Tissue rejection, massive regimens of immunosuppressants, vulnerability to EMP-flavored attacks, expense in buying, implanting, or maintaining implants, and certain implants having legal limitations.
Like Adam Jensen, from Deus Ex: HR? That guy is never going to be allowed on a public plane, bus, or within 50 feet of any celebrity, ever again, more or less. Enhanced hearing/vision brings a whole host of legal issues, from privacy laws to sexual harassment suits. Super strength leads to 'excessive force' problems. And so on.

Maintenance is a serious pain, and can't be done easily. One or two bionic parts is fine, but if you hit Major Motoko Kusanagi levels, then the back up support required to keep such a body working is obscene and only available through governments and companies.

Implants only have enough battery for a few hours operation.

For some of the bigger ones, you live pluged in to the wall or they conk out after a few minutes.

>>18511269
1: Bones generate important stuff, like blood and antibodies.

2: Bionics just isn't that advanced, stuff like tactile feedback and stuff isn't so great so you lose dexterity and perception.

3: Bionics need constant maintenance since they don't have inbuilt repair mechanisms in them.

4: Defending against EMP means you have to bulk up the mass, use cruder stuff. Either you have high end stuff that IS likely to be damaged, or you've got cruder stuff that won't break down as easily.

5: Parts are only made to order, and so if it breaks you have to go back to the parent companies. No mass-manufacture, each has to be tailored to the individual or risk killing them.

Paranoia is the cost of cybernetics. You get damn suspicious of anyone due to the fact security holes exist and while hacking might not be as dickish as full control of your cybergear, you could easily be left helpless by a software crash. In Ghost in the Shell terms you'd be running in autistic mode all the time, cutting you off from the convenience of the net. Those damn things got to be maintained as well and you've got to see doctors for shit such as gunshot wounds. Question is where do you find a doc you trust enough to take his paltry sum for fixing you up and not cut off all that hot cybergear and sell it for a profit. The key is making these threats very real in your game

Emotianal problems due to lack of hormones.
Depresion due to the fact you can never have children.

Societal problems make sense too. For instance, if you go to question someone, everyone's going to have eyes on someone looking like Adam Jensen. He stands out and is obviously a huge threat.

Meanwhile someone looking like Malik slips through no hassle.

Treat it a bit like how a modern day police officer can spot the telltale signs of someone carrying a concealed weapon. People can spot the telltale signs of heavy augmentation, and know how to appropriately respond to that level of threat.

Anyone have that screencap about the DM who almost made his player shot a kid because they left on their wired refexes?

>cyberware making companies are not idiots who make their products cumbersome, ugly

Hey, that's great.

They don't have a fucking choice. It's technology, not magic. Nothing short of nanotechnology is going to look right no matter how hard you try and streamline it. That's the Uncanny Valley for you.

Require licenses for certain augmentations, which are exceptionally hard to get. Concealed weapons etc are exceedingly illegal unless you have a license.

>>18511296
I think this might be the safest bet.

In GiTS, cutting edge military cyborgs like that were essentially owned by their employers. Not that they literally owned part by part. Working for the specialized jobs was the only way to ensure a high enough income to keep up maintenance.

GitS also featured a sort of tipping point for cybernetics that might be considered. Some minor augmentation is fine, but there is a very real slippery slope involved in more heavy augmentations. The show featured a sick little child that, if they hadn't gotten their organ transplants, would have had to accept augmentation. They would have also had to do things like replace the heart with a beefy cyborg one so the kid wouldn't have a heart attack from supporting their cybernetic organs. Augmentation begets augmentation, and the idea of a full body prosthetic was on the table depending on how things went. At some point the fleshy bits are too weak to support the cyborg bits.

If you want a human strength replacement limb for one you lost, that's probably no problem. If you want an arm double or triple human power, you have a problem. You have to replace the entire arm up to the shoulder so the hand/arm doesn't just rip itself out of your joint. The shoulder itself would be fake too, and you'd probably need muscle enhancement in the back on that side for it for similar reasons. Then you have to consider heart replacement if your real heart can't take the strain. It just keeps falling over itself.

You can either try to get shit that looks as close to the real thing as you can and still go relatively unnoticed despite heavy charisma penalties in conversation (uncanny valley ho!) or go full on Frank Jaeger Cyborg Ninja, in which case you take no charisma penalties (your brain isn't even SUBCONSCIOUSLY trying to compare someone like that to what you consider a human is supposed to look like; not at that level of modification. Our subconscious parameters for machine are a lot more generous than our parameters for human; the uncanny valley is left behind) but as soon as you walk into a populated area every single guard, pig and security camera is going to be trained on you and ONLY you, so shit is almost impossible to get away with and even the most casual gesture can be interpreted badly by someone who's job it is to consider whether or not seventeen lasers are going to start shooting out of your dick at any moment.

Massively expensive. If you use real world replacement parts as a model most wear out or have to be replaced before the end of the lifetime of the patient.

Also, since pieces are really valuable, desperate men now have good reason to kidnap you and cut off your arms.

>>18511462
But that's dumb because it's not a "shove slotte A into tabbe B" most organs need to be fine-tuned to work or risk massive organ rejection or simply not fitting.

But hey, not my world. Perhaps it is simplified like that.

A huge social and religious prejudice against those who have bionics, even if they were installed as a medical necessity

>>18511482

Eh, people are dumb. The kind of people I could see doing that wouldn't be too smart, and I can see plenty of people being desperate enough to buy cybernetics from dubious sources.

They work for long enough before things start going seriously wrong, and people are willing to take the risk.

>>18511482
Not that dumb. You don't sell the whole arm, you sell the components.

>>limiting biotics
HERESY!

>>18511347
Nevermind, I found it.

>>18511311

In the same vein as this...

1) Skill penalties to social skills. A lot of things like bluffing and diplomacy rely just as much on body language as they do talking. Cybernetics get in the way of that, no matter how comfortable you become with them.

2) Cybernetics don't heal. A character with a competent mechanical skill can get a damaged limb or mod back to say, 50% functionality, but unless they have god-tier mechanical skill they're going to have to pay through the nose for the repairs or even outright replace it.

3) Cybernetics get in the way of your basic motor functions. Every time a player gets a new piece of cyberware, they get a penalty in general while learning the use of it, which translates into being a clumsy jackass when they need to use the cyberware for a month or two. Replacing your arm and learning to use the new one is going to take time, after all.

1/2

>>18511526

4) Weakened resistance to damage. If you swap out four of your limbs for artificial ones, that's four less limbs full of blood your body is maintaining. Seems to me that someone who's basically a stumped torso losing a pint of blood is probably going to be in a lot more trouble than a healthy, four-limbed guy. Basically make a cyberware character harder to damage, but if they get damaged, the penalties add up quicker if they've replaced a lot of themselves.

5) Go Juicer. Make combat drugs available to players. They're one stim away from having better aim, stronger arms, etc. They have smaller penalties than cyberware and are cheaper, at the trade-off of having a time after dosing to becoming effective (say, a few minutes) and a time limit (say, a few hours to a day). They also have a period after the dose where there's potential complications if you take another dose. It allows the squishy humans to compete without becoming the Terminator.

6) Make EMP weapons common. They don't outright damage a cyberware piece, but they can cause it to be ineffective or bring a penalty to the player. The balance here, of course, is that as a GM you'd need to balance letting the cyberware shine and times when it becomes dead weight.

2/2

Why limit cybertech? The metal is stronger than the flesh, leave your flesh behind and embrace the metal. Are you afraid? Fear is just a chemical imbalance, we can take care of that.

Sure, it may be expensive, very much so. You may owe us years of work, some of it dangerous. You may feel alienated from fleshbound society, but some confidence boosting mods should take care of that. You may be paranoid, suspicious about tracking devices or even kill switches, but you don't have to worry if you just follow the contract, right?

Your flesh is rotting from within even as we speak. Make your choice quickly.

