Help me houserule a Cyberarm., It's like a NASCAR pit crew! Options

[Wakshaani]

Just a short one, here, but we've got one character with a cyberarm who wants to have a built-in repair kit, sort of like a Swiss-Army Arm or having an R2 unit on your shoulder. It could be used for the Mechanical group as well as Hardware, having a decent asortment of microtools.

Now, the trick is trying to get a fair cost for this. It's basicly about 3000 worth of Kits, but carried in a very obious Cyberarm for roleplaying coolness rather than a toolbox. Seems pretty non-exploitive, so I'm down with this, but I need a fair cost in terms of capacity as well as cost.

Currently, I'm going with 5000Y and 5 Capacity (This is about half again what the kits would cost, while the capacity is on par with a large storage compartment) ... but I don't know if that quite works. Should it take more Cap? Less? Be pricier?

Anybody have a good suggestion?

[Fortune]

I think something like 1k per Kit sounds about right, and I would just rule that it used up 1 Capacity per Kit. Nice round numbers and they seem fair enough to me.

[Butterblume]

Should imo use more capacity. Lots more, because mechanical tools aren't that small. 5 would probably be fine for electronics/hardware tools alone.

Btw: nice idea :cyber:.

[Fortune]

Thing is, a lot of the tools are micro-sized, and a fair number would serve duplicate purposes, making quite a bit of some of the various Kits superfluous.

[Lagomorph]

Go Go Gadget Arm!

Actually thats a pretty cool item

[OneTrikPony]

Which kits are you puting in the arm? to cover the whole mechanics group you need more than a leatherman

You've got your basic (crossover) tools
Hammer
pliers/wirecutter/stripper
Pry bar
Drill Driver, with bits and drills
Socket/spanner set, torque sensor would be usefull (could be part of drill driver)
soldering iron
laser torch. (this is not the same as a soldering iron.)
reciprocating saw
ect. & misc.

You want to cover specialized tools in the skills:
Aeronautics mechanic; Rivet gun, 5 diferent types of clamps. a couple diffenent crimp heads for hydraulics. (just the stuff I can think of off the top of my head)

Automotive mechanic; all of the above + the aeronautics stuff + the stuff I use to keep my wreck running in 2006; grease gun, tin snips, files, dremmel tool with bits, plastic mallet, ball pien hammer, 2.5 ton floor jack (cynder blocks :)), lug wrench, Tap and die sets. bolt extractors, bolt cutters, sockets and box-end wrenches 5mm - 30mm, breakline wrenches, gasket scraper, tape meaure, 1/2 in drive torque wrence, 3/8 in. drive torque wrench, Sawzall, Multi meter (ac/dc voltage, ampherage, ohm meter) compression guage, vacumme guage/pump, feeler guage, micrometer, (that's pretty much all the stuff I can remember without getting out of my chair), oh, don't forget anything you'd use to install your sterio. Sometimes I use my wirefeed welder on my exhaust but you might count that as part of a facility. Then there are the supplies I keep on hand and would count as part of my kit; 5 different types of lube in a spray can, graphite lube, motor oil, gear oil, break fluid, powerstearing fluid, epoxy, JB weld, 3 different silicone gasket makers, Gorrilla glue, greas in a tub, grease in a tube, carb cleaner, break cleaner, hand cleaner, rags--lots of rags.

I didn't mention screwdrivers and nut drivers as well as allen wrenches and torx drivers, at different bit sizes and lengths from 2 in. to 2 feet long.

Don't think that I'm talking about a vehicle facility here. I can fit everything I'm talking about in the cab of my truck with the exception of the jack/blocks and the welder. About half the time I want to do a job I end up buying a tool.

you might figure that all of the nautical mechanic stuff would cross over to automotive mechanic until you consider some basic hull repair tools. Also you might include some basic autobody tools in the automotive kit. My next purchase will probably be a set of hand anvils for back yard autobody work.

Industrial mechanics. think of all the tools above but larger versions.

Personaly I don't think you could fit even one type of kit in two cyberarms even if they were troll sized arms. Then again there have been times I've been brokedown up in the mountains and fixed stuff enough to drive home with only a leatherman a socket set and a few supplies.

[FrankTrollman]

The problem with the capacity numbers is that they don't work at all. I mean seriously, you can't put five fingertp compartments into a cyberhand - even an obvious one. What the fuck is that?

A much better rule is one with less rules, because the rules as stated don't work.

Here's a simplified one that works OK:

A realistic cyber arm can have one "big" item in it. An obvious cyberlimb can have an extra big item, and a leg can have an extra big item. A big item can be anything from a storage container to a cybergun to a hot chocolate dispenser.

