Ideas to make cyborgs' modules more useful.

[DJ-Fireball_did_this]

Currently, the only cyborg modules that I find worth using are medical, mining and engineering. And mining is the only one that usually seems any different from a human doing the job. Medical is also very clunky and inefficient, especially when you need to move fast to save some guy's life. It also can't preform much surgery due to the fact that you can't really manipulate organs. I suggest some modifications to how modules work to fix these problems. (Side note: How do modules actually work, physically in-universe? That would be useful to know for suggestions.)

In general:

• Remove the "basic" modules (Fire extinguisher, omnitool, etc). I get it's important to have a fire extinguisher or health scanner or whatever but honestly it just gets in the way. NT is also pretty reserved when it comes to medicine and emergancy supplies, they're usually only accessable by people with the right ID even though it raises the station's mortality rate. In general NT is pretty shitty with many of the station's safety features, the borgs wouldn't be any different. There's also the omnitool thing which I don't really get? Like is it just "robots = tools and stuff"?
  
• Make the module interface scroll left and right. Every other container or thing you use to access items works like this, I don't see why the borgs are any different. It arguably makes more  sense for the borgs to work like this since a good chunk of their lower UI is just decoration. Maybe also add layers or something like /TG/ branches since there's a metric shitload of modules to scroll through.
  
• Make some modules only accessable to heavier borgs. Since there's currently very little reason to not just use light ones all the time.
  
• Add the ability to connect more arms to a heavy borg, allowing it to use more modules at once. Like a heavy borg could use three but the others only have two "hands". Again, this would serve as motivation to use the other models.
  

For engineering:

• Replace the omnitool with just actual tools. Cool idea but it's a pain in the ass to use.
  
• Give the engineering borgs an electronics/parts grabber or the drone magtractor thing. Have it be limited only to holding parts, cells, circuits, mechcomp stuff, etc for balence. Interacting with these objects is very important for many aspects of engineering. Also have a built-in safety to block usage of law modules to avoid the both in and out of universe nightmare that will come of borgs being able to write their own laws.
  
• Have a tool that loads and can use tiles/material sheets. Again that's very important for many aspects of engineering. Also a nice alternative for if you don't want to kill the cell via RCD.
  

For medical:

• Change how the storage of medicine for menders, syringes and hyposprays work. Currently, it's hellish to restock them. I suggest instead of the current setup that's basically just normal human stuff, the medical borg would have a somewhat large internal tank of the medications. Syringes and menders would just take chems from this until it runs out. Additionally, syringes and hyposprays would work differently. Instead of being something where you fumble around with different modes they're just always on "inject". The chems themselves will be refilled by restocking the internal tank, which has a filter similar to hyposprays so the borgs can't run around with prions or whatever. It would also be impossible to reload the tools any other way. The tank itself would probably be refilled via a docking station which can be filled by having containers used on it. To select which chemical to use you'd just click on the tool to cycle it through medicines. Ideally, it would be possible to scroll it in both directions.
  
• Add a mechanism to grab organs and body parts. Due to the specific "soft" nature of it, it cannot hold anything besides a body part or organ.
  

Mining:

• This one seems fine.
  

Chemistry:

• Add a device to hold beakers and such. Also remove things (like the mini chemmaster) that only exist for such a reason.
  

Brobocop:

• This one is supposed to be a borg that does nice things but also minor security stuff? I guess?
  
• Remove the pen. I really don't get the point of this one.
  
• Also remove the drinking glass. It seems more fit for service and again seems kinda pointless.
  
• Add the sec hud vision thing. Does this already exist? I don't remember, the wiki is slightly outdated. But yeah if that's not already a thing give it to brobocops.
  
• An internal tank of THC and a syringe similar to how I described the medical ones. I'm pretty sure weed is legal in NT space, and that's a fast way to make friends.
  
• Give them a crayon. This seems far more useful than a pen. Maybe make it a "wax dispensor" that can alternate through colors or something.
  
• Hugging device. An arm similar to the help command that just does basically chat spam of hugs or friendly pats or whatever.
  

Service:

• Holy water dispenser and bible modules. Self-explanatory.
  
• A lighter for the chapel's candles.
  