I'd just like to say that I'm really quite glad to see how cyberpunk in general has moved on from 'Cybernetics eat your soul!!' to looking at how society would actually react to cybernetics. It's a much more grown up attitude.

>>18511536


The Cybermen thought the same way. Look at them. Useless.

The Daleks thought they could breed out fear and look at them. Omnicidal maniacs.

No. I'm HUMAN I am SUPERIOR I will remain organic, and when this body fails me I shall wander the void past the stars and explore all of creation.

I only want a cyber brain.
Pretty happy with the rest.

>>18511553
>The Daleks thought they could breed out fear and look at them.

...Proving it?

>>18511553

Expanding our natural capabilities through tools and technology is more human than all the half-baked Templar demagoguery in the world.

>>18511539

Cybernetics Eat Your Soul only makes sense in the context of a game like Shadowrun, where you have a soul and it's being used to power all that juicy, juicy magic. And also as an obvious rules patch to keep a dude with a million dollar body from casting spells like a damned wizard.

Personally, all games I've run I've included RP penalties for cyberware. It just doesn't make sense that you can fundamentally alter your body's basic structure without a few issues cropping up.

Really funny, though... I remember I was GMing a game, and a player had just replaced both his arms. They were a lot stronger and quicker. The doctor pulled him aside and said, "Okay, now I'm going to talk to you about something, and frankly I don't want to. But I like the potential hazard happening to you even less. Until you can pick up a dozen eggs in a row without cracking a single one, I'd strongly advise against masturbation. All it takes is one little slip, and..."

The look on the player's face? Priceless.

>>18511536

Because I didn't like how Eclipse Phase basically went and screamed in your face "TRANSHUMANISM GOOD, CONSERVATISM BAD!".

I agree with the transhumanist idea, personally, but I want to leave it as a question to the players and characters. If bionics are all good and no bad, there's no real question as far as the mechanics are concerned.

Which isn't necessarily bad, but it'd feel like I'm punishing the players who want their characters to have a certain, perfectly legitimate worldview, and I'd like to avoid that if at all means possible.

>>18511553
pssst... buddy... I'm just a corp salesman. If it means so much to you I'll just back off, okay? no pressure or anything. Here's my card If you're having second thoughts. That's a nasty cough you have there, by the way, get better soon.

>>18511577

Failures. They still fear The Doctor on a GENETIC level.

It pays to remember that your body is a self repairing nano-factory with the ability to duplicate itself. And it can run on naturally occuring substances.

Nature has had three billion years of R and D time. Replacing that dosen't come easy, or cheap.

>>18511600
Wrong. Our bodies are slowly decomposing bags of water. They don't duplicate themselves, they make other bags. Nature has no reason for doing anything, it just randomly generated these prisons for our consiousness. We must set ourselves free.

>>18511589

Cyberpunk 2020 GM from the 90's here.
We had that "cyberpsychosis" thing where the human mind could not comprehend its new capabilities and went ...mental.

"stupid spongy bags of blood that burst when I grab them" being the text in the game manual.

The cure - removal of all enhancements, which is horrific when you have penile/vaginal enhancements ...

>>18511589
>Really funny, though... I remember I was GMing a game, and a player had just replaced both his arms. They were a lot stronger and quicker. The doctor pulled him aside and said, "Okay, now I'm going to talk to you about something, and frankly I don't want to. But I like the potential hazard happening to you even less. Until you can pick up a dozen eggs in a row without cracking a single one, I'd strongly advise against masturbation. All it takes is one little slip, and..."

Tetra-core provides! How about a biomechanical penis implant?

Batteries.
A realistic problem. The cyborg runs off a big ass battery that needs to be replaced on a regular basis.

What would you even *need* in genital cyberwear? Implanted vibrators all round your cunt-lips and vag? Heightened sensors? Electroshock stimulators? Extra-stretchy polymers for larger insertions?

Don't even ask me what goes in the mens side of things.

>>18511613
You call living in a metal cage free? Compared to the human body, that tech is ancient. Your brain runs on four watts of power. It can do more with that than any computer ever built.

>>18511653
>You call living in a metal cage free?
Well, it's called living, as opposed to rotting in the ground running on 0 watts of power.

Though I like my brainmeats and would like them to keep running rather than actually improving them so fast.

>>18511347
>>18511515
That's just stupid. Target discrimination would be the most important part of combat augmentation, unless you want friendly fire all over the place. If anything, combat mods would make you less likely to twitch out.

>>18511664
There's still one or two kinks to work out. Parasite organisams, genetic transcription errors, death.

Still better than starting from scratch.

>>18511688
>target discrimination
>runners

>ALLIES: You, your team
>POTENTIAL THREATS: Everyone else

Processing image data of fast flying things is something too easily spoofable to have strict target acquisition settings. Anyone and anything can be a threat if you're in paranoid twitch-mode.

If you want to kill someone who doesn't recognize a softball as a threat, shove a grenade in a softball and lob it at him, then laugh as he blows up.

>>18511653
Yes, I admit that the brain is problematic. Even if I think it's fragile and weak, it does house our minds. Tests have shown that any attempts to download a mind only create unique copies. Even subjects of long term neuron rejuvination treatments suffered from personality disorders and other minor changes, and are believed to be an amalgam of the original mind and a newly born "rejuv" personality that slowly emerges as the treatment goes on.

So far the best solution we have found is the "brainbox" or "braincase". We're fully capable of inserting your biological brain into a more fitting body of metal. The brain's lifespan when cared for by the braincase is still unknown, but is believed to be around 200 years.

>>18511697
I'd say death is more than a slight kink. If you sorted that out I'd be all for it.

>>18511613
>Our bodies are slowly decomposing bags of water.
>They don't duplicate themselves, they make other bags.
>Our bodies are slowly decomposing bags of water

Herpus vs Derpus: This Time It's Hurrsenal.

>>18511702
>ALLIES: your team
>one of your teammates sneezes
>you kill everyone
No. Unless you're completely alone and intent on killing everything you see, combat mods like that one would be detrimental.

>>18511613

>Our bodies are slowly decomposing bags of water.
>They don't duplicate themselves, they make other bags. >Nature has no reason for doing anything.

There so much wrong with your post that I don't even know where to BEGIN. So I won't. I'll just call you retarded and know I'm right.

>>18511715
Oh sure, you say that NOW. But when I want to tinker with your DNA, you go on and on about testing and ethics.

Look, I'm 100% sure this experiment will change your lifespan. And there's a 50% chance I'll increase it!

>>18511747
Oh, you're one of these "trolls" my son keeps talking about, aren't you? Well, he is not me, he is an entirely different person. I will not "live on" in him in any meaningful way.

>>18511703
I guess just utilizing the brain wouldn't work in reality.
There's a shitton of nervous tissue all throughout the body - There's nerv knots in the heart and among our intestines. It's very likely that they are as important as the brain itself.

>>18511269
Penalties to healing from immuno-suppressants, susceptibility to infection/disease, reaction penalties due to the implants having to convert the brain's electrical impulses to stuff readable by the machine. Need for power or, if there's some kind of reactor attached, need for fuel. Weight.

>>18511760
Please enlighten me, friend. Were only having a friendly discussion, no?

>>18511779
I'm not him, but

>duplication
>a synonym for reproduction
>making a copy of something

You:
>humans are bags of water
>they don't duplicate; they make other bags of water

Contradicting yourself.

I find it funny, the way flesh lovers crumble when their precious world view collapses, I find it less funny when they try to take me down with them as their bodies slowly rot. Evolution is mutation, our bodies are complex, true, but the complexity comes from billions of years of mutation. There is no purpose. Human minds and imagination can come up with infinitely superior designs.

>>18511794

That's a fuckup on it's face but the more subtle and insidious retardery is that "nature has no reason for doing anything" bit.

