Questions about Biomechanical limbs/organs

[Dragonspare]

Now, some time ago, i've started to have some doubts and questions regarding cybernetic limbs (seeing as that one of my characters main Biomechanical Engineering, and he needs to be an expert about it), here are some of them:

.Well, first off, can cybernetic limbs feel (tact, when touching something)? if not, there are expensive implants that could make so possible?

.Allthrough i had roleplayed that said limbs need weekly maintenance, is it true? or is it a longer/shorter span?

.It has come to me that several people use cybernetics limb as a reason to say "I'm stronger than you", i do get the point, but are said limbs stronger? i'll admit, if it's one made of metal, of course the impact will do more damage than an organic one, but the point i wanted to reach is, if they are stronger/faster than the original arm

.A follow-up from last question, are cybernetic arms just like the previous arm (talking about a stock model)? and, i suppose they can be if you get someone to make a custom one for your necesities

.Can said limbs be implanted to have extra strenght/speed/random buff? i see several people claiming so

.Another trope i've seen several times is the "hit it, i can't fell pain here", this is a mix-up of a lore canonization request and a question, as i would expect, to link the limbs with your brain, you have to make cables go through the stump/injury, when someone gets hit strong enough (dent), internal circuits and sensitive wires go off, causing pain to the stump by the wires sparks making contact to the skin (assumed so because the "health-bar" does determine one's pain and how they can hold up in front of it)

[Pratepresidenten]

Im sure you could get some fancy, expensive "touchy feely" modules installed if you really wanted to, it is the future after all!

As for the durability of said limbs, I guess thats up to you how you wanna play it out. I would suspect prosthetic limbs would need some fine tuning from time to time, replacement parts or even upgrades, but again, this would be for you to decide how often. To me, it would seem like any durable prosthetic could go for weeks or even months without checkup, depending on how much money you put into them.

A prosthetic replacement is mechanically no stronger than an organic limb, although it would make sense if it were, seeing you'd probably crush someone's face if you were to slam a mechanical fist of steel into someone, as opposed to a hand made of flesh and bone. But this would give an unfair advantage, and so, most people would probably have full on synthetic limbs because OP snowflake.

The "stock" mechanical arm can be what you want it to be. Depending on how you got it, what company you got it from, there are endless possibilities really. It boils down to preference, really. You can have them made as natural as possible, or you can go with a more robust look, show it or hide it, its up to you.

There isnt any way that I know where you can augment the strength of your prosthetics, excluding the Vulcanite prosthetics that has EMP shielding. Regular prosthetics have no pros or cons when it comes to attributes.

Now the big question remains. Can my prosthetic feel pain?

As far as I understand, this is also a thing thats up to preference. Im sure you can feel pain if you have any type of IC augmentation/module that cause you to be able to feel whatever its touching and such, but generally, you cant feel damage to your prosthetic. There might be some discomfort when it malfunctions, perhaps it sents a light jolt of electricty through your body when it sparks and sputters, or perhaps it doesnt. But what you will feel, is where the prosthetic is fitted, where the prosthetic connectors fuse with the skin and nerves of your body. Severe damage to the entirety of the prosthetic would be very painful should the connecting point of your prosthetic be busted in or warped by heat.

Operating on a prosthetic near where its attached to your body (Using a powersaw) would most likely cause you severe discomfort if you're not given local anesthetics or something of the sort.

The only upside of prosthetic limbs is that you can repair yourself to some extent if you have the IC knowhow, without needing someone to put you under and crack you open to fix those fragile bones you would otherwise have.

So all in all, prosthetic replacements arent better by default (Not counting the Vulcanite), they are merely what you make them out to be. You can make them out to be flimsy, to have the ability to feel what you touch, to be a proud part of you, or a perfectly made replica to hide your shame.

My two cents on the matter anyway. Hope you find it helpful!

[Pyrociraptor]

Here to add my grain of salt:

1.) Well, first off, can cybernetic limbs feel (tact, when touching something)? if not, there are expensive implants that could make so possible?

- Today, scientists are managing to make some special implants/touchpad thing connected to the neural system, capable of giving them tact, etc etc. So it would be more of a surprise if it was so rare. After, I suppose the user can choose to have a cybernetic limbs without any of these implants (Maybe if he doesn't want to feel any form of pain there anymore.)

2.) Allthrough i had roleplayed that said limbs need weekly maintenance, is it true? or is it a longer/shorter span?

-Depend on the quality and the material. If your character got his cybernetic from some high-quality manufacturer/constructor, you'd expect less maintenance that one built by the freshly graduated roboticist.

3.) It has come to me that several people use cybernetics limb as a reason to say "I'm stronger than you", i do get the point, but are said limbs stronger? i'll admit, if it's one made of metal, of course the impact will do more damage than an organic one, but the point i wanted to reach is, if they are stronger/faster than the original arm

- Let's bring a mechanic/physic formule in there:

 

Ek is the Kinetic Energy. The higher it is, the more its gonna hurt. You can see that the weight does have its importance (Density of material used will alter that), but you can also see that V, the speed in m/s, is way more important. So the faster your limb's rotors/motors are, the more its gonna hurt. But, its also gonna increase the power needed to keep it moving. So yeah, its still somewhat a valid reason, except if you have a rusty rotor.

