Fun Mechanic solution

[Sundance]

Wow, this is the first Sundance suggestion I don't utterly hate

How inflammatory of you. Utterly and hate are two very serious words to be using on a 2d spacemen game, good thing I don't take you seriously one bit

lol at all the butthurt over thermals. I was only giving examples, but having a cool multi-use glasses that you can construct and switch between modes by right-clicking (similar to a chameleon suit) would be pretty awesome, mechanics walking around with "goggles". Have them take alot of time to research, and be costly on mechanic parts (A box of mechanical stuff to restock from QM would also be good..), or even make it run off batteries..
Awesome and awful seem to be a thin line around here anyway, a slight change could make a whole difference.

I've had a major revision of Mechanics/Electronics planned for quite awhile, MyBlueCorners (dotty spud) set up some prototype code for it, I just haven't really cracked into that project yet. Seems fairly similar to what you've described.

Pretty much where I want to go with that department is to make most machines have tinkering, upgrade, and downgrade/broken effects. Think The Sims. Oh no, someone broke the cloner, now instead of being either functional or totally broken, it's sparking and mangling the DNA of the clones! Mechanics would go scan it, find out it needs a couple of parts replaced, so they slap a resistor and relay into it and now everything is back to normal. There'd also be a system for upgrading some of the working variables of the machine by tinkering with it.

I was basing some of my ideas off MyBlue's concept, knowing that it was already in test code.
A repairing system would be rad, but where my idea strays off from the original concept is that upgrading would be worked through research, very similar to new genetics. For example, a retractable grill you could scan the foldable computer, and then the oven. Scanning some things would reveal new modifications when added to the research computer, such as scanning the oven would give you: Oven + X = Portable Grill.
You can research X to give you hint's, or if you don't have a scan at all you could research portable grill to see what's the first step.
An upgrade wouldn't require for the mechanic to be in the room (that can be annoying), he could scan it, research it, then give to a person (read give = sell) in which they could install it with a screwdriver.