>>18511794
Ah, you mean reproduction. I was not aware that duplication means reproduction, please excuse me. They are obviously very different things, so perhaps you can understand my confusion, my friend.

>>18511809
Perhaps you have heard of evolution, friend? You realize that evolution is just a series of random mutations, right? Those who reproduce the most pass along their mutations, thereby evolving slowly.

Humans, on the other hand, have a purpose when they design something.

>>18511809
Please, feel free to vent your anger and frustration at me. My shell can take it, and any anger I may have felt when I was trapped in flesh does not exist. Eventually you will change your mind, or die from old age the way "nature intended". I will mourn for you.

>>18511802
I amuses me how how chip-heads cling to their plastic and metal vision of the future. Genetic engineering is the true path forward. Why start from scratch, when you can build upon a billion lifetimes of knowlage?

Fools. You fail to recognise the latent psionic potential of humanity.

We will transcend the physical form. And then you, too, shall see with enlightened eyes.

>>18511569

Which manga is this?

>>18511855
Hey man, whatever augments give me the edge, I'll take them.

>>18511753
>No. Unless you're completely alone and intent on killing everything you see, combat mods like that one would be detrimental.
You're an idiot. Discrimination of targets that states actions of allies aren't harmful means that you're not going to go mental if your teammate sneezes.

If that enemy trooper behind the wall sneezes you kill him and the building he's in, THAT is the mod type that we're thinking of.

>>18511861
***reality deviant detected***deploying agents***

I don't think governments would allow their citizens to be too much augmented. The strength of cyberlimbs would surely be severly restricted. Same goes for cyberweaponry.

Soldiers equiped with cybernetic prosthetics would probably have to give them back when being dismissed and replaced with civil cyberware.

Full-borgs are limited to spec-ops. Like in Ghost in the Shell they belong their employer.

One drawback of cyberware would surely be maintenance. The more complexe the cyberware, the more maintenance should to be done. Blackmarket cyberware would probably only be maintened by rogue techies.
An other drawback would be powerconsumption. If my memories about physic lessons are correct, the energy output can only be as high as the energy input. For neuralware, this could be negligible and could be covered by the daily intake. For cyberlimbs, this would not be sufficient. I guess they would have to be somehow recharged either by battery or by direct plug-in.
The last drawback would be of social nature. People might react negatively on the display of visible cyberware. This would especially be the case in religious communities and intolerant cultures.

>>18511883
What good are your genetically engineered abilities, or mechanically augmented forms, when we can bend the fabric of reality itself?

>>18511296
>>18511293
Yep, Maintenance, initial rejection tests, necessity of hardening and vulnerability to electric shock.

And if you like Deus Ex's newest bit, constant rejection rolls.

>>18511890
I don't think that public scare will be such a problem in advanced countries. Sure, media at first will try to raise cyberware panics to gain subscribers, but when the corps start paying them off you'll see stories about brave cyborg rescue personnel who saved little children from certain doom, and suddenly everyone wants to be metal. Not to mention accessorizing will be probably more lucrative than the augmentations themselves, with fads also propagated by the same corps and media outlets.

>>18511855
Mmmmmm. No. Genetic engineering doesn't work fast enough for anyone alive to benefit. I'd prefer being able to go down to my local LIMB clinic and get a super stomach or a solar powered bloodstream so I never need to eat again, than wait for my great grandkids to be able to do it for me. Plus, the flesh is weak. I desire the immortality only easily repairable metal can provide.

>>18511922

Retroviral treatment. Its uncertain how it would work yet, but this is a thread where we assume the existence of functional cybernetic augmentation, so its not much of a stretch.

A retrovirus could rewrite the DNA of an already living human being, and presumably through some kind of artificial womb we could induce the body into another rapid growth phase, altering its physical makeup to incorporate the new traits.

>>18511918
Robotic limbs could be made realistic enough to pass a casual glance. More realistic prostetics are already prefered.

>>18511868
>Discrimination of targets that states actions of allies aren't harmful means that you're not going to go mental if your teammate sneezes.
How do your mods know allies from potential threats? If they can discriminate at that level, they should be able to tell a real threat from a false alarm.

>>18511863
http://exhentai.org/g/89700/35a74c7165/
inb4 sadpanda

>>18511922
>metal
>easily repairable
Ha. Have fun hobbleing down to the limb shop while my body fixes itself. For free, excludeing food costs.

>>18511269
I limited the number of cybernetics to the players stamina score, with a merit that allows the player to take more. (I play a heavily homebrewed Sci-Fi version of the storyteller system).

Another penalty I could think of would be limited damage recovery and a need for regular maintenance.

>>18511943
Flag up projectiles with vectors coming from those tagged as allies as "nonthreat".

Meanwhile, any other thing humanoid shaped gets tagged as "POTENTIAL THREAT", and anything heading over velocity over 60mph and heading your way gets tagged as "INCOMING FIRE". Anything that is LAUNCHING stuff at you is tagged as "HOSTILE, IT IS SHOOTING STUFF AT YOU".
Done. In a combat situation this is pretty decent, as it allows you to see who's shooting at you.

In public, however..

What do you think a child throwing a baseball at you counts as?

You can't tag other objects because it's far too easy to spoof in a combat situation. If someone knows what your system ignores they can just disguise explosives as it.

>>18511998
Have fun healing while I'm in and out of the shop in an hour.

>>18512027

Enjoy your crippling repair bills. My augmentations are powered by pizza.

>>18512027
Only problem is the cost of getting repaired, really.

>>18512019
>Meanwhile, any other thing humanoid shaped gets tagged as "POTENTIAL THREAT", and anything heading over velocity over 60mph and heading your way gets tagged as "INCOMING FIRE". Anything that is LAUNCHING stuff at you is tagged as "HOSTILE, IT IS SHOOTING STUFF AT YOU".
This will result in the most hilarious near instantaneous mutual self teamkill due one friendly fire shot, or even a shot in the general direction of a friendly unit. Heck, it might even be triggered by ejectedshell cartridges.

>>18512033
>pizza
>and taxes going into socialized healthcare
>still cheaper, unless you live in the states or something

>>18511637
Urotsukidoji combat penis implant: A prehensible penis of max. 3m length.

Bukkake implant: A semen reservoir of 0.5l allowing for massive cumshots.

Mr. God implant: Replacement of the penis by a simple rechargeable vibrator.

Mr. Studd implant: Cybernetic enhanced penis. A sensorial wiring can be added to increase the users sensations.

Midnight Lady implant: Cybernetic enhancement of the vagina with various massage and rotation options. A sensorial wiring can be added to increase the users sensations.

Climax neural implant: Designed to allow instant orgasms.

>>18512053
Anything that is fired by your teammates (vector starts from team mate's position) is ignored. Learn to read.

>>18512033
What pizza? All those other immortal, gene-spliced folk just ate it. It was also the last pizza. Ever. Because you guys had to walk the road that still required consumption of food, rather than the nearly infinite energy supplied by the sun.

Congratulations on dooming the human species. I think I'll stick with my body that runs on sunlight and laugh while you starve.

CHECKMATE

>>18512072
Yeah, that's the other problem. How does it know it's a teammate?

>>18512061
dEUS eX?

More like Day of Sex, lolamirite

>>18512038
Go by the same rules as Eve: don't use what you can't afford to loose.

Can't believe it hasn't been mentioned yet:

Repo Men (2010)
Set in the near future when artificial organs can be bought on credit, it revolves around a man who struggles to make the payments on a heart he has purchased. He must therefore go on the run before said ticker is repossessed.

>>18512074

Yuck it up, tinman. I just feel bad for you knowing you'll never know the joy of a large pepperoni, easy on the grease.

>>18512072
>How do your mods know allies from potential threats?
>Flag up projectiles with vectors coming from those tagged as allies as "nonthreat".
Your solution literally ignores the question:

HOW DOES YOUR MODS KNOW ALLIES FROM POTENTIAL THREATS?
>Learn to read.