4.) A follow-up from last question, are cybernetic arms just like the previous arm (talking about a stock model)? and, I suppose they can be if you get someone to make a custom one for your necessities

- Well, I suppose you could get a custom arm for your need ICly? Like maybe someone working in X job would need an arm with slightly longer fingers?

5.) Can said limbs be implanted to have extra strength/speed/random buff? i see several people claiming so?

- Mechanically, I suppose so? I remember Nanakode talking about wanting to add such features or something. But then, I suppose that if someone says that "he implanted his robotarm so it does twice more damage" fall more into the Powergaming/Godmodding rule?

6.) Another trope i've seen several times is the "hit it, i can't fell pain here", this is a mix-up of a lore canonization request and a question, as i would expect, to link the limbs with your brain, you have to make cables go through the stump/injury, when someone gets hit strong enough (dent), internal circuits and sensitive wires go off, causing pain to the stump by the wires sparks making contact to the skin (assumed so because the "health-bar" does determine one's pain and how they can hold up in front of it)

- Healthbar going down is just Game Mechanics. But then, as answered in question 1, You could chose to have a cybernetic limb that's capable of "receiving" pain and transmitting to you. Since, to control it, you'd probably need to link it to your brain/nervous system, if it got damaged to a certain point, You'd expect to feel pain there or atleast some kind of weird sensations (Maybe like a permanent itching sensation until you get it fixed? Maybe permanent pain?)

[Chada1]

Alright, I feel I should post here with my opinion. I already talked to Dragonspare a lot about this, but i'm posting my concerns/answers and stuff here anyways. Note: I'm only going to talk about IC and Lore stuff, not actual mechanics, which are more or less balanced.

I don't think it's that unreasonable to presume that you could potentially have some feeling in Prosthetics, but logically, it would exclusively be in Synth-skin brands. I seriously don't think it's reasonable at all to assume you would have feeling through metal plating, continuing on that. The other limbs are mostly just metal, and you can't exactly wire Nerves through metal plates without compromising the integrity of the plating, NOT TO MENTION the fact that the metal likely wouldn't even be close to flexible enough to pressure the nerves to then allow them to react with a tactile level of feeling.

Further on that, if this level of Synthetic nerve networking is possible, Cyborgs could potentially feel, which AFAIK is not accepted as possible, actually it's outright stated as impossible, Somewhere. Synthesized emotion is one thing, actual feeling of touch is a whole nother can of worms altogether. I don't see why Humans and other Species should be allowed to break the boundaries of how Prosthetics are supposed to work, but Synthetics wouldn't be able to. So my opinion is that neither should be allowed to do so.

TLDR: If regular, Industrial, non-Synthskin, metal plated Prosthetics can feel, can lift more, can take more abuse, are apparently easier to fix than an Organic arm if you know how, and are only slightly slower. WHY ICLY AREN'T PEOPLE SAWING OFF THEIR ACTUAL ARMS AND LEGS FOR THESE THINGS? It makes more sense in every way to limit the feeling to Synthskin, if it's possible. (I mean Lorewise, not literally.)

[Nikov]

There almost certainly must be a reason to keep flesh. There might be feedback, and synthskin might have the best feedback, but to lose natural sensation is almost certainly a tremendous loss.

I also question who the hell gets cloned and saws their arm back off or plucks their eyes back out. Ever.

[Chada1]

There almost certainly must be a reason to keep flesh. There might be feedback, and synthskin might have the best feedback, but to lose natural sensation is almost certainly a tremendous loss.

Exactly the point I was trying to convey, Synthskin is designed to be the most similar to an actual arm, while the others are cheaper and designed more just for working.

 

I also question who the hell gets cloned and saws their arm back off or plucks their eyes back out. Ever.

Noone.

I was more trying to say that there is an arbitrary level of positives placed on Prosthetics, and the only negative, really, is that they don't have feeling and arguably feel unnatural due to that.

You take that negative away, and other than the 'fear' of being less (Insert Species) you have no reason to really object to Prosthetics, they're arguably the equivalent to an Organic arm. Which, I always thought they were meant to be an almost as good substitute, not literally better.

The concept of these things being able to feel indiscriminately while also having so many positives is not good. Once more, i'll say, that this is only in Lore and Roleplay and the actual Mechanics are balanced, but I still don't think Lorewise all Prosthetics should be allowed to feel, that should be something reserved for Synthskin and Organic limbs, just for consistency in all other areas of Lore, if nothing else.

[Butterrobber202]

With regards to the Feeling pain, I have always thought that you can't feel pain like a normal arm would. E.g. You'd feel the impact of the Crowbar hitting you, but no last pain. Because: Pain is your Body sending you a message that says, Stop what you are doing, that is hurting you. Synthetic Limbs arn't wired into the Nervous system all the way, and I doubt they have pain receptors, Just my two cents.

[Nikov]

Machines feel "pain". Every machine that goes into the "redline" and begins exceeding performance limits, or losing tolerances, and detects itself as such, is in "pain". Your car's check engine light is "pain". Its just that the machine doesn't respond to pain the same way humans do.

[ForgottenTraveller]

Necro post. While not part of lore team. Logically. In regards to the stronger than you question. Yes the limbs are, but not always the body, like trying to lift a heavy weight and slipping a disk in your back. The limb may be stronger, but if it is too strong it could harm or straight up cripple (or in extreme or bad luck cases outright kill) the user , extensive exercises to remaining muscles could help prevent some aspects but a human spine is a human spine, and it has to take the torque and any other forces those limbs dish out.