Cyberorgan wear and repair

[WyrdDoe]

I see a lot of worry whenever suggestions are made for changes adjacent to robotics that roboticists already have barely anything to do, which is definitely true. Hiding cyberorgans behind roboticist access shored up the damage ever so slightly, but it fails to address that as far as humans are concerned, cyberorgans are a one-and-done (mostly) straight upgrade. Which doesn't quite sit right with me, as an enthusiast of weird biomechanical body horror.

The damage
I propose that cyberorgans should take damage and receive repairs less like a biological organ and more like a machine, unable to heal on their own and causing unpleasant and potentially horrific symptoms as they break down from misuse and abuse, with damage thresholds that introduce malfunctions. Unpleasant grating noises in the chest, coughing blood, seemingly random electric stuns, collapse, vomiting, shortness of breath, leaking toxic reagents into the blood and a general plethora of scary messages in the chat indicating that something is fucked up with you.

The fix
Much as the scalpel, scissors and saw are the three surgical tools, I propose cyberorgans should use multitool, wirecutters and welder as their surgical repair tools. Cyberorgans should have a differently coloured icon in the surgical menu to indicate cybernetic status and current damage level, and clicking on their icon with a repair tool should open a repair radial where a roboticist must pulse, mend and weld to unfrick that which is fricked. Like how meat organs may require just scalpel and scissors, just scissors, or also throw a saw in there for fun, cyberorgans should similarly require different combinations of pulse, mend, weld to fix. This blurs the line thematically between surgery and engineering, while keeping all the grody body horror fun in the hands of the roboticist.

Other thoughts
The impetus for this idea came from my desire to have cyberorgans at round start because, well, I want some of my characters to be part machine. Getting my organs replaced at the start of every work shift does not fulfill that idea, it just makes my character a needy pain in the ass. As it stands currently, organ replacement with cyberorgans happens only when the original organ is dead, or else a roboticist or lunatic staffie electively gets all of their organs replaced for a bit. This isn't really what I'd call stable employment. If cyberorgans wore down and broke, work would come to the roboticist throughout the round in cases of emergency much like the medical doctors. The more personnel that have cyberorgans, the more cases of blown spleen gaskets and heart BSODs would show up for the roboticist to fix. As such, I think that round-start cyberorgans with this model would increase the amount of work a roboticist gets to do rather than reduce it.

All in all, I think that making cyberorgans a sidegrade with risks and downsides rather than a straight upgrade will elevate the power of choice, create some fun counterplays (emp'd organs stop working until you cut the patient open and pulse their guts), and create opportunities for properly nightmarish side effects.

[JORJ949]

I like the idea of making non-emagged cyberorgans more useful, I only ever really see the emagged ones (you can emag them just by damaging them an exact amount) used by classic gamers, the only time I've gotten anyone else to come do robotics surgery is through heavy convincing. I really like the idea that cyberorgans would be a sidegrade that require robotics to do maintenance on them so you NEED a roboticist to repair you. Perhaps the same could be applied to cyborgs by removing the self repair option from the cyborg docks requiring the roboticist to repair you with wire/welding, something that is almost never done.

[Gomp]

But what if you are an antag and are getting robotics? You'd need to be silent otherwise you might just die from not getting treatment and I don't see why you would want robotics if you are going to be sneaky.

[Agent reburG]

So chems still damage cyber organs, but don't fix them anymore? 

Yeah, definitely not like that. 
Last thing robotics needs is a nerf and it sounds like the repair would be bound to a surgery table. 

I like the idea of being able to repair cyber organs with a surgery, but making them unable to be fixed otherwise would be like putting seven seals on it.

[WyrdDoe]

Cyberorgans are already more durable than flesh organs (or so I've heard, I don't know if that was accurate), the effect of your cyberorgans being damaged per my suggestion is comparable to having shrapnel stuck in you, IE random bad symptoms that can happen at a bad time, and those ALREADY require surgery to remove. The repair tools also are not roboticist exclusive, self surgery isn't out of the question except rp rules wise for non-antags. Getting shot to shit as an antagonist and coming away from that with some sputtering and zapping is IMO an acceptable consequence for losing a fight.

Also, the idea of there being some kind of chem for repairing them, maybe a nanomachines offshoot, has come up in the discord suggestions for this idea. I'm not strictly against that. Better if it were rare and spawned in the syndie outpost or sold by CARL or something.

[Lord_earthfire]

Nerfing cyberorgans to give robotocist something to do when few people use them is a weird idea on its own. Honestly, i think the nerfs to combat powergamers were a bit too much and sone could take a buff or two.

Nerfing cyberorgans to enable them on roundstart is a hard no. Things should stay distinct, strong and an investment. Moving these away and more in the direction of cosmetics light just diminishes the design space they take up.

Synthorgans are right in this weird place and we need them to become more like cyberorgans (included a removal of roundstart synthlimbs). We don't need cyberorgans to become as useless as synthorgans.

[Jamie!]

As someone who plays roboticist pretty frequently (and is often grasping at straws for more to do), I'm a fan of this. More people would use cyberorgans if they were available roundstart, I feel, so I could accept the trade-off of having those people come in for repairs across the round instead of one-and-done replacements. Very fun thematically, too. I enjoy.