>>18512074
Right, because plants in no way use the sun.

Oh wait, they do. All natual solar power, baby.

>>18512074

>Implying I can't just get a photosynthesis genemod

>>18512109
>Implying we couldn't stimulate the the nerve centers on our tongues or go straight-to-brain with that shit.

Son, I could be tasting pizza ALL DAY if I wanted to.

>>18512126
Go eat some more granola, hippie.

>>18512136

Yeah, the Matrix is telling you that steak is juicy and delicious.

[nospoilersontgnigga]But you'll never enjoy it since you know it's fake[yourmom'sgotnospoilerseither]

>>18512076
You designate it beforehand.

Facial/uniform/passive ping off radar signature etc. That and having some memory to track people's

You know, out of curiosity, how far along IS, gene engineering anyway? I mean, we've got Prosthetics with decent articulation and nerve connection, and we can duplicate the computational power of a rat brain. What are the big recent breakthroughs in genetical stuff?

>>18512145
Sure I will. I;m not one of those weirdos who get all offended that msg is "lying" to my tongue about things tasting good. Pleasure is pleasure.

>>18511863
>we can duplicate the computational power of a rat brain
I don't think so. That would imply that we'd have solved a shitton of issues with robotics. Or that we are *really* horrible at doing AIs.

>>18512176
Meant to quote >>18512162

>>18512176
We ARE really shitty with AIs. I meant raw computing power, not "we have a cybernetic rat brain that has no mouth and must scream." There's a chart in the singularity is near that breaks down the raw computational power of certain mammal brains, and right now we have computers that equal a rat's. Whoo!

>>18512111
>HOW DOES YOUR MODS KNOW ALLIES FROM POTENTIAL THREATS?
Huh. My post didn't go through.
There's a few ways. The safest and least spoofable one is to mark your teammates mentally in your head before the mission, then track their positions relative to you via whatever mod you have. Least easily spoofed, but problems include them going out of sensor range (LoS or otherwise) or them planning on STABBING YOU IN THE BACK.

As said before, facial/uniform/IR tag/signature/whatever would work also, with a clause saying if it's firing at you, IT IS NOT YOUR FRIEND GODDAMN

You could probably override and say "no, he was shooting at the guy behind me" too but it'd alert you to the fact HOLY SHIT THAT GUY IS SHOOTING IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION

>>18512033
implying hospitalization and intensive care/limb regrowth isn't also prohibitively expensive

>>18512212
>>18512176
>"we have a cybernetic rat brain that has no mouth and must scream"

I take it back. We...uh...actually have that, sort of...

>>18512237
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/10/the-singularity-is-near-robot-with-rat-brai
n.html

Forgot link.

>>18512162
They're hard to compare. Robotics is the science of the macro moving down. Gentics is the science of the micro moving up. They don't cover the same ground.

That said, if you count transplants you can already get a replacement biological limb. The full thing, where we grow you a new limb from a DNA sample, is 5-10 years away.

>>18512072
>>18512053
More like, anything fired at you by a teammate linked to your tacnet or with an acknowledge firepoint is tagged as "FRIENDLY FIRE, TAKE COVER AND RADIO YOUR POSITION AND SITUATION" and their hit markers are tagged as "FRIENDLY FIRE, [NUMBSKULL], CEASE AND DESIST"

numbskull is the stock phrase, buyers my modify the content of the message to one of many pre-approved non-standard uncivil explitives

>>18512251
Nice analogy. I think that also illustrates that what's probably going to happen is both sides hitting a middleground. Maybe, bionic enhancement with genetic treaments to ensure proper grafting and lack of rejection?

/tg/ you are the best board. I love that I can talk singularity shit with you guys while also talking about RPGs.

>>18512261
Something like that, though I was operating on the assumption we're going full autistic and assuming tacnets are just targets for hackers, so assuming we're not having active IFF.

Regardless, in a combat situation a mod that tells you "SOMEONE IS SHOOTING AT YOU, IT'S THAT GUY WHO WAS FLAGGED AS A FRIENDLY BUT IS GODDAMN SHOOTING AT YOU" is probably going to be important. If you DIDN'T have a mod to tell you that was where your ally was 3 seconds ago and you don't know who's there you'd probably fire back ANYWAY if you're trigger happy and want to live.

The system is still bad for non-battlezones though.

>>18512235
>hospitalization
>expensive
AMERICA, FUCK YEAH

>>18512317

I doubt any national health service is going to fully cover extensive cyberwear or damage due to extreme use.

They might subsidise maintenance, but you'll have to pay to get it, to upgrade it, and to get it fixed if you were doing something with it that you really shouldn't, even if there's a government backed healthcare system.

>>18512286
In 200 years, there won't be a difference between biotech and nanotech. And that's a conservative estimate.

People arn't as stupid as you might think. We'll take the best of both worlds, and combine them.

>>18512337

Long term, I'm pretty sure you're correct. Its just a matter of how long it takes us to get there.

>>18512332
The guy I quoted was talking about non-cybernetic people.

>>18512159
>Facial
Back turned, face not visible, heck unarmored head in firefight.
>uniform
Making the unit useless in counter insurgency or against anyone not following the Geneva Conventions. Before you say "but", enemy wears the unit's uniform.
>passive ping off radar signature etc.
Making the unit easy to track and kill via remote sensors.
>That and having some memory to track people's
Which becomes useless after line of sight is lost.

Look. You're saying "just track allies, shoot enemies" when it's literally the most complicated part of AI programming in a military setting. Eliminating friendly fire is difficult enough without trying to add an extra layer of difficulty by automating the process.

>Drawback to cybernetics

EMP. Tasers. Arc projector weaponry.

Batshit insane splinter group, "Human Purity League" which believes cybernetics are the devil's work and that modified people are his servants. The group specifically employs these weapons in large quantity.

Lots of ways to make being cybernetically enhanced a burden.

>>18512307
Where's the line between battlezone and non-battlezone?

Look at irag and afganistan. There is no front line. Wherever you fight, civilains are sure to get caught up in it.

Number one should be cost. You take out a huge fucking loan to go full cyborg, and if you want the good stuff it's restricted access (gotta go military). Good luck paying off your body on a government salary!

Full cyborgs have little left but blood bone and marrow. Every time you change bodies there's a risk of some loss, until you can no longer produce adequate red blood cells for your brain. Partial cyborgs need to keep their marrow alive somewhere in case they go full later (a couple of amputations could fuck up that later stage for you if you didn't initially plan to go full cyborg).

You have no sense of touch taste or smell (touch is actually multiple senses, and you've got some of them, but sex is pretty much pointless forever now). Yes there may be ways to do these things, but you being the GM you can set tech before they figure these senses out completely.

Cyberized people get internet addiction something fierce, especially with access to simulated experience (which will be the closest a full cyborg will get to eating good food or masturbating ever again). Vicariously living your dream through celebrities instead of just watching them hooks people pretty easily, and there are even worse examples in the weird part of the internet (there are those into snuff films, and recorded experience from both sides of that stuff).

(contd)

>>18512364
Cybernetics being extremely valuable, there are chop shops. You can be kidnapped and disassembled part by part. They may even keep you alive through it to preserve certain bits.

No healing without (potentially expensive) repair work. You may be able to jury-rig things in the field, but permanent fixes often require replacement parts.

Batteries may not be as big a deal if effective blood batteries get invented. You could limit their capacity so that cyborgs can only do super-shit for a limited time, even if they recharge while you're more relaxed.

"Overclocking" your capabilities may generate large amounts of heat. This could make you more visible to certain forms of detection.

State of Current Biotechnology in reference to Mods -
we're not far along at all with genetic mods.
The problem is we can code for simple protien matrices, but we don't understand structural code yet. we don't know what genes go where to tell the body to make an eye yet. We've found a few accidentally that cause fruitflies to develop eyes all over the body, but nothing that would let them be wired into the neural network. same with wings in some fly species. The problem is, as I said, we don't understand what genes code for structure.

