Cyborg Modules: Medborgs, Chemborgs, Conborgs, etc.

[UrsulaMejor]

Sorry it's really late so this might be a bit rambley.

If you're like me and love messing around with chemistry as a Borg, then you're probably aware of the fact that medical borgs got a significant nerf recently, in that they can no longer make custom patches.

While I do agree that we were seeing way too many hellpatch combos, I think that perhaps the total eradication of custom patches kindof took a lot of the joy of being a Medborg away.

the reason I played that role was because I loved that it let me be a super medical doctor, mixing up health concoctions like healcube (pfd + cryoxadone + crystylene) and synthflesh + charcoal patches in order to murder the heck out of people's ills.

I've heard two primary reasons why people who like this nerf like it:

1) medborgs made human doctors obsolete

2) hellpatches were way too powerful and extremely broken.

To the second, I wholeheartedly agree. hellpatches were dumb and rapidly driven directly into the ground.

To the first, however, I'd like to point out that that's the whole point of a Borg in the first place! Cyborgs, when they pick a module, permanently exchange versatility and flexibility for specialisation.

take the conborg, for example. the primary purpose of a conborg is is infinite ammo rcd, which is so powerful that the human-equivalent rcd is near worthless,

or the chem borgs, with a built in chemmaster and the ability to dispense itself a variable amount of chemicals and heat things precisely,

or the broborg, whose sound synthesizer puts the humble assistant's vuvulzela to bitter shame.

what do the cyborgs give up in exchange for these truly legendary powers!?

the ability to change, the ability to self-serve, and the ability to be instantly flexible.

a human's rcd may be weak, but it always has the opportunity to immediately decide to drop its rcd and pick up a beakerb or laser gun or scalpel or maybe even some combination.

a human may not be able to eat a plasma canister and spit it back out, but he has the freedom to ignore someone's orders to stop honking his bike horn.

etc. etc.

So, in all honestly, the fact that medborgs were EXTREMELY POWERFUL MEDICS is actually in line with the spirit of what a medical Borg should be.

So here are some alternate fixes to the hellpatch problem:

1) give medical cyborgs a third patch that is exactly the same as the old patches used to be. this would not render hellpatches impossible, but it would certainly make them a lot harder and require significantly more effort + knowledge of how chems work, and even then their destructive capacity would be severely diminished compared to what they used to be

2) Make both patches work partially how they used to be, only accepting chemicals that would be allowed in a hypospray

3) Give the cyborg a High Capacity Hypospray that can hold up to 200 units and dispense up to 40 at a time

While my point of discussion was mostly about slightly unnerfing medical Borgs, cyborg module balance as a hole is a topic I feel is worth discussing, so please feel free to contribute to this thread any other input you might have on how cyborgs are designed.

[DyssalC]

I'm not going to comment on the patches, but I agree with the bit about borgs giving up versatility for specialization.

Anybody can fill their backpack with med supplies and their utility belt with tools and achieve Mediborg status, so the Mediborg NEEDS special things to put it above and beyond. The standard patches are okay, but anybody can easily deal with burn and brute. Mediborgs should be given something to give them more of a medical edge on their human counter-parts.

Along with that high-capacity Hypo, I would also suggest an internal NanoMed with chemical bottles instead of a combination of pills and pre-loaded syringes so borgs can use the chems they dispense themselves.

[DyssalC]

I'm not going to comment on the patches, but I agree with the bit about borgs giving up versatility for specialization.

Anybody can fill their backpack with med supplies and their utility belt with tools and achieve Mediborg status, so the Mediborg NEEDS special things to put it above and beyond. The standard patches are okay, but anybody can easily deal with burn and brute. Mediborgs should be given something to give them more of a medical edge on their human counter-parts.

Along with that high-capacity Hypo, I would also suggest an internal NanoMed with chemical bottles instead of a combination of pills and pre-loaded syringes so borgs can use the chems they dispense themselves.