Your proposed toolkit would be a big item. It's built in to a limb, so the whole thing costs more than normal - call it 4 times the original price and be done with it.

The capacity rules work for Cybereyes very well because the eyes themselves are of fixed dimensions and the objects inside them are "enhancements" that are essentially arbitrary in size. As soon as the capacity and equipment hits limbs - for which real size and distinct locations exist in a measurable fashion - the basic absurdity of it all makes my head explode.

You can have five finger tip compartments in a cyberhand. I know this, because there are five finger tips. Until the capacity rules reflect that basic fact of the universe I feel no compunction in ignoring them completely.

-Frank

[ElFenrir]

Well, i actually have a techwiz/rigger type with a cyberleg that he keeps his tools in. Just for holding. He uses them by hand, he doesnt try to kneecap the engine or anything :grinbig:

In SR3, there were rules for built-in cyberdevices, and they were pretty costly...but in SR4 i think it dropped some. I never converted my character from 3 to 4 yet, so i am curious to see what people are coming up with here. I recall the capacity for basic kits wasnt too bad...he had three small ones in his leg holding(electronics/microtronics, computer, and auto.) We assumed the stuff was basic...small wrenches, etc...enough to make basic repairs.

But yes, kits in limbs=awesome :D

[OneTrikPony]

Yah, i have to qualify my above post. I'm not saying the idea isn't awesome. I had an SR3 character "Wally Gimbal" that had built in tools and hands that he could switch out and the whole workx. I love the idea. I'm not even saying "it's too powerfull!" because mechanix skills have little effect on the game. My only point was I have a hard time imagining a way to fit everything I need to tune up my truck in a cyber arm.

I proposed a framework for allowing increases to cyberlimb capacity in this thread

[hobgoblin]

hmm, makes me think of the cp2020 tool hand&foot :P

hammer = hard striking surface basically. so use your fist ;) (its a metallic hand after all)

pliers, wirecutters and similar can be built into the side of the fingers. the basic difference between a stripper and a cutter is that a stripper have one cutter edge removed. should not be to hard to control via DNI i think.

drill driver could be wired or air driven by a power source in the limb. and the limb could also be used for bit storage.

spanners, maybe some kind of hand attachment, or just flatten the surface of the thumb and nearest finger so that you could just grip it like some human monkey wrench :P but i guess a powered variant could be nice for those seriously stuck ones.

in essence, the human hand and its ability to reshape can be made even more useful when redone in metal :cyber:

hell, i can think of ways to build the drive unit of a reciprocating saw into the palm of the hand. or maybe just attach it to the tip of a finger (the others holding the soldeing iron and laser torch), and use hand and arm movement.

as for the bigger cutting jobs? we are all ready talking about something that have been driving saws for ages. and having it redone in metal and engines just makes it impossible to tire. so just grab that old hand saw and get sawing already! :silly:

there is a definitive risk of over engineering the solutions here ;)

[Wakshaani]

With a multihead attachment, a Dremel bit could handle a frightening amount of jobs, I'd think. Cutting, screwing/unscrewing, bolting/unbolting, possibly ratcheting, and wrenching, off the top of my head. Add in a laser welder/cutter for those hard-to-reach areas and you're doing faboo.

[hobgoblin]

true, a demel is just another drill with the pistol grip removed.

[OneTrikPony]

[hobgoblin]

well color me corrected...

[OneTrikPony]

[Garrowolf]

what about miniwaldoes that come out of your tool arm. Put the heavier tools on the arm itself and have a set of support waldoes with lights, camera snakes, pinchers, etc.

Also, with miniturization and cyberware I could easily see cybernetically morphable tools. It wouldn't be liquid metal but it could apply pressure in small spaces and strange directions. Instead of having lots of tools you could have the ability to mimic lots of tools.

[OneTrikPony]

that's true. there are some compounds with limited morphing capability piezioelectricsomthings that might be strong enough by then to make a universal spanner/hex socket.

dont foget to add telescopeing fingers too. So your screw bit finger can reach those narrow litte screws wayyy back underneath your intake manifold.

Also a wire brush. I am forever looking for my wire brush.

[Garrowolf]

How about having small crawlers that can crawl into an engine and have enough torque to get to a hard to reach screw? It wouldn't have to be microsized, just flexible in nonhuman ways. When it returns it could wrap itself around your hip or fold up wierdly.

Maybe a mounted drone that has lots of strong arms and is attached to the rafters. It could lift engines out and hold things in place.

[hobgoblin]