Now, we can code your kids for eye color, hair and skin pigmentation, make them glow in the dark or be Beetus-resistant. we can code them to produce spidersilk in their spit and biological acids in their milk (should they lactate) but we can't code for the structure for a spinnerette or a venom-injecting fang. We don't know what the code for that structure is.

TL:DR - we can code for chemical production - pigment, strengthening materials, specific chemistry changes to cause certain effects. We can't code for structures like extra limbs, being taller, (well, barring doubling up the HGH production) etc.

We can do some of this to existing, differentiated structures via gene therapy, but the problem then becomes maintenance. Without those constant injections of viral DNA, we can't guarantee that the changed cells will STAY changed, or that your body won't grow back the old tissue faster than the new, or that you won't reject the changed cells as cancer.

>>18512363
>Where's the line between battlezone and non-battlezone?
It's where you shoot a kid and all of his friends with your built in gatling cannon because he accidentally whacked a baseball in your general direction.

In a high-class prestigious district which you were traversing to talk to your Johnson, and now Lonestar are all over your ass.

Maybe play it along the lines of "nothing is better than the original"?
Example: Lose an arm and replace it with a cybernetic. Where it is attached to the body could be itchy and slightly irritable. Also, while it may be nice to super punch somethings face out of the back of its head, it's not quite so helpful as when you are trying to give a handshake to a guy and you break his hand.
Eyes could maybe not be able to see as clear in contrast or coloring as normal eyes, though you do get the different spectrum views. However, it could be sensitive and if rattled to hard, may loosen a wire and your sight starts glitching out like a computer screen with a loose cable.
A lung may allow you to breath some more nauseous or dangerous gases, however you will constantly be short of breathe and maybe can't run as far as a person with a normal lung.
Mechanical heart may be prone to EMP. Same goes with Brain Implants. I can think of more with the Brain, but that would require a good roleplayer to do it.
Just some suggestions.

>continued from >>18512388


Stem cells may change this.

- Hypothetical tech here - NOT YET POSSIBLE

An interesting option - Radiation//chemo to kill your bone marrow, replace the marrow with stem-cell grown new marrow to produce 2x blood producing, hyper-charged immune system hemoglobin. Problem with this - it could reject the REST OF YOUR BODY or make you oxygen-High ALL THE TIME, unless you live in denver or some other high-altitude, low pressure zone.


Gene-modded, grown organs can replace the organics, but the constant risk is Immuno-response, your body destroying this foreign thing and killing itself in the process. You don't match your immune markers, and that thing WILL kill you.

Other problems - a hyperactive immune system may attack the rest of the body. May create new allergies - potentially lethal ones. Also - if you've got a tailored immune system, someone else knows EXACTLY what will get right past it.

-Can we do this, currently?

Well, yes...and no. We can grow kidneys, liver tissue, skin, heart valves, bladders - simple organs with only 1 or 2 differentiated tissue types. we can't grow anything more complicated yet. We haven't managed the pancreas or other glands yet, not working ones. We certainly haven't started screwing with the chemistry inside them.

YET.

>>18512007
Umm, I'm looking for cyberpunk storyteller stuff. Any chance of you uploading some of the material?

Okay, so there seems to be some general consensus that a good way to limit (the use of) cybernetics would probably be battery life and maintenance. So, how would we implement this in a game?

- Daily recharge of 1 hour, more if you're using a standard (home) socket.
- A diagnosis during that recharge for any (potential) trouble.
- Monthly overhauls.

Sound about right?

>>18512350
I missed this.

>blah blah blah the system can't recognise allies from potential threats after they lose track of them

If they shoot at you, then they're dumb and deserve to get labeled as potential threats BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING SHOOTING AT YOU.
At that point you can redesignate them allies if you want or whenever you're not being shot at.

PROTIP: If the system can detect people shooting at you of course it's going to flag up PEOPLE SHOOTING AT YOU. BECAUSE THEY ARE SHOOTING AT YOU.

The hypothetical mod doesn't shoot people for you, it indicates that you are taking fire from something or someone, or someone's just thrown something at you, or likewise that you might not have noticed.

As I said, you can't trust anything after you lose sight of your known allies - if someone is spoofing your uniform or faked their passive signatures or the length of their mechanical dick on your millimeter X-ray scanner. Assuming the system has the memory to track human shapes (lolfuturetech) it'd be useful to the point where it'll point out people moving with guns and whether those people are shooting at you or not.

Anything after that (designating of allies by manually pointing them out, designating allies by automatic means) is also helpful but is also a potential crutch/can be spoofed.

Can you see why this would be helpful in some ways? Yes, recognition software is screwy, but so what, in situations where you're being shot at and you DON'T have a mod to tell you someone's shooting at you and from which direction you'll probably end up deader faster.

Implants are fueled by food.

Every implant has a "fuel value" or whatever, usually less than 1 (say, a pair of bionic eyes, "0.2 fuel value).

Every full 1 point of your total value represents a meal's worth of calories you need to eat per day to stay healthy.
For a regular, full-natural human that's 2. It grows and grows as you add more bionics.

Though maybe you can get implants that actually have negative value (solar-collector skin?...), or batteries, or a more efficient digestive system...

hm.

>>18512493

there are ways to code the information coming to you that speed up recognition and reaction time -

Allies coded as green. Designated, unarmed noncombatants coded as blue. As an ally's shots start getting too close, the system changes the color of their icon on the HUD, adding yellow. Enemies tagged as red. If an ally's fire gets WAY too close or hits, their icon switches to orange.

your brain responds to color in specific ways. You can train yourself to understand this much faster than reading.

Aggreed, no system should autofire, unless you're alone and everything has to be dead. Call that mode "Magical Autistic Murder Machine" - because I like the idea of a tiny japanese schoolgirl bot blowing everything in a fifty meter radius to hell

>>18512493
another question - WHY IS NO ONE USING IFF?

designate your squad with IFF, keep in com range. constant back-and-forth-signals make SENSE here. they can't spoof it if they don't have the right response pings

Crude "bionics" are a thing of the past. The future of transhuman augmentation is molecular nanotechnology: reconstruct the body into a new form, a synthesis that blurs the line between "living" and "artificial" on the cellular level.

>>18512612
This sounds kind of cool, but how often does eating come up in RPGs? I mean, it's not much of a drawback if someone just says "Oh, so I eat much, meh." It does provide for some role-playing opportunities though...

>>18512624
>designate your squad with IFF, keep in com range. constant back-and-forth-signals make SENSE here. they can't spoof it if they don't have the right response pings

>ping signal
>pong response
>ping signal
>pong response
>ping signal
>that's a missle locked onto my IFF signal
>ohshi-
IFF can be far too easily used by enemies too. And spoofing by taking the codes out of a dead guy is possible or whatever. But mostly the whole "broadcasting your location" issue is a problem


>Allies coded as green. Designated, unarmed noncombatants coded as blue. As an ally's shots start getting too close, the system changes the color of their icon on the HUD, adding yellow. Enemies tagged as red. If an ally's fire gets WAY too close or hits, their icon switches to orange.

That's something I had in mind, yeah.

>>18512660

It doesn't mean much on the lower levels, but when you get to "cyborg-supersoldier-more-metal-than-flesh" levels and you need to eat 28 meals a day to survive, a mission that goes wrong and lasts for half an hour two much can be a serious health risk.

>>18512457
Given blood batteries that could maybe get some electrical energy out of the chemical energy in food (or something food like) and maybe a bit of solar power or something, you might not have to recharge at all on a normal day (or ever with just a few prostheses).

But more strenuous activity might use up more power, so you might hit a limit where you run low and have to conserve energy (or find an external source).

Likewise, wear and tear would vary based on activity. An office drone or a single prosthetic may only need a tune-up every year to a couple years. In combat, you get your arm fucked up, and while you might get it to work for a bit with repair in the field, it'll need parts to restore full and permanent function.

