Flatlined and Combat implants (spoilers)

[PsiTraveller]

Questions for Martin hopefully, and group mind in general.

Started to play Flatlined last night, rolling up characters first. One oddity popped up. A character had several benefit rolls (terms served and rank bonuses). The players rolled 3 combat implants when making characters for the Flatlined adventure. He chose Subdermal armour and was thinking about an eye implant, but the TL 13 prevents that. It got me to thinking. If a character had enhanced vision, would the start of the adventure have the person blind due to the event that downed the ship?

Other implant questions:
Page 99 does not have many implants for 50 000 and TL12
Neural comm: I am guessing this would be fried at the start
Skill Augments: Not fried I am guessing as it is a wiring job
Subdermal armour: as above not affected by pulse
Wafer jack: computer in the skull. Probably fried and likely no skill wafers anyway, but a source of annoyance to a player to not have something they got as a benefit.


Did anyone else running the game have players with implants? What did you do about the starting conditions? Does anyone allow the expanded list from the Central Supply Catalogue? And the same questions applies there. (Can you imagine a Combat arm that is dead for the entire adventure? Gives me a sadistic grin just thinking about it.

 

[DickTurpin]

Both the Neural Comm and Wafer Jack are cheap enough to come with the Ruggedised option while still being below the Cr. 50,000 cost limit. There is nothing in the rules that says that augmentations from benefit rolls cannot have optional upgrades added. As a GM, so long as the TL and cost limits are not exceeded, I would allow them to be present in those augmentations. As a player, I would insist that they were.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

There is nothing in the rules that says that augmentations from benefit rolls cannot have optional upgrades added. As a GM, so long as the TL and cost limits are not exceeded, I would allow them to be present in those augmentations. As a player, I would insist that they were.

Agreed, and that goes for weapons and armour too.

 

[Linwood]

Going back to your questions....

First thing you should decide is whether the skilljackers can detect the implants. Any implant they don’t detect may still be active.

Second thing to decide is whether the implants detected might be valuable to the skilljackers. Something like a wafer jack might be left functional since it would allow the slave owner(s) to download skills they want the slave to use. Or, if such things exist in YTU, maybe a ‘compliance’ software package designed to instill a certain set of behaviors.... But if they want to disable it, a simple port plug glued in place would work fine.

Things like combat arms might be handled differently. A one-armed slave is less valuable than a two-armed slave, so maybe the skilljackers can derate the arm. Maybe thru an armband (“why is this big ugly armband stuck on me?”) or by opening the service panel and fiddling with the calibrations. Then again, combat arms are valuable - so maybe the skilljackers simply removed it for resale and attached a simple prosthetic in its place. Which could lead to an interesting follow-on adventure!

You should think about how much time the skilljackers may have had. If they were in a hurry and not cybernetically skilled they’d likely lock out anything that seems dangerous and let the customer(s) at the other end of the pipeline deal with the hardware. If they had more time and access to the right tech they might do something more involved.