Cybernetics

For the true kin enjoyers out there, we'll take a look at the available cybernetics. Here's the deal about cybernetics: by their very nature, they are meant to be swapped out and upgraded over time. This makes it difficult to give a specific rating like I did for mutations as most cybernetics are not meant for your final build. So we'll actually start off by giving some analysis to your cybernetic progression throughout the game.

Credit Wedges Throughout the Game

Which cybernetics you get are largely random, so we need to talk about the more guaranteed mode of progression which are the cybernetics credit wedges. A true kin's progression is gated by both of those, so throughout this analysis I will simply assume you get lucky and have whichever particular cybernetic we're looking at. I'll start by analyzing the amount of credit wedges and therefore license points you should have available at a given point in time.

Tier 1 : Red Rock (Level 1-10)

In this section of the game, you're still very limited not only in the cybernetics available to you, but also in your license tier. You start with a license tier of 2 and can increase it typically only to 5 at this point in the game, and your cybernetics will be limited to whatever you find at the bottom of the Rusted Archway, your starting cybernetic and anything you find from Argyve. You can find 1 credit wedge on the mummified body in the waterlogged tunnels between Joppa and Red Rock and a 2 credit wedge at the bottom of the Rusted Archway.

Tier 2 : Grit Gate (Level 10-18)

This is the first point of the game where you'll start getting access to historic sites which will be one of the primary ways you gain credit wedges throughout the game aside from your guaranteed credit wedges. Whether or not you get access to all of the theoretically accessible historic sites is more or less down to random chance, but over the many runs I've done I'll consider the average amount of historic sites that I usually get by these points of the game. For example, in this section it is fairly rare to get another low tier accessible historic site besides the guaranteed one from the statue north of Joppa. So aside from the 2 credit wedge from this historic site, you can also find 4 credit wedge at the bottom of Golgotha and 1 credit wedge purchaseable from Q-Girl at Grit Gate.

Tier 3 : Bethesda Susa (Level 18-26)

You can get 6 credit wedges from Bethesda Susa, 2 credit wedges from the wild-eyed water merchant outside of Mamon Souldrinker's lair (you can just kill him for it), 3 credit wedges from a jungle tier historic site and 4 credit wedges from a river / mountain / rainbow wood / banana grove tier site. Obviously, you can potentially get more depending on your luck with historic sites here, and perhaps you've been very lucky and found a credit wedge or two as random loot around the world. You've potentially killed a legendary Putus Templar for an extra 3 credit wedges.

Tier 4 : Endgame (Level 26-35)

You get an absolutely immense amount of guaranteed credits wedges here as well as access to pretty much the rest of the historic sites. 3 credit wedges purchaseable from Yla Haj in Ezra, 6 credit wedges purchaseable from Warden Une in the Yd Freehold, 3 credit wedges from the Rainbow Wood body, 6 credit wedges in the crematory of the Tomb of the Eaters, 4 credit wedges from Gyl, 4 credit wedges from the Hydropon, 3 credit wedges from the legendary templar attacking Grit Gate, 6 credit wedges from the top of the roaming keter of Chavvah and likely around 16 credit wedges from historic sites. You've likely actually got more by this point as you've likely found multiple legendary Templar in the world with more credit wedges.

Tier 5 : Post-Game (Level 35+)

The sky is the limit here, you've likely got even more than the anticipated number even in the prior section, so in the post game you're just cleaning up any historic sites you've missed and finding loose credit wedges in the world from legendary templar.

Cybernetics are quite flexible in where you can place them, so in order to analyze them properly you need to consider what you're not getting by using a given cybernetic in a slot. I'll first cover cybernetics that can only be installed in a single slot and then consider cybernetics with flexible positions. For each of these, I'll give a very general rating which considers whether the cybernetic is a competitive choice in most scenarios for most builds. Basically every cybernetic is useful somehow in some context or for some reason, so this doesn't necessarily mean the cybernetic is not redeemable or you should never use it.