[UrsulaMejor]

I'm not going to comment on the patches, but I agree with the bit about borgs giving up versatility for specialization.

Anybody can fill their backpack with med supplies and their utility belt with tools and achieve Mediborg status, so the Mediborg NEEDS special things to put it above and beyond. The standard patches are okay, but anybody can easily deal with burn and brute. Mediborgs should be given something to give them more of a medical edge on their human counter-parts.

Along with that high-capacity Hypo, I would also suggest an internal NanoMed with chemical bottles instead of a combination of pills and pre-loaded syringes so borgs can use the chems they dispense themselves.

I talked to Marquesas at length about it and the bolded seems like the best + most badass option

[Paineframe]

The fact that you "love messing around with chemistry as a borg" yet don't even know the capabilities and limitations of the chemborg (their built-in ChemMaster does NOT act as a chem dispenser like you seem to think it does) illuminates just some of the many problems with infinite patches: they were so powerful that nobody used chemborgs for chem.

Mediborgs can still mix up super awesome healing chem mixes, and use syringes or hypos to administrate them. They just have to deal with having finite amounts of chems, just like actual chemborgs do.

[UrsulaMejor]

what. when did I say chemborgs could dispense chemicals from their chemmasters?

when you walk up to a chem dispenser you can type in a custom chemical amount, which was what I was talking about.

you sure do jump immediately to the most terrible assumptions and dumbest of insults, don't you?

maybe you should read twice before you criticize because you're looking kinda foolish right now.

re: infinite chem duplication, yeah, Marquesas brought that up and what's why the high capacity hypospray was suggested.

[Roomba]

Some general thoughts I've had regarding quality of life improvements for borgs:

Standard: This is more of a complaint about the clunky camera interface for all monitors, but it would be nice if there was a way to move from camera to camera similar to the AI, because selecting each camera from a list is terrible. Also, the inbuilt pen should be allowed to vandalize walls and floors. Last I checked you couldn't.

Medical: Personally, I'd like to have them start with saline-glucose solution, it's hard to treat shock. The return of custom patches would be a treat, though.

Engineering: A portable mechcomp dispenser would be a nice thing to have. I'm not sure if it fits better with engineering or construction, but construction is already powerful enough.

Construction: An inbuilt blueprint marker for the ABC-U would be useful, as would being able to click-drag blueprints into the ABC-U.

Botanist: The ability to copy a particular seed's genes and save it to the seed dispenser would make a hydroponics borg vastly more useful, I feel. In addition, several large beakers filled with plant nutrients and the ability to load trays into yourself similar to how the engineering borg can transport canisters would be good.

Chemistry: A built in chem dispenser and reagent heater would be nice, although I'm guessing this has come up before. Also the droppers could be changed to the new mechanical droppers.

Janitor: The bucket capacity could stand to be much larger, I feel. Also maybe have another bucket because when mixing up fun stuff for the spray bottle, having just one thirty-unit container to work with is a little limiting.

[APARTHEID]

The fact that you "love messing around with chemistry as a borg" yet don't even know the capabilities and limitations of the chemborg (their built-in ChemMaster does NOT act as a chem dispenser like you seem to think it does) illuminates just some of the many problems with infinite patches: they were so powerful that nobody used chemborgs for chem.

Mediborgs can still mix up super awesome healing chem mixes, and use syringes or hypos to administrate them. They just have to deal with having finite amounts of chems, just like actual chemborgs do.

That's silly. No one uses chemborgs even to this day!

[UrsulaMejor]

pretty sure no one actually uses chemborgs because construction borgs are just that more overpowered compared to every other borg type and that's super tempting to people who like to be ready for turning a certain shade of red

[Paineframe]

what. when did I say chemborgs could dispense chemicals from their chemmasters?

when you walk up to a chem dispenser you can type in a custom chemical amount, which was what I was talking about.

you sure do jump immediately to the most terrible assumptions and dumbest of insults, don't you?

maybe you should read twice before you criticize because you're looking kinda foolish right now.

re: infinite chem duplication, yeah, Marquesas brought that up and what's why the high capacity hypospray was suggested.