[WyrdDoe]

I have to say, I'm confused that this is being discussed as though it's a straight nerf. Making them into a sidegrade with drawbacks and benefits can be tuned in its execution. More benefits, more durable, etc. Traits have drawbacks and benefits, and they are an investment of a limited currency.

Further, it just does not make sense to me in-universe that in a world with cyberorgan technology NOBODY has cyberorgans until the video game cameras are rolling. That feels profoundly video-gamey to me. This is a roleplaying environment in which you play a character, robotics shouldn't be treated as an upgrade shop in a moba. Having an artificial body part is just a normal thing for some people in this setting. "Good morning, time to clock into work and get my liver replaced for the stat benefit" absolutely does not sit right with me.

[Asterion0]

This would be a major cyber organ nerf, and considering they both already have a hard counter in combat while also being very underused, just doesnt make sense. There's no real reason to make cyber organs have worse organ damage effecfs when EMPs can just shut them down immediately in a single hit
As for being a roundstart thing I'd especially be against it as it'd make the change to remove them from medical fabs to be robotics exclusive practically redundant. Past that, it just relegates more things to pre-round setup, when a major part of the game is getting everything you want ready done in the timespan of a single round.
On the "giving robotics something to do" front, I'd argue the average roboticist would end up with far LESS to do overall. Sure, the one round where someone takes whats now ostensibly a downgrade has a person randomly come in for you to click 7 or so buttons, but other than that most people would probably rather ask for synth or monkey organs over cyber organs unless theyre in crit and desperately in need of an organ right now.
I mean roboticists are already the primary job you're supposed to go to when your organs are hurt, and people still rarely do that! If you actively incentivize them to not because now cyber organs have a VERY visible and annoying downside for what amounts to be "invisble" or just rarely noticeable buffs, people would rather just get cloned or have them replaced. Especially if you'd also want to make it so they can't be be healed via omnizine like all other organs
I wouldnt be against adding some form of 'maintenance' to cyber organs, but I'd rather it be something optional, instead of killing or drastically halting all your actions.

[Jamie!]

This would be a major cyber organ nerf, and considering they both already have a hard counter in combat while also being very underused, just doesnt make sense. [...]

I feel like this reply is far too assumptive that the benefits of cyberorgans (which, are admittedly minor) would stay exactly as they are, when, as WyrdDoe has stated, these could definitely be tweaked/buffed with the implementation of this change. As per EMPs, they're fairly rare, and already work by straight-up damaging the organs, so it'd provide another way to fix them as well. I'm pretty confident that this would result in more work for robotics, and I'm sure many people would see more customization options as a plus, rather than detracting from what you claim to be a "major part of the game."

[WyrdDoe]

I can't emphasise this enough, this proposal's intent is to make cyberorgans TOUGHER than flesh organs, maybe twice as tough, and if I could have things my way, also more noticeably powerful.

I envision side effects to organ damage beginning at around 50% with just some little twinges to brute and tox that can be largely tanked, and a severe damage threshold at 75% where things start to get more severe. I am proposing that cyberorgans receive a buff to their power at the expense of fixing them being somewhat more involved, and requiring medical intervention like literally every other injury in the game. I'm basing this concept off of the existing surgery system because it sets a precedent for what "more involved" medical intervention looks like.

The loathsome self-strogging staff assistant who gets their entire chest cavity replaced with machinery to powergame is not under threat here, it's their god given right to do so. My mission here is to make cyberorgans more noticeably strong, more available (for a price), and create more emergency work for an underserved role.

[Gomp]

Why not just buff cyberorgans if you want roboticists to get more human patients? They clearly aren't strong enough for people to want to spend 5 minutes of their round getting them and they already have a massive weakness in the form of EMPs.

[Frank_Stein]

I like the general idea of multitools, welders, and wire cutters being equivalent of surgical tools. Maybe add wire as a stuture equivalent, oil lubricant as blood?

Welding seems like it would be for physical damage to cyber parts, maybe wiring for burn damage?

I dunno maybe that's where the separation from limb and organ types makes the most sense. Normal limbs/organs require medical surgery, robotic limbs/organs should require mechanical surgery, and synthetic limbs/organs no surgery at all?

[Agent reburG]

Cyberorgans are already more durable than flesh organs (or so I've heard, I don't know if that was accurate)

Nope, same 100 points as everything else, but most are immune to failure, except the Cyber Liver which feels more like a bug than intended.

[WyrdDoe]

I like the general idea of multitools, welders, and wire cutters being equivalent of surgical tools. Maybe add wire as a stuture equivalent, oil lubricant as blood?

Welding seems like it would be for physical damage to cyber parts, maybe wiring for burn damage?

I think logically soldering iron would make the most sense in terms of real world equivalency, but soldering irons are sort of in their own category as far as tools and I'm generally preferring to nominate tools that would appear as steps for the deconstruction device. Welding inside someone's body is definitely pretty dramatic but that little bit of eyebrow raising brutality would both be in keeping with the splatstick humor and keep soldering irons in the engineering zone where they belong. 

Also curiously, do organs currently take brute and burn damage? I'd been operating under the assumption that organ damage was just a number. My thought was that the tools required wouldn't follow the damage type per se, but be roughly following what kind of machine the organ is and what might break about it. Maybe give cyberhearts two pulse icons to represent "turn it off and on again"