>>18512702
>Given blood batteries that could maybe get some electrical energy out of the chemical energy in food (or something food like) and maybe a bit of solar power or something, you might not have to recharge at all on a normal day (or ever with just a few prostheses).

Currently (hah) blood batteries are pretty poor stuff, only provide enough power to run microchips and so on off them. If you want anything more than calculations (e.g. a limb or even a hand) you'd need actual external power sources.

http://io9.com/5195023/batteries-that-feed-on-blood

>>18512757

Current technology isn't what we're dealing with here.

>>18512784
You beat me to it, but yeah, currently we don't have full cyborgs either.

>>18512457

Regarding maintenance, here's what I'd do. Set up some sort of scale regarding what level of cybernetics require high end maintenance or not. For instance

Low end: So your cybernetic arm is just a cannon (for example) Can be done in a chop shop, but it does kinda render your character useless in any situations where you need to be walking around town and interacting normally with people.

Mid-end: Low level of cybernetics that allow for normal human interaction. Reasonably affordable on a decent household budget, with monthly tune ups.

High-end: Adam Jensen. Walking tank/death machine if he wants to be, capable of feats beyond normal human abilities. But still showing signs of augmentation, and as such, would be an obvious threat to anyone. You'd need company support for this, and as such be tied dow to contracts and the like.

Elite: Major Motoko Kusanagi. Capable of feats far beyond human capabilities while still looking human. Absolute top end, packed full of even more cutting edge technology. Requires massive support, given only to special forces.

>Current technology isn't what we're dealing with here.
But even futuretech blood batteries can't change the fact that the human body only has so much energy in it. Most humans can barely generate enough energy on a treadmill to light up a single bulb. And that is done by burning all of the bodies readily available calories.

If you want more energy, then you need some form of storage like a battery. Or a separate power source external to the bodies systems. Just eating more food poses logistical problems and there is a hard limit you can reach before the body spends more time eating than anything else.

>>18512846

The answer is nanomachines. Not sure how, but it's almost certainly nanomachines.

Either that or "quantum".

>>18512846

The human body can't. Blood can't carry that much energy.

Who ever said we can't use some other fluid to carry our oxygen?

Literal Blood Battery.

is it possible? Probably only for high end full-body jobs, but it's an interesting idea.

>>18512940
>>18512924

Exactly. You want really high end cybernetics that can do balls out crazy shit? Well, you've got to have seriously advanced batteries that are insanely expensive and only realistically available via government or corporate contracts.

Your average office drone with cybernetic enhancements isn't going to worry about power needs. Hell, they can just plug themselves in at night to recharge. So they don't need advanced batteries and the like.

>>18511269
In my sci-fi game, full on transhumanism is possible, up to removing the brain and putting it in a transformer or a giant squid or something.

The balance? How much debt do you want to be in? Being trans-human either means being from a post-human culture, and having physical limits put on an already changed and therefore difficult to change form, OR accruing debt like car, house, or ship payments to afford your new body.

So a lot of players go into "new car ownership" by modern standards level of debt, then find high paying jobs to pay off the debts in as few sessions as possible. They take their powers and put them to use to pay them off.

Social interaction hit. Make it so Bionics are highly visible (due to it being an emerging technology), and not all of society has accepted bionics yet. A lot of people in fact are downright paranoid around characters who have them.

>>18512846
Treadmill is an inefficient use of our chemical and mechanical energy. I can light a bulb with a hand pump without breaking a sweat.

As others have said, a blood replacement could be in place here. Batteries run on chemical energy, which could be generated other ways. Hard scifi is nice and all, but at a certain point I think we can assume the future will think of some things we haven't yet.

>>18512804
This is great. You could have a maintenance statistic called COMPLEXITY which models this. Rated 1-10, with regular rolls using Engineering/Repair/Electronics/Robotics/Cybernetics to succeed in order to maintain it in proper working condition.

Complexity
1 - Piston armatures (think Chinese mooks in DXHR). Below human standard. Reduces charisma, social interactions, sensory interactions involving touch, fine motor control is poor.

4 - human-level performance prosthetics, micromotor based. Equivalent to human standard, only minor social penalties in dealign with people who are prejudiced, moderate monthly maintenance costs at local clinic plus weekly medicine.

7 - extraordinary, high-precision, micro-machine augmentations, superior to human standard, requiring weekly maintenance at a hospital or cyber-clinic specialist, plus daily medical drugs/fuel/fluids to maintain optimal performance. Degrades on daily basis. Social penalties as above, bonuses based type as normal cyberware.

9 - superhuman, advanced partial or full-borg reconstruction requiring high-end facilities found only in a few major world cities, daily medical/fluid/part maintenance, intensive repair operations, available only through large governments and corporations, costs so high as to basically mortgage your whole body/life to the maintainer. Plus psychological counselling, intensive physiotherapy and other supports.

>>18513002
i still like the idea of the implanted reactor.

Good enough for Steve Austin, Good Enough For Me

Also - I for one welcome my new cherenkov-radiation-glowing-testicles.

>>18513033

BITCHES LOVE MY LITTLE NUKE

>>18513024

I think we've got it, right there. We can give groups and organisations a COMPLEXITY stat as well, to show just what level of support they can give out. So your third world militias might have COMPLEXITY: 2 at most, while Special Forces will have around COMPLEXITY: 9-10.

>>18511269
Do you also limit how many guns can they buy?
Or how many cars can they own?

>>18513079
Instead of buying off individual stuff with disads like maintenance and batteries, you buy off the whole lot? But different builds go with different disads?

So something with an internal power source and high complexity is going to be really fine tuned and need massive maintenance.

But something with low maintenance and high complexity is going to take massive batteries?

(I suppose there could be other disads, but you get the idea... prevent powergaming by calling for one big disad instead of many small ones)

>>18513101
Not the OP, but there's this thing called "money."

>>18513101
Or how many guns they can carry?
Or how many cars they can drive at the same time?
Or how much weight they can lift?

>>18513176
Fuck, dude. You made me spit coffee all over my laptop. Dat face.

>>18513176
I know, eh? PCs should just be allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with no consequences. We're punks, we don't bow to no fascist GM authority! Fuck the game rules, man!

If you don't mind "Cinematic" solutions, well, this solution requires a bit of backstory:

There's this one free RPG called 'Sufficiently Advanced.' In it you basically play the agents of some super AI and act to shape the galaxy/universe/whatever. Your character options come froma wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from a society of brains-in-cyborg bodies, and another of heavily genetically modified space nomads (some of which can survive being tossed naked into the void) to... the Amish. Yes. Those Amish. As in the "don't even use a fucking tractor to farm" Amish.

Yet it's balanced! How, you may ask, when the rules allow for the far more advanced characters to have weapon systems built into their body that no armor in the universe could save you from, do these baseline humans keep up?

Easy. They've got literal plot armor.

[Con't]

>>18513235

See, you get this pile of points to distribute at chargen with starting points in certain areas and statcaps in others, depending on your civilization - high tech ones are obligated to have so many points invested in this trait or that by nature of what they are, and are limited in this one or that by what they are.

Among these traits is one that's basically plot armor. High-end civilization players can't invest a lot into it, but guys like these muck raking peasants can take it all the way to the very fucking top.

It's a cinematic system reflective of how the hero is often the most "human" of all characters, one we can relate to better than a walking tank or a guy who can disintegrate a city block with a snap of his fingers.

You make not be as capable of the same feats of brain or brawn as these technological demigods, but whenever someone says "there's no way he could have survived that explosion" or everyone's counting on you having those precious few seconds to hit the button that stops the countdown.. you survive, some stroke of luck shields you from the explosion, you hit the button just as the timer dips into milliseconds, etc.