Additionally, keep in mind that if you have the points to spare, some cybernetic is always better than no cybernetic. Unless the cybernetic is permanent, just try it out as even the lower rated cybernetics do have redeeming qualities (just not as good as what you'd have to give up for it).

Cybernetics - Head Only

Skillsoft [low sp]

This cybernetic will only give you a single skill that costs from 1-50 skill points. Since it's taking up our head slot to do this, you really want something good and true kin don't hunger for skill points anyways as they get increased skill points in comparison to mutants. If you have nothing to put here, go ahead but just know that possession of that skill is fleeting and if you really want it you'll probably have to buy it normally at some point.

Skillsoft [medium sp]

Gives a single skill that costs from 51-150 skill points. Definitely better than skillsoft [low sp], but highly dependent on which specific skill you get access to. The fact that it also costs your head slot means you probably are just using this if you get a lucky skill that you don't want to have to buy yet and you have a free head slot.

Inflatable Axons

This cybernetic will give you +40 quickness for 10 rounds then -10 quickness for 10 rounds. This then goes on cooldown for 100 turns (before Willpower reduction). Let's analyze more specifically what that means:

With +40 quickness, you will get an extra round of actions after the 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 10th rounds. You then lose an action on the 20th round. If our combat goes for 20 rounds, this results in 3 net extra turns and 4 net extra turns if our combat goes less than 20 rounds. This can be quite good; even moreso if you happen to have good compute power as the bonus and the duration both scale with enhanced compute power. It's not permanent, so as long as you use this carefully and not haphazardly, it may be that special sauce you need to take down a more powerful creature. However, if your build doesn't have very impressive damage or already has good ways of dealing with lone powerful threats, 3-4 extra turns may not be worth very much in the grand scheme of things. In these instances, you'll want something with more tangible effects.

I would be remiss to leave things there, as this benefits from compute power in a major way. It increases both the quickness boost and the duration, meaning at higher tiers you can keep it on pretty much indefinitely. This is one cybernetic that can be built around, and does a pretty good job at being built around at the cost of not being obvious that you can do so.

Nocturnal Apex

With Nocturnal Apex, we get a different buff depending on the time of day. If it's daytime, we get a pitiful 10% healing rate increase. During the night, we get a one-time use of Prowl, which gives us 6 Agility and 10 movespeed but only for 100 rounds. 10 movespeed is really nothing special; especially for a one time use and even moreso for only 100 rounds during the night. 6 Agility is an OK buff, but all that's really doing is giving us +3 DV. This is a good bit, but it's so conditional and temporary that most of the time you're going to want something else in this slot.

Reactive Cranial Plating

Immunity to stun and daze? Yes, please! This is an unbelievably good cybernetic for high DV builds as a large number of creatures use cudgels and getting stunned by one will reduce your DV and cause you to be absolutely torn apart. If your build rarely if ever comes into melee contact with anything, perhaps you'll miss out on this one in favor of other cybernetics that improve your escape tools or ranged fighting. However, if you do a large amount of melee fighting this cybernetic is fantastic and common and can easily sit on you for the entirety of the game.

Schemasoft [low-tier]

The problem with Schemasoft [low-tier] is that although it will give access to every Tinker I recipe of a specific type, it does not give access to any mods. Because that's really the whole point of Tinker I, this is not that great. You'll outgrow this pretty quickly, but if you've got nothing else you may find something useful in there if you get Grenades since you do get access to some still pretty strong mk III grenades like freeze and high explosive.

Schemasoft [mid-tier]

While most classes of Schemasoft [mid-tier] aren't super great, the rifle and utility categories can be quite good; especially the utility as that's the main reason to get Tinker II in the first place. The other categories are pretty lackluster as they don't really have much going for them. Just as an example, the tonics category just gives access to Eaters' nectar injectors and sphynx salt injectors. Pretty underwhelming considering how rare their components are. Of course, this cybernetic becomes obsolete the moment you find the normal data disks for the artifacts you really want to use, but if you've got the space until then this is a pretty decent choice.