• Maybe make botany and janitorial seperate modules since those require a large amount of very specialized tools seperate.
  
• Edicronic particle gripper, a device capable of holding only objects that humans can eat. Including functionally anything when fried but it's useless at that point.
  
• Card gripper, something that can only be used to hold cards or decks of them. Probably also with some fast sorting and shuffling functions.
  

[Technature]

Brobocop:

• Remove the pen. I really don't get the point of this one.
  

Brobocop clicks the pen. X826

[zjdtmkhzt]

Don't have much of an opinion on these changes, since I don't really play borg, just wanted to chime in that organ surgery is already possible for borgs since a recent PR, I think?
https://github.com/goonstation/goonstation/pull/449

[Tiggersaurus]

As a Borg main I disagree with a fair few things, I'm on mobile+on strong painkillers atm so I'll try+go into more detail later.

Zjdt is correct, with the addition of drag+drop organs Borg can now insert organs, even stake limbs back on.

I'll agree that some of the modules need tweaking but some of the things you listed as pointless I don't think are.

The basic tools that are shared across all modules I use on a regular basis, especially the omnitool+cell cables (can't remember exact name, the one you can charge APCS). The latter especially useful to quickly get medbay back up after disabling a powersink. Also not all modules get the fire extinguisher.

Scrolling left/right Vs up/down. From a personal standpoint I find being able to quickly scroll up+down via mouse easier due to mobility issues, while you could scroll the other way, it would possibly be more clutter having it at the top or bottom due to other things already being there on the UI.

I don't agree with restricting modules to heavier Borg. While half the time I can get upgraded to a less fragile body, in reality it's very hit+miss as to whether you'll have a roboticist or someone to help you. It's hard enough getting someone to wack a module in the rewriter at times, let alone swap you to a better body just to use a module you want to use.

Engineering module already comes with sheets/tiles you can use+restock (click drag onto it)+it's fairly easy enough to quickly cycle through the omnitool tools. Though maybe a separate screwdriver/crowbar for when you need to screw/crow/screw/crow windows or open yourself up for limb replacement.

I think 3 upgrade slots is good, expansion upgrades exist for more (via hacking fab). I personally tend to run with efficiency/doc goggles/propulsion or no efficiency if there's no roboticist. It wouldn't so much incentivise but restrict players who have the misfortune of not playing at the same time as a roboticist player.

Menders don't need refilling, while it states 200u it's infinite. You can drag+drop bottles into the beakers or use syringe on the bottle. I normally try+run with at least one syringe with potassium iodide. We can also use chem dispensers to make medical chems with our beakers (obviously some are easier than others to make), though the Borg chemUI *does* need sorting. Either we use the clunky BorgUI or risk losing/bugging our beaker doing it the human way.

Not sure what you mean by fumbling around with different modes with hypo? I normally have one with epi/saline and one with charcoal.

Mini chem master is because we can't use the normal one to make pills. Chem module does need looking at though.

Drinking glass can be used to feed people cold beer that you start with (it heals) or filled with epi/triple citrus/other meds so you can help your sec buddies in crit while getting them to medbay, while using your siren sound synthesiser ofc ?

Botany and jani etc used to be separate I believe? (Someone correct me if wrong) Not sure if the igniter you get can light candles? I'll test next time I'm on.

There's been talk for a while now about some modules having a white listed magtractor for certain things, I think it always comes down to balance. One thing I would like is to be able to do is place someone in the cloner scanner as mediborg. Engiborg being able to place the plasma tanks in the singularity engines would be useful. As would being able to assist with dowsing on Oshan map+civiborg being able to actually do chef stuff.

This turned out longer than I thought so sorry if I missed things or wasn't as detailed.

TLDR Some Borg modules do need sorting+some things you think are issues might not be the case for others. Obviously my experience isn't universal.

[Mordent]

This isn't directly related to the above stuff, but you can re-order tools within modules now by putting them in the cyborg module rewriter. You can also remove tools you don't want at all (atmospheric analyzer, I'm looking at you). Yes, this requires a human to help load your module into there, but once it's in you can tweak it however you like and then eject it from there yourself (and put into the loading dock to put back into yourself).