Obviously, this isn't a super realistic system, but it's a neat alternative to "hurr, grafting metal to your body has made you inhuman in some fashion." And I think it could easily be worked into a cyberpunk game, to encourage some people to play the unaugmented or lesser-augmented because if shit hits the fan they'll have an out, or be able to alter the plot to a degree, while those who play military-grade cyborgs are limited to what they can do without actively engaging plot armor.

>>18513079
Yes to organizations having complexity to deal with augs...or anything technically complex, really. It's a good rule overall.

Yes, we should make it a package to reduce book-keeping. No player wants to keep track of pills, batteries or routine doctor's visits.

There should be escalating but not crippling penalties imposed for time in the field away from maintenance. Should it factor in climate (hot and humid being really bad for electronics and micromachines) and such?

>>18513245
Meh, too meta-gamey for me. And how would that apply to NPCs? Sure, the human PC might survive the explosion, but what if he's fighting 15 human soldiers? They all survive too because they're snowflake-special? Not workable, IMO.

>>18513283

It's been a while since I read, but you don't build antagonists the same way you do PCs. After all, just as in any cinematic thing, the PCs are special - being human does not come with some universal luck ability, it's something of the few. PCs and main antagonists.

But yeah, that's why I mentioned it's not super-realistic. It's a cinematic solution. Works for people you like that, not for people who want 100% grit and realism.

>>18513264

Absolutely. The more factors the DM can assess when coming up with the COMPLEXITY check the better. Climate is a great one. Damage sustained also seems obvious.

Well, people with augments will run off of software, period. there's no way that can't happen with a micro-computer-chip implanted into their brain to control the functions of their new limbs.
With a wireless signal this could be hackable, or being able to deactivate or cause some minor setback to their functions. Locking joints, slowing reaction signals etc.
Plus people with no augments are immune to EMP. Having something like EMP weapons like pistols or rifles would be great to just, short out cybernetics temporarily.

I didn't read the thread cause it's huge so, I don't even know if OP is still here or has already gotten his answer. But I'm posting this regardless.

>You want really high end cybernetics that can do balls out crazy shit? Well, you've got to have seriously advanced batteries that are insanely expensive and only realistically available via government or corporate contracts.

Pretty much. In a sense you can use cybernetics as a prosthetic in that it replaces the original human part and offers a similar level of performance. It wouldn't need extra energy if you can draw on what the body generates.

But the moment you want superhuman levels of performance, you need to provide that much more energy in some form. Batteries are probably your best bet, small reactors are good too if you have the tech. Replacing or augmenting blood with nanites is a good option. But if nanite technology is advanced enough to do stuff like that, you need to make it crazy expensive and rare. Otherwise "basic" cybernetics wouldn't really have a place.

>>18513264

>cyberpunk_vs__steampunk

I wonder if anyone told the photographer that that looks a LOOT like a WW2 Tank Crew helmet the guy on the right is wearing.

Not that I have any problem with a fight between Cyberpunk and Weird World War 2.

>>18513494
WW1 and to a lesser extent 2 as well are quite steampunky.

The earliest tanks were crewed by men wearing chain armour masks and signalled each other using semaphore flags.

Reactors provide slow-and-steady continuous power, especially if we're talking about the only semi-realistic option which is radio-thermal nuclear reactors.

For the amount of power/amps needed for cybernetics at millisecond speeds only capacitors/batteries will do.

>>18513506
WW1 and WW2 tanks ran on diesel or gasoline, not steam, so they're not steam-anything. Steampunk is the Victorian era, 1860s-1890s.

>>18513512
And not at all *that* realistic either. I mean, in order to fit one inside a human frame (ish) you would need a teeny tiny bit of fissionable material, plus shielding to protect the rest your body/organs/friends from cancer, AND some way to get useful energy from that (which I think today is still steam turbines).

Or is there some idea I'm missing here?

I think a setting that considers transhumanism to be boring and mundane is more interesting than one where it is novel.

You weigh so much that you have to have reinforced boots, leaf springs screwed onto the back of your legs, and a back brace surgically implanted to walk upright.
It takes decades to slowly replace the brain with computational implants and since scanning a brain in the detail needed is impossible mind uploading can't work. And with all the effort to make a copy you should have just made a kid.
You increase your intelligence by carrying external CPUs around in a backpack and slowly letting your central nervous system integrate with them over years.
Artificial stuff is only stronger because it is more dense, since human bone is a strong as steel of the same mass.
Shit is blocky and breaks under its own huge weight if you jump around, ie no ghost in the shell style landing from a 3 story drop just because you have metal bones.
Computation is limited by smallest size a circuit can attain. Quantum computing doesn't offer any real advantages, as we have already found out. And the heat generated by the circuits puts further limitations on how dense you can make a circuit board.
AIs were designed to be non-sapient slaves, incapable of self awareness for all their intelligence.
Trans-humans for all their enhancements have the same goals as humans: survive and reproduce. So they act pretty much the same.
Implanted weapons are pretty much limited to a .410 shotgun strapped to your arm with trigger mechanism hooked up to specific muscle twitch.
A nanoscopic assembler is only really good for making small components anyway not macroscopic products. It takes less energy to just make the tiny components and then fit them together with regular machining.
Nanomachines can't self replicate because physics says they can't have enough tool tips to manipulate all their component parts.

>>18513611
RTGs use thermocouples.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

As you said it's semi-realistic because radio-thermal reactors are today the size of a portable generator and would need major shrinkage to get inside a chest cavity, which is mostly full of your organs*.


*which you need to live.

>>18513680
But this is the future, say they've created a new metal. Lightweight and is stronger than any metal previously existing. I believe they actually have something in the works now, some sort of mesh that can float ontop of water because it is so light, yet you cannot pierce it.

>>18511569
I want everything but the cyber brain. I'm totally fine with replacing parts of the brain but I find the idea of interfacing with outside entries by transmitted thought disgusting.

What if the reactor was partially in you, partially out? Like, say, in your back, protruding out a little?

Would make sitting in conventional chairs and sleeping a little hard, though.

>>18513721
Tensile strength =/ compressional strength, rigidity, or fatigue strength. All of which you need for a skeleton. For example carbon nanotubles can never be used for buildings because they have no rigidity or compression strength. The only thing we know of that as all the properties needed to be a skeletal material is steel.

>>18513846

Thread tl;dr.

Here's a limit. may or may not have been mentioned. (given the termoelectric thing it probably has)
You need (body) heat to produce energy if you want to keep living on food alone without external power sources. That means no replacing of digestive organs (damn near all of them).
Also to keep your organic parts happy, you need blood. WITH red and white bloodcells. Which are made in your bones. Ergo you need a mostly organic skeleton to keep living unless you want to keep replacing your blood with synthesized crap every week or so, maybe more often than that, I dunno.
Even if you would take external power, your brain still needs that blood and brains aren't easily replaced, FYI.

If external power is needed, look at betavoltaics. (provided the necessary power isnt too huge)
Thermoelectric/Peltier-devices can work using body heat.
For civilian cybernetics photovoltaics may work too. Either implanted on skin or worn as clothes.

>>18513680
Strenght of a material isn't the only thing that matters. Ductility is another. Bone shatters because it refuses to bend. Also I guarantee you a 7075T1 aluminum tube of same weight can carry a lot more weight than a bone. Then there's carbon fiber, Titanium and magnesium based alloys. Brass if you want the cool-factor too.


>>18513846
Carbon fiber, depending on how it is woven and layered can do a lot to resolve such issues. The reason it's not used is because it would be very fucking expensive on that scale. It's used in racecars suspension and shit like that where not a whole lot is needed. Mind you that's CF, not tubes.

>>18513680
Nanomachines of different kinds could replicate. A single human cannot make all human machines, but all humans can. Image a nanomachine society fullfilling all necessary tasks.

>>18511642
Nope. Biofuel cells, nigga.

>>18513901
Blood cells are made in bone marrow. You can transplant the marrow into an artificial bone.

>>18513975
The fun thing of that is that you can use booze as a fuel.