Skillsoft [high sp]

There's not too many skills that cost above 151 skill points, and most of them are pretty good. Of course, not all of them are good for your build (Berserk! as a long blades user? Snooze). If you do happen to get a good one, especially something like Weapon Mastery without having purchased Weapon Expertise, it may just be worth eating up the head slot for. Again, it'll likely skill be conditional as it'll just be a matter of time before you just have the skill points to spend on it anyway and can swap this out for something more meaningful.

Dopamine Synth

This just gives you 2 Willpower. Don't get me wrong, Willpower is great. But is it worth a head slot? Not really. Getting your cooldowns to be a couple turns faster could be beneficial in some niche scenarios, but it's far more likely that something else you can put here will be more useful more often.

Schemasoft [high-tier]

The big pain point of Tinker III is just getting the Intelligence necessary to buy it. With Schemasoft [high-tier], you skip that entirely for a category of equipment. Unfortunately since all Schemasoft cybernetics are destroyed upon removal, we do have to make the most out of this once we have it installed. Therefore, you should hold on to one of these if you find a good one (like armor or utility) until you have the bits to make what you want, and then craft any artifacts you want to have. Uninstall after you're done. Should you just walk around with it installed? Probably not.

Social Coprocessor

This cybernetic does quite a lot. First, you gain an extra 25 reputation for water ritual, just like the Tactful skill (but this stacks with Tactful). It will reduce the amount of reputation you have to pay by 20% for rewards through water ritual (join cost, secret cost, learning skill cost, etc). Finally, you are able to use Proselytize on an additional creature. This cybernetic is designed for pretty much the sole purpose of creating an army. If that's your vibe, then go for it; it'll be pretty good. It's a hefty cost, but definitely worth it as you find yourself surrounded by allies that rip apart the few factions still hostile to you. Personally, I find the army playstyle boring so while I'll be giving this a pass, it can be quite good.

Skillsoft Plus

This cybernetic is in a strange place. You get all the skills from a particular skill tree, but the cost changes depending on which tree that is with the more useful ones costing the most. The problem is that anything useful is probably going to cost 9+ license points, and that's a tough one to slot in for a large portion of the game. Just like the normal skillsoft cybernetics, as true kin we're really not hurting for skill points so you're probably best just leaving this one uninstalled. I will mention, however, that if you get Tinkering as your tree, you can use this in the same way as Schemasoft [high-tier], just better.

Cybernetics - Face Only

Cherubic Visage

If you happen to pick this up before you get something that can go in your face slot, it's only 1 license point for +1 Ego. Not too bad, but since true kin aren't using any mental mutations, 1 Ego is not really impactful. Swap it out once you get something better.

Something to note is that in the late game, many true kin acquire mutations via gamma moths or brain brine. Mental mutations will benefit from Ego and thus this becomes more useful, but if you're capable of this and trying to gain mental mutation ranks, you're just as capable to farm for Eaters' nectar injectors and using a better cybernetic.

Optical Bioscanner

This gives you precise knowledge of the durability of your target; as long as it's biological. This is a cybernetic that becomes less and less useful the more experience you have with the game. It can be handy while you're still learning the game to notify you of a creature out of your league or when a creature is near death, but once you get a few games under your belt you'll be able to know this information without the cybernetic as the health description becomes plenty for you. It has its niche especially with creatures with lots of HP to know if you just need one more attack or should heal, but by that point in the game there are better options you'll likely have to do the same. This cybernetic can also be replicated by the bio-scanning bracelet, so if you get one of those this becomes pretty obsolete as it takes up our face cybernetic.

