Borg Upgrade QoL

[Kamikaze Mongoose]

Some borgs wanna be standard or heavy at roundstart and this causes some inconveniences:
1) A heavier chest/head requires an entirely new body
+ This is resource intensive and time consuming

2) Swapping limbs requires a short process that takes time as well
+ Unlock
+ Crowbar
+ Screwdriver
+ Wrench off part
+ Grab and swap the new part
+ Screw driver, crowbar, and lock afterwards

Outside of installing treads, it would be incredibly convenient if we could simply reinforce the parts on a borg by targeting parts on the borg body. This would be especially nice if it allowed chests and heads to be reinforced as well.

[Bartimeus]

While improving cyborgs parts can be a bit tedious sometimes, the difference between a light cyborg and a heavy cyborg is quite noticeable.
The issue that would come from being able to just slap some metal on a cyborg while it's alive means that all cyborgs could go around as a light cyborg, then anyone could put some metal on them the second some threat crops up.

I kind of like the idea of the cyborg player having to make a choice between the parts that they are equipped with, having to strike the right balance of speed and defense.
If we were to make it so cyborgs can be upgraded anywhere on the fly, it means there is no real point to making a choice since pretty much anyone with some metal sheets could reinforce a cyborg the moment they need to. Furthermore engineering cyborg could upgrade themselves immediatly in response to assault.

Having a way to give the option to the cyborg player which part they want to spawn with would be an idea, but it might be a bit too powerful, considering that a reinforced or heavy cyborg is significantly more durable than a light or medium model.

[Ikea]

Heavier borg models arent really that strong, at least for antagging. Generally with the current borg meta, light is still the best (Personally Id argue standard may hold an edge, plenty would disagree) because borgs still get fucked by a flash in one click regardless of if they have a lot of defense or not, so your best bet avoiding that is speed. And once stunned as borg without a recovery, youre fucked, and unless you go mining every round, you will not get upgrades every round. Personally Id enjoy borgs being able to choose there models and dont think itd cause any balance concerns. While this would take away some roboticist and borg interaction, this isn't necessarily a bad thing because waiting on a roboticist for ten minutes every single round because you dont want to get one shotted by a fireball is far from fun. Not to mention there's still the other ways they interact such as roboticists being able to give borgs treads.

[walpvrgis]

I've been thinking about this lately (as I've been sketching ideas for new cyborg chassis styles and considering how to implement them). I agree with Ikea on not really seeing balance issues when it comes to allowing borgs to choose models, as regardless of style, the easiest way to take down a borg is the same either way (and borgs already start with what is considered the best model by default). Maybe an option to choose the model when you select your initial upgrade? Either that or traits (mostly works best if you have a borg-specific character save).

Re: Interaction; I honestly find that relying on roboticist and borg interaction to change parts isn't that fun. Very often you encounter roboticists who aren't that interested in building or maintaining cyborgs aside from constructing a cyborg shell for the AI at roundstart; I most often see surgery/augmentation-focused roboticists more than anything. I don't think giving borgs an option to choose a frame/parts once per round upon initializing or latejoining would be much of an issue. If anything, I'd like to see more borg chassis upgrades that are worth getting and have specific/unique traits, and require that roboticist and borg cooperation to have them installed.

[BatElite]

In my experience as a borg most roboticists have no clue how to service borgs, especially when it comes to doing head swaps or the like. Just yesterday I had a round where I asked the roboticist at round start for a screen head and eventually disassembled myself telling the roboticist to get the brain from my head with a wrench, at which point they just ingore the situation because I obviously died. When you can get taken out of the round 2 minutes in because you have to rely on some dipshit to not let you rot, it's not surprising that afaik most borgs just don't bother asking for advanced stuff.

What I'm saying is the documentation for roboticists appears to be shit, and ideally there'd be some way of transferring people from one body to another that kept them alive enough to talk with the docs.