Implant suggestions

[Arrogant Savant]

A feat that rewards you for not "staying ahead of the curve" and choosing to go without implant sounds fun though I would lock it until level 4 or 5 to make sure you have to earn it. (though I would just pick it on evans atm because there isn't enough implants for his sorry ass)

OR A mega implant which only requires one implant slot and does a bit of everything the first tier of implants does but doesn't have further access to upgrades.

OR apply a disposition penalty to specific dialogues when the character is a "Purist" who despises implants locking a piece of story or loot behind it.

[skaudus]

I think a "Body Purist" feat, working similarly to [Lone Wolf], would be an interesting addition. Its effect should not explicitly restrict you from taking implants, just in case you want to change your mind and install something for a very specific purpose. It would be best on something like a 4 CON character, who could only equip one implant in the first place.


I would also like to slightly highjack this thread and talk about the Subdermal Armor and its upgrades:

Subdermal Armor: Natural DR +1

Heat Absorber: Energy DR +5, melee/ballistic DR -1
Liquid Armor: Natural DR +1, +2 when 7HP or less, -2 AP

It is currently the only implant whose upgrades have a situational bonus and a general penalty, when it should be the other way around. Additionally, it's currently the only implant for which I would spend most of my time without wanting any of its improved versions.

The Heat Absorber upgrade is indeed very useful for fights where the enemies use Energy weapons. However, it completely negates the base implant effects against any other attack.

The Liquid Armor upgrade functions as (Natural DR+1, +2 when 7 HP or less), -2 AP. This means that the AP penalty is applied globally. I would almost never want to trade 2 AP each turn for 1 DR, and a very niche situational bonus.


One could compare with the DEX implant:

Motor-Cortex Chip: DEX +1

Combat Reflexes: AP +5, HP loss -3HP/turn
Street Samurai: Melee only: Melee THC +15, Evasion +10, +20 Reaction

Here, the -3 HP loss per turn can be entirely offset by focusing on dodge, staying in cover and having others tank for you. It is offset by a whopping +5 AP per turn, which gives immense value over the course of a fight.

Therefore, there are two approaches for the Subdermal Armor implant:

1. Either completely remove all of the penalties, or
2. Keep the penalties, but significantly increase the benefits.

I might accept -2 AP per turn if the implant upgrade provided +3 DR, and +5 when under a HP threshold, or +8 Energy DR at the cost of -1 DR for ballistic/melee.

Still, I think (1.) is the better way to go.

[Arrogant Savant]

Originally posted by skaudus:

I think a "Body Purist" feat, working similarly to [Lone Wolf], would be an interesting addition. Its effect should not explicitly restrict you from taking implants, just in case you want to change your mind and install something for a very specific purpose. It would be best on something like a 4 CON character, who could only equip one implant in the first place.


I would also like to slightly highjack this thread and talk about the Subdermal Armor and its upgrades:

Subdermal Armor: Natural DR +1

Heat Absorber: Energy DR +5, melee/ballistic DR -1
Liquid Armor: Natural DR +1, +2 when 7HP or less, -2 AP

It is currently the only implant whose upgrades have a situational bonus and a general penalty, when it should be the other way around. Additionally, it's currently the only implant for which I would spend most of my time without wanting any of its improved versions.

The Heat Absorber upgrade is indeed very useful for fights where the enemies use Energy weapons. However, it completely negates the base implant effects against any other attack.

The Liquid Armor upgrade functions as (Natural DR+1, +2 when 7 HP or less), -2 AP. This means that the AP penalty is applied globally. I would almost never want to trade 2 AP each turn for 1 DR, and a very niche situational bonus.


One could compare with the DEX implant:

Motor-Cortex Chip: DEX +1

Combat Reflexes: AP +5, HP loss -3HP/turn
Street Samurai: Melee only: Melee THC +15, Evasion +10, +20 Reaction

Here, the -3 HP loss per turn can be entirely offset by focusing on dodge, staying in cover and having others tank for you. It is offset by a whopping +5 AP per turn, which gives immense value over the course of a fight.