>>18513984
But can you keep it alive and working there?

>>18513996
Why the hell not? It lives just fine in a normal bone. Give it blood and it will be okay.

>>18514014
Great, blood transfusions every day for the rest of your life. Just what every shadowrunner wants.

>>18514020
Please tell me you're not serious.

>>18514020

There is a piece of bioware in SR3 called Platelet Factories. It requires a pill daily to keep you from risking heart attacks. It is a giant trap, IMO.

>>18513984

What about artificial blood cells? Recpirocytes and microbivores?

Or, if you're going full borg, why bother with any fleshy bits that would need nourishment? Just upload your mind to artificial format. Data is data, whether it's stored on neurons or drives. Analyse, copy, delete if necessary. Store backups.

>>18514146
Putting your mind on a drive would just form a copy though, wouldn't it? There's no way to transfer your sentience to a new body. I'm not going to essentially clone myself and then kill myself.

>>18514164

What if you use an upload process like in EP or "Old Man's War"? It takes, say, six hours, and for the first one you're just strapped to the table, then for four hours there's an incredibly trippy feeling of existing in two bodies at the same time, then you slowly lose awareness of your former body and start settling in your new one.

So instead of copying your mind, you first split it in two (by simply connecting it into two bodies simultaneously), then cut one half.

>>18514238
That works, in theory. I'm not a tech whizz so I don't know what complications it might have, though.

The eat your soul thing isnt as dumb as it sounds.

Ever hear of those people who had heart transplants and began taking on traits of the dead indevidual?

Well imagine its like that. Also, permenant reductions to charisma.

Id also throw in reduction to perception unless special upgrades like nightvision are bought to compensate. The fact is metal and other parts dont lend themselves to the kind of sensitivity of a million neurons per inch of skin. Which can detect breeze and any of the other 25 senses humans have.

Also, obviously only replacements can heal damage. So all wounds on bionic areas become permenant. Also, the general health of the character will be lowered as the total stem cells in the body are deminished. Most of the bodies blood and WBC are produced in the legs and probably arms too.

>>18514328
>Ever hear of those people who had heart transplants and began taking on traits of the dead indevidual?
No, actually. Not saying you're spouting bullshit, I've just never heard of it. Got a link?

The charisma/social penalties are a two-edged sword for GMs. Those could easily be bonuses if mingling with groups that accept/like/venerate cybernetics. Which would be a lot of Shadowrunners, really, plus a sizeable chunk of the public, as evidenced by every transhumanism thread on tg ever.

>WW1 and WW2 tanks ran on diesel or gasoline, not steam, so they're not steam-anything. Steampunk is the Victorian era, 1860s-1890s.

You have a very very narrow definition of steampunk. I suppose you expect things to run on coal too?

>>18514398
There is nothing in the heart that contributes to cognition. That "sounds right," in a glurgy lifetime channel way.

WHAT IS VALID is that being stuck in an increasingly cybernetic body would mean you become increasingly insensate unless its REALLY well hooked-up. You would loose sense of your own physical position, subtle breezes, warm and cold, that sort of thing. You'd feel trapped in an inert shell.

>>18514398
I've hear of this story too. Do a google for "heart transplant memories" and you'll get a lot of hits.

Its interesting to think about. If your cells can store memories like that. What happens when you lose those cells, or replace them with something else?

>>18514740

Do a google search for "Indigo Children".

Read through the first few websites that show up.

Everything you just read? It's fucking bullshit.

Same for "heart memories" or the fuck that was. This isn't the bronze age anymore.

>>18514798
I've been hearing the term "Indigo Children" a lot lately. Is that just because of the Cracked article, or has that retardation only just recently come to the attention of smart people?

>>18514740
You can google 'Michael Jackson was white' and get a lot of hits, so that doesn't prove anything.

If it sounds cool and you want to incorporate it into a game, go right ahead, but it's not based in reality. Just sayan.

But if there are such drawbacks to augmentation that it ends up not actually enhancing you, what's the point?

>>18514875
The point is they enhance you where it counts (ie, in combat or on the corporate board, or in the bedroom) and the consequences are dealt with on the side. Cosmetic surgery can be dangerous and has side effects yet tens of millions now undergo it for the benefits they get on the spot.

Heart memories and the like is probably just people wanting to believe their loved ones live on.

However it is very interesting material if you use it in a cyberpunk setting with regard to 'used' brain augments, or control systems for weapons/arms.

Hell even new augments should have software that controls the limb etc, so it'd be easy to incorporate twitches, and a whole assortment of other interesting things as malfunctioning/adjusting software.

Struggling with walking because of that one bionic leg you have? guess you must have a slightly different gait to the movement it's based on, get used to your new walk.

Heart memories are indigo children are superstitious nonsense. Please disregard and carry on with the augmentation conversation.

>>18511942
yeah, and replacing a simple servo package (like a shoulder, knee, or elbow) wouldn't be as complicated as everyone tends to think, but working on a hand would be a bitch.
The only real tell-tale signs would be the feet, since the current trend in leg prosthetics are those super-efficient spring feet. it has easily noticed effects on one's gait and well, the feet look really different.

Oh, and I wouldn't swim if I were you. robo-feet optimized for efficiency on land aren't exactly good in the water, and you'd need snow-shoes for softer ground, so ground pressure doesn't ruin your day.

>>18514952
In any case. The whole transplanted memories shtick raises a good point. Replace a part of the body and your brain will start receiving different signals or NO signals. That can lead to all kinds of crazyness.

>>18515067
What kind of voodoo biology is this? Get back to /x/.

>>18515199
Sir are you implying that augmentation doesn't go wrong?

and that on a 1 of a d1000 we shouldn't be putting our players through horrifying misery as malfunctions/maltreatment cause them to lose even more flesh?

"I'm afraid the area has been made un-usable due to strain and damage, we'll need to move the connection further up"

>>18515325
"Transplanted memories" causing "different signals" is what I was referring to. Of course there can be cockups in surgery, but I don't for a second believe in mystical heart memories causing malfunctions.

>What kind of voodoo biology is this? Get back to /x/.
It IS biology. Look up phantom pain, its a real thing and its no joke. If you cut off part of your body, your brain doesn't stop expecting signals from the nerves there. So it looks at the missing nerves, goes "what is this I don't even... uh I guess this is pain". And then boom, your arm hurts like its on fire despite the fact that you don't HAVE one anymore.

That replacement spine isn't looking so cool anymore now is it?

There is another syndrome humans can have that makes them feel a part of their body belongs to someone else. I remember seeing an interview of a guy who wanted to cut off his arm, but of course no doctor would perform this "maiming" of a perfectly healthy human. So he has to go on suffering.

Both of these things could easily happen to augmetics. Just like in Deus Ex where people need drugs to stop their bodies from rejecting implants. The mind is harder to fix.

Alternity had a halfway decent system. Cybernetic equipment all had a rating, You get up to half your Constitution in Cybernetic equipment. After that there are two consequences. ONE - you start making checks to reject cyberware if you have more installed. Obviously, high constitution characters can fit more ware in them, but you botch a check and you can lose multiple pieces of ware.

TWO - If you have more than half your Con in cyberware, it takes damage when you do, and will need repairs. That means money and skilled techs.

>shrivel rythol
Shit, I think Captcha is a krogan.

>>18515946
Adding to this, some ware requires other ware to function. Want a skin weave to help mitigate damage? No prob. Want muscle enhancement? Well, you'll need a nanocomp installed. Better muscle enhancement? you'll need the nanocomp AND an exo or endo skeleton to mount those synthetic fibers. Better than that? You need the nanocomp, an exo/endo skeleton, and your limbs better be fully cyberized.

Also, the number of pieces of cyberware you can run is determined by the quality of their nanocomp. Oh you want to totally borg yourself out? Better shell out the cash for that hyperamazing nanocomp, or it;s just going to run out of RAM to handle all your ware.