Optical Technoscanner

Techscanning is typically much more useful than bioscanning because while it only gives us the readout of robots, we also automatically identify all artifacts. This includes artifacts in a merchant's inventory, so it becomes very important for us to make sure we're spending our drams on artifacts we actually want instead of making an educated guess based off the cost and weight of the artifact. Of course, once we get a telemetric visor this no longer becomes useful but in the meantime, it can be pretty darn convenient. There's some better stuff that can go here eventually, but this is pretty good if you've got the slot empty.

Night Vision

The vision granted here is the same as the night-vision goggles, and will have the same effect. Do yourself a favor and turn off the green effect from this, because if you don't this becomes pretty bad since (at least to me) color is a pretty big part of properly identifying enemies or at least identifying enemies quickly. Early on, you're not going to have anything good here and keeping your hands free to use Multiweapon Fighting or two-handed weapon builds is pretty handy since we don't have any options to get more arms until we find the rare helping hands.

This cybernetic provides a massive vision range, but as soon as you have a floating glowsphere the effect is close enough that you can reasonably swap it out with something else for your face slot. This slot tends to be more utility anyways, and this is a pretty decent one. You're likely to eventually swap it out, but it's pretty good in the meantime.

Beautiful Visage

This is similar to cherubic visage, just with an extra 2 license point cost with an extra 1 Ego bonus. The same things apply to cherubic visage, but the costs are greater for an unequal increase in Ego. Unfortunately, Ego just is not good enough to warrant the slot usage.

Custom Visage

300 reputation is really quite good; it's enough to put nearly any faction to neutrality with you; certainly any of the factions that you'd be interested in actively improving faction relations can be made neutral with this cybernetic. Of course, this only remains good while you don't naturally have good reputation with the given faction, which you will eventually want to do. Like other cybernetics that are destroyed upon removal, this is good but you probably don't want it as a permanent installation; just as a holdover until you can gain the reputation naturally or find something you want more.

Holographic Visage

+200 reputation to a faction of your choice at will is a pretty good benefit, but it does come at the cost of being restricted to the competitive face slot. 200 reputation is unfortunately just large enough to sound really good and just small enough to be just not enough for really anything useful on its own. You'll have to have at least a small bump in reputation in order for the rep to be meaningful and often times if you've been careful with your rep by the point you can afford (or even find) the holographic visage, you probably just don't need it. If you've got something in mind, definitely keep it around in case as it 100% has its niche uses but this one probably won't make up your serious loadout.

Optical Multiscanner

This combines both the bioscanner and technoscanner in one with some added benefits. It also includes structural scanning (which, admittedly, you probably will never care about) and most notably it will also detect any staircases on the current zone. If it just combined all the scanning, you might as well just use the optical technoscanner as that's by far the most useful one. However, since this also includes the staircase display, that pushes it over the edge to being worth the cost and the face slot. It's quite expensive, but if you happen to find one it's definitely a great addition to have.

Cybernetics - Body Only

Bionic Heart

We've got +2 Toughness, which will give us bonus hitpoints equal to 2 x Level and since cybernetics boost your base level of stat, this can be used for any skill requirements. If you want that, it can be nice for the skills or for giving a temporary HP buff to get through a scary part of the game for a low HP build but body cybernetics are very competitive, and this one just doesn't meet the standards set by more powerful cybernetics for your more permanent build.

Bionic Liver

It doesn't prevent fungal infections, and the only real place you're going to be getting diseases (if you get any at all) is going to be at Golgotha. It'll also give you immunity to poison, but poison is a very uncommon damage type that just gets less and less common as the game goes on. If you find this pre-Golgotha, it's going to be one of the only cybernetics that you'll even be able to install, but it will likely be worth it for that dungeon. Additionally, the Irisdual Beam of Nephilim is 1 part poison damage, so if you want to try and take as little damage as possible from that then slot this in (there are other ways to negate poison damage without this though). Other than that, body cybernetics are just far too competitive.

Equipment Rack

At the cost of a body cybernetic slot, we gain another back slot. It won't give us another back cybernetic slot, but we can equip another piece of back equipment. If you wear back equipment solely for the armor bonus, most high tier back items that provide these good bonuses also provide other bonuses that you'll benefit from stacking two of.

This goes without saying that if you use back equipment that doesn't provide armor bonuses, you get even more benefit from this cybernetic as you can now use two of them and get even better bonuses. It also synergizes naturally with cybernetics like gun rack and the cathedras which occupy the back slot because it gives you another back slot to use normal back equipment with. However, if you only use back equipment solely for the armor bonus, there are occasions where they don't give that benefit (especially early game back items). In these cases, you're not getting much benefit so use a different cybernetic but definitely hold on to this one.

One particularly powerful use of this cybernetic is using two pairs of helping hands in order to obtain 6 limbs and using all Multiweapon Fighting skills. These robotic hands benefit from this skill tree, and you can quickly become a devastating flurry of weapons.

Matter Recompositor

It'll teleport you to a random explored tile. You don't get to choose which one, and if there are dangerous liquids on the map, you can be teleported there. You can also be teleported to a worse location that your current one, so while it can usually work as a getaway tool, it's not reliable enough to use in all scenarios and has a pretty considerable cooldown.

Magnetic Core

For quite a large portion of the game, this is just not very useful in general. It's only when you get items that you want to magnetize that this starts to improve, like magnetizing psychodine helmets or guns, and these are only going to be happening in the end game. It will also give you access to chiral rings as long as you have gone to Brightsheol. It definitely has some applications, but usually the game is complete by the time you can actually make use of those applications.

Reactive Trauma Plate

This cybernetic will save you from death or from 50% damage once and then be permanently destroyed. This means that you are making yourself weaker for you to eventually be saved from a single hit. The problem is that if you're taking 50% of your HP in a single hit or you're taking lethal damage, saving yourself from that only 1 time likely is not enough. This also will not prevent instant death from sources that ignore HP, like coming into phase in a wall or by drinking neutron flux.

The only legitimate scenario where this will save you is if you are nuked by the alchemist throwing neutron flux at you, by a literal Hand-E-Nuke, or by some other high-damage explosive. These are very rare to begin with, so give this one a pass. There is a niche this cybernetic has with extreme DV builds where it can actually come in handy in saving you from an errant crit, but if your build is that full of holes already you probably have bigger problems than what body slot cybernetic to use.

Biodynamic Power Plant

5,000 units of charge every turn is an absolute immense amount of power to supply to any jacked gear that you have. To put in perspective how much charge this is, rank 10 Electrical Generation will generate 1,000 units of charge every turn before Willpower, and even this is plenty for pretty much any application. If you find this and have Tinker II, your power needs have been solved completely. This cybernetic makes true kin easily able to abuse artifacts and solves the biggest problem with multi energy-gun builds which is the immense amount of power you need to supply them.

The big caveat here is that if you don't have any jacked equipment and/or you don't like Tinkering in general, then this is a literally useless cybernetic. Make sure not to install this prematurely, because while it is good, it's not good in a vacuum and needs the proper Tinkering support.

High-Fidelity Matter Recompositer

The cooldown here is less than the matter recompositer (50 vs 100), has no uncertainty, and doesn't even take an action. This makes it the absolute perfect escape tool, and can have it's cooldown reliably reduced to it's 5 turn minimum with compute power as it will decrease cooldown alongside Willpower. This is an incredible cybernetic, but if you don't get into those scenarios where you need a defensive option to this level then it may not be worth it for you in comparison to cybernetics that increase your offensive power. For those who want a reliable defensive option, this is honestly one of if not the best one in the game.

Cybernetics - Back Only

Phase-adaptive Scope

Shooting through walls is mega cool, although you are giving up the ability to shoot many guns at once. If this was looked at in a vacuum, it'd be pretty good as long as you could pair it with night-sight interpolators or penetrating radar. Without that, you can't really utilize it but you're going to want those anyways. But not only does this cybernetic require assistance from other tools, you're giving up gun rack or a cathedra in order to use this, which are both better in isolation.

This cybernetic does have the capability to hit creatures in any phase, which does have some synergies with shade oil injectors and phase silk cooking. The rough patch is that it doesn't do anything that the phase harmonic / phase conjugate mod don't already do for you. If you don't have those mods and it's integral for your build that you hit things out-of-phase, then this will help.

The rub with this one is if you can get penetrating radar with a healthy amount of compute power, your sight can reach so far that you can snipe down enemies from all over the map without them being able to reach you. If you happen to have that ideal setup, then it's amazing. It's something to hold onto for an "ideal state" build, but until then you've probably got a stronger option.

Gun Rack

The gun rack gives you access to two more ranged weapon slots, which will result typically in you being able to equip 1 more rifle or 2 more pistols, essentially doubling your ranged DPS. You can also synergize this with giant hands in order to be capable of wielding 4 rifles at the same time, and you can increase this further by magnetizing your guns and wielding them in your floating nearby slots. You start to run into diminishing returns when you use up those floating nearby slots, so I'd recommend saving those equipment. This cybernetic comes at the cost of your back equipment slot, but this cybernetic is practically the entire reason why true kin excel in ranged combat builds and you can get some truly terrifying amounts of damage.

Cathedra

Cathedra come in 4 flavors: black opal, sapphire, ruby, and white opal. Sapphire gives you access to an ability similar to Stunning Force, white opal grants a burst of glitter that reflects light-based attacks, ruby generates a heat field like Pyrokinesis, but larger, longer lasting and centered on you, and black opal just teleports you to a random spot in Qud. Ruby and sapphire are by far and away the better activated effects, but all cathedra have the same general effects.

All cathedra give 100 carrying capacity, 100 move speed, 50 HP, 3 Ego, and perfect Flight. The Flight level, 100 turn cooldown and power of the ability are all benefitted from compute power as well. For ruby and sapphire tracery cathedra, just the activated ability is well worth the back equipment slot and the back cybernetic slot, and these general bonuses are just the sugar on top. White and black opal tracery are comparatively not as great and potentially not worth the cost.

The benefit to cathedra is hidden in the movement speed bonus. Movement speed bonuses to true kin are usually much smaller as the only significant cybernetics that provide movement speed are the cathedra and the motorized treads. The motorized treads cause you to be immune to ironshank, but cathedra do not. This allows us to sacrifice 80 movement speed in exchange for 5 AV, which makes cathedra fantastic for both ranged and melee builds since ranged builds can use it to increase their gap while melee builds can use it to increase their durability. Cathedra can also be used in combination with motorized treads to give you extreme levels of movement speed.

Unfortunately for the cathedra, not only are they unbelievably rare, but they are also a permanent decision that requires an extreme amount of license points. If you're at the point in the game where you can afford one or even happen to find one, it can be absolutely fantastic. However, chances are you either don't have one or can't afford it.

Cybernetics - Arm Only

Parabolic Muscular Subroutine

You can throw 2 tiles farther and if you're targeting a square in your throw range, you always hit it. The problem is that the Deft Throwing skill costs 50 skill points and is pretty much the culmination of all you'll ever need for throwing stuff. I'll level with you all, I've genuinely tried and made a powerful effort to make throwing "work". I've gotten the throwing axes and every single time I get frustrated from their jank before I even get through Bethesda Susa. If you're using geomagnetic discs then you never miss anyway so this becomes obsolete.

So in reality, you're just going to use these for grenades and if that's what you're doing, it's an explosive you don't have to be perfectly accurate. There are niche scenarios where precise grenade throwing is handy to have like tossing grenades past enemies to hit multiple or targeting a specific enemy with a stasis grenade or something. If you've got nothing to go into an arm slot, go ahead; it's cheap and you