Sorry about that, I completely misinterpreted what you were saying, and kneejerked straight to the defense of the noble yet underused chemborg against medborg buffs without reading what you said more closely. I apologize for that, and for falsely insulting you.

I do think borg balance is just screwed up in general, though - there's very little reason to use anything besides construction or medical. Engyborg can't really do anything fun with the device scanner and the atmos transporter is exclusively a murder tool, the chemborg was overshadowed by the mediborgs at chemistry till recently, standard and botany are straight-up worthless, and brobot is something you don't need a reason to pick.

[DyssalC]

The Janitor Borg should get a 100u Beaker and an Internal Buffer System. Don't pretend you don't want that.

[BaneOfGiygas]

A suggestion to give engieborgs relevancy again instead of being the awkward cousin of the conborg: Have them be able to use that device analyzer with a built-in ruckingeur kit and reverse-engineer fabricator in order to, effectively, serve as a mobile dispenser of items. Run out of tools and don't want to jaunt all the way to mechanics? Call over an engieborg! Want a walking armory for your traitorous deeds? Subvert an engieborg! This basically makes them serve double duty as an engineer as well as a mechanic, and while the cyborg themselves may not be able to use the items they make, their ability to do so combined with their mobility would make for very interesting strategies.

[Marquesas]

The fact that you "love messing around with chemistry as a borg" yet don't even know the capabilities and limitations of the chemborg (their built-in ChemMaster does NOT act as a chem dispenser like you seem to think it does) illuminates just some of the many problems with infinite patches: they were so powerful that nobody used chemborgs for chem.

QFT. This is downright true as heck.

Medical: Personally, I'd like to have them start with saline-glucose solution, it's hard to treat shock.

I'll sneak this in.

Engineering: A portable mechcomp dispenser would be a nice thing to have.

Definitely engineering. I'll see to this.

Construction: An inbuilt blueprint marker for the ABC-U would be useful, as would being able to click-drag blueprints into the ABC-U.

I sort-of disagree, the construction module is basically one of the most powerful modules already anyway.

Botanist: The ability to copy a particular seed's genes and save it to the seed dispenser would make a hydroponics borg vastly more useful, I feel. In addition, several large beakers filled with plant nutrients and the ability to load trays into yourself similar to how the engineering borg can transport canisters would be good.

Infinitely replicating a particularly powerful seed is not really a good thing. Is the concern that you cannot plant harvested seeds, 'cause I can whip up a solution to that.

Chemistry: A built in chem dispenser and reagent heater would be nice, although I'm guessing this has come up before. Also the droppers could be changed to the new mechanical droppers.

Dispenser: No
Heater: maybe.
Droppers: sure.

Janitor: The bucket capacity could stand to be much larger, I feel. Also maybe have another bucket because when mixing up fun stuff for the spray bottle, having just one thirty-unit container to work with is a little limiting.

Alright, I guess there is some reason I can think of to add another bucket to janiborgs, it's not like this is a terrible idea or something.

[Spy_Guy]

Janitor: The bucket capacity could stand to be much larger, I feel. Also maybe have another bucket because when mixing up fun stuff for the spray bottle, having just one thirty-unit container to work with is a little limiting.

Alright, I guess there is some reason I can think of to add another bucket to janiborgs, it's not like this is a terrible idea or something.

I'm personally opposed to this. The janiborg already gets their spraybottle which is a goddamn hellweapon in its own right to something that doesn't slip.
They don't need or deserve another bucket.

[Dabir]

Engineering: A portable mechcomp dispenser would be a nice thing to have.

Definitely engineering. I'll see to this.

yesyesyesyesyesyes

I may be forced to never play anything but engineering borg ever again if this happens