put in any enhancers in your armor your barely gonna have room for anything else. Attribute enhancers are rating x1. If you max one out then poof your down to 1.

[ARKARY]

That's kind of what I was concerned about. From a utility standpoint, cyberlimbs actually don't look all that appealing, particularly for already strong characters. If you want anything more than a functional arm equivalent to your natural one, you're better off being relatively weak than already strong, as the stock part is closer to what you already have. If you have to spend capacity to get the limb working as well as your old one, you don't have much room for any attatchments.

It seems strange to think that a troll with a robot arm either gets that arm as strong as his natrual one, or gets a good gun in it, but not both. I guess the concept of a "Swiss Army Arm" actually works better if you stuff gizmos into your natural limb than try to get it fully cybered, since you don't need to "waste" space getting it to function at full ability.

[booklord]

[WorkOver]

whats worse is that trolls have a minimum strenght of 5, yet thier cyber limg is a measly 3.

Shouldn't that be an average 7?

Cyber limb rules suck so bad in this game it almost funny, thats if it weren't so pathetic.

[booklord]

Obviously you can houserule the troll cyberarm.

Base Str : 6
Base Agi : 2
Base Body:6
Increase Capacity by 50%
Increase Cost by 100%


Would work for me

[James McMurray]

[booklord]

[Edward]

The way cyber limbs were written they are not for use on already exceptional characters. A troll is pushing his luck trying to get a cyber arm strength up to his average (I think they should start at race average stats.

There are a fiew times when thay are worth it.

When your weak to start with.
When you need an arm in a hurry
When you are going to abuse there armor potential (primary use cyber zombies must be obvious)
When you want a specialized arm (like the sniper in GITS)
Whichever reason you have you should consider investing in spares so you can switch out for different tasks.

Edward

[booklord]

Possible House Rules for cyberlimbs

None of the characters in my current game have cyberlimbs. So this has never really come up. But here's a few of my thoughts on potential house rules.

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A good argument could be made that cyberlimbs should naturally provide an unarmed combat damage bonus similar to bone lacing. Probably equivilent of plastic lacing for synthetic and titanium for obvious.

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Another argument could be made that obvious cyberlimbs should have a natural armor rating that costs nothing:

"Check out my new cyberarm. Full agility upgrade with a cyberarm gyromount with strength and body bonuses!"
"Any armor?"
"No, there wasn't room so I had to make it out of cardboard."

Uh, yeah right.
A free armor rating for obvious cyber limb rating might be limb body rating / 2. ( round up)

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Adjusted Armor Capacity Costs

Actually armor itself is completely disproportional. Since Orthoskin can provide full body protection for 0.25 per level. Dermal plating for 0.5 per level. So I'd adjust additional rating to 1 capacity per point of armor because 1 point of armor per 2 points of capacity is a real head scratcher.

Furthermore if the armor enhancement is taken for obvious cyberlimbs then it should add to its automatic armor rating and the armor for the cyberlimb should be considered hardened.

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Another thing you might try is upgrading the cyberware to alpha, beta or delta. I couldn't help noticing that capacity is always essense cost * 10( round up) in the book for cyberlimbs. A strong argument could be made that a delta cyberlimb enhancement would take up half the essence and therefore half the capacity with similar reductions for the alpha and beta.

Also make sure that when dealing with partial capacity points you add them all together before rounding up. For example a shock hand costs 0.25 essence or 3 capacity (2.5 rounded up obviously) and a light pistol cybergun costs 0.35 essence or 4 capacity (3.5 rounded up) But if you wanted both you could add 0.25 and 3.5 for 6 Capacity. ( instead of the 7 for adding together their rounded up values. )

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Whew!!!!
Any thoughts?

[mfb]

wow. there has been exactly one on-topic post, so far.

to bring the total up to two: i believe that's somewhat allowed in the rules, ARKARY. for instance, if you've got a cyberarm which you've already filled to capacity with various cybergewgaws, and you want to install a smartlink, i don't think the rules prevent you from getting a smartlink and paying full essence cost. however, i don't believe you can do that with enhancements that only have a capacity cost; ie, you can't convert the capacity cost of an enhancement into an essence cost.

[Jaid]

[James McMurray]

[knasser]

[James McMurray]

I didn't check the book. I was going by booklord's post.