I was playing around with a character with a pair of cyberhands, and whilst looking for stuff to cram in there, I ran across the Bodyware section of the main book on page 333, which states that any bodyware that has a capacity listed can be put in a cyberlimb. As it happens, the Internal Air Tank is one of these. At the same time, the description of the internal air tank says that it's replacing a lung. Is this an oversight, or is the intent that we have tiny (they'd have to be tiny for capacity 3) air tanks that could supply you for 2 hours by seeping oxygen directly into your bloodstream? Would this really eliminate the need to respirate?

I don't know about using it to breath, but it would come in handy for using pnuematic tools or weapons.

Heh.

I have this image of a runner underwater, sucking on his thumb like it was a SCUBA mouthpiece...

-paws

The tank replaces part of a lung.

I imagine it as a small nanomaterial based container for highly pressurized oxygen. Possibly filled with liquid oxygen.

Probably compressed air. And they'd probably just run a tube to your lung/s from the hand.

Putting air into bloodstream is the realm of oxyrush nanites.

I'd charge a little extra essence for running a tube to the lungs. (like the old DNI cable option sorta) as it's another invasive thing.

If you want to only have it use up hand capacity either it releases oxygen from some kinda port that you'd suck on or it puts it isn't your bloodstream (which is really a fairly easy thing to do once you're already inside the body).

Note that you'd still have to exhale to clear the CO2 build up periodically.

I have to imagine the coin tricks you could do that would be incredible... The ability to launch a metal disc with 4500 psi of pressure with not even a flick of the wrist?

I'd say, theres no reason to get so technical about how it works, it just does, explain it however you want.

I was thinking more like that guy in "No Country for Old Men", that air hammer would be a nasty piece of cypre. I could see gangers loving it.

Combine the air tank with a spur or hand razors... you know, for when you have to fight sharks and stuff.

-paws

They could run the blood through a fine reticular network that allowed greater surface area for gas exchange and modify the local pH a bit to promote better O2 binding to the hemoglobin. I'm sure they have the tech to do that in 2070+. The real limiting factor would be the low fraction of your overall cardiac output that actually gets delivered to the hand. It'd only be like 5-10 percent of your CO at most, so the overall effect would be pretty limited.

So, yeah, you'd probably have to run a tube into the trachea or some other large airway.

I like the coin trick meself.

There isn't much about the bends in arsenal. Basically says you take 1 box physical per hour after surfacing and are incapacitated until put into a decompression chamber.

I personally, would say you could reprogram hard oxyrush nanites to combat it, but you'd have to have done it before you went down, (or have 2 systems, one oxyrush, and one reprogrammed oxyrush to combat the bends).

Alternately, if you use the LBA instead, then you don't suffer the bends.

paws 4tw!

yep, having some way to trap and discard excess oxygen as the pressure drops would basically make you immune to it.

hmm, now i really need to sit down and read the underwater chapter...

I have no issue with a cyberhand having a two-hour air tank as long as the player keeps in mind that while it's small, it still has to hold the weight of a two-hour air supply.

Look up the weights of a scuba tank full vs. empty and see if they stay interested in such an obviously ridiculous idea...

Do they get a bonus for unarmed attacks with that hand then?

Sure. A +1 DV for each 2 kilos of extra weight. Just balance it with a -1 init and die to-hit for each kilo of the same.

Since when does weighing an extra kilo cause an init penalty?

ARs don't get -10 in comparison to pistols, why should this?

As long as they're strong enough to move it around, why should they be penalized at all?

I'm shocked no one thought about a flamethrower yet.

because if your picking your nose....

cyberskull...

When this mass isn't correctly balanced like a weapon and is inside of a, again, fairly standard cyberhand? If they pump up the arm strength it's good for moving the extra weight around but not so good when the thing slams into a hard surface and recoils the energy into a non-boosted shoulder joint and/or back.

There is a reason why brass knuckles don't weight 2kg a pop, after all...

The fact that the internal air tank only takes up 3 capacity (a single cyberhand holds 4 capacity) suggests that they have miniaturized the process somehow. Actually, it just suggests that the whole thing seems ridiculous...I mean seriously, wouldn't you still need to respirate? It just seems weird to me.

one question could be, are we talking 2 hours of your avarage air (remember that its a mix of gasses, with the biggest component being nitrogen iirc) or 2 hours of pure oxygen, or there about?

Not sure but pure oxygen is a bad idea due to oxygen narcosis. Of course, you'd literally laugh your way to the grave but it's still a grave, y'know?

I would simply google scuba stuff like gas mixtures and use the info there if you wnat to care about duration by depth and the like.

AS for the earlier question about the weight: Yes, they've miniaturized the tank by the physical mass of X amount of gasses is still there. You can put it under pressure just fine but you can't make the weight of the materials any less.

actually, it seems its nitrogen that acts as a intoxicant at high pressure. oxygen in high concentrations are just nasty, with no entertaining side-effects on the other hand.

but what im thinking is some kind of interface between the gas and the blood, making sure that the oxygen concentration dont get to high while using it.

also, it could be that its operating as something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebreather

given that its found in the main book, i think its more a solution for walking around in a toxic atmosphere (or giving the star a surprise if they deploy gas of some kind) then being able to dive.

I'd agree that its probably the same thing that gets compressed into a scuba tank, and thus, you would suffer the same problems with it underwater.

I've got a similar, but slightly different question.

Why is a Gas Mask, which makes you immune to inhalation vector toxins only 100 , but a respirator, which just adds it's rating to resisting inhalation vector toxins, 100 per rating? Has this been errata'd?

Probably because the DevGrp have no clue that a gas mask is a type of respirator?

Because a Gas Mask is basically an air tank & a mask that blocks everything else. Via Errata, it has a duration of 1 hour before needing to be refilled.

I would say Respirators are overpriced, but because they do not have a limited duration, they are not strictly worse than a Gas Mask - not to mention they don't look as fucking retarded.

I'd allow it but you would have to suck the air out of your thumb.