Therefore, there are two approaches for the Subdermal Armor implant:

1. Either completely remove all of the penalties, or
2. Keep the penalties, but significantly increase the benefits.

I might accept -2 AP per turn if the implant upgrade provided +3 DR, and +5 when under a HP threshold, or +8 Energy DR at the cost of -1 DR for ballistic/melee.

Still, I think (1.) is the better way to go.

Combat reflexs would make it so healing factor is actually a decent option to offset the hp loss

[Patroklos]

Originally posted by skaudus:

I think a "Body Purist" feat, working similarly to [Lone Wolf], would be an interesting addition. Its effect should not explicitly restrict you from taking implants, just in case you want to change your mind and install something for a very specific purpose. It would be best on something like a 4 CON character, who could only equip one implant in the first place.


I would also like to slightly highjack this thread and talk about the Subdermal Armor and its upgrades:

Subdermal Armor: Natural DR +1

Heat Absorber: Energy DR +5, melee/ballistic DR -1
Liquid Armor: Natural DR +1, +2 when 7HP or less, -2 AP

It is currently the only implant whose upgrades have a situational bonus and a general penalty, when it should be the other way around. Additionally, it's currently the only implant for which I would spend most of my time without wanting any of its improved versions.

The Heat Absorber upgrade is indeed very useful for fights where the enemies use Energy weapons. However, it completely negates the base implant effects against any other attack.

The Liquid Armor upgrade functions as (Natural DR+1, +2 when 7 HP or less), -2 AP. This means that the AP penalty is applied globally. I would almost never want to trade 2 AP each turn for 1 DR, and a very niche situational bonus.


One could compare with the DEX implant:

Motor-Cortex Chip: DEX +1

Combat Reflexes: AP +5, HP loss -3HP/turn
Street Samurai: Melee only: Melee THC +15, Evasion +10, +20 Reaction

Here, the -3 HP loss per turn can be entirely offset by focusing on dodge, staying in cover and having others tank for you. It is offset by a whopping +5 AP per turn, which gives immense value over the course of a fight.

Therefore, there are two approaches for the Subdermal Armor implant:

1. Either completely remove all of the penalties, or
2. Keep the penalties, but significantly increase the benefits.

I might accept -2 AP per turn if the implant upgrade provided +3 DR, and +5 when under a HP threshold, or +8 Energy DR at the cost of -1 DR for ballistic/melee.

Still, I think (1.) is the better way to go.

Ironically, my captain constitution build would love the -AP con upgrade, while probably avoiding either motor cortex upgrade. It's admittedly a non-combat first build, but I frequently have him do nothing on his turn because his offensive stats are so bad he's more likely to trigger a reaction attack than do damage, but the fights aren't hard enough to bother with consumables.

On the other hand, the HP drain would be awful for the build, while more AP would be useless, and ironically, even the evasion boost on the motor cortex is kind of a negative to him. His whole shtick in combat is having lots of DR and temporary HP from energy shields so he'll live, but being well positioned and low evasion make him the primary target. Now, his armor penalties are probably enough to avoid going nonzero on evasion, but I'd still be minimally interested.

That said, I thought I'd seen it mentioned that those kinds of upgrades could be toggled on and off, which would make them a fair bit better, but I could easily be wrong.

Also, for OPs idea, I agree it should work like lone wolf and just be disabled if you get an implant. I'm not sure what kind of stat based impact it could have, nor am I sufficiently clear on how implants are viewed by the inhabitants to say if it would even make sense as a disposition bonus or even hard block on certain dialogues. I got the impression that having an implant was generally going to unlock doors without locking any from a content perspective, but it could be more interesting if it did both, assuming it makes sense for there to be people on the ship that have some kind of hangup about implants. However, I got the impression that getting an implant was sort of like getting better equipment - it was just thought of as something you do if you can afford it.

[Mechalibur]

I think we should wait until the upgrades actually come out before discussing their power level. The current data is just based off info that was in the combat demo. There's a good chance the stats will be completely different by the time they're available in-game.

[Vince]

Indeed, these bonuses are merely the starting point in a discussion with the players and we pay attention to all posts on the subject.

PS. I do like the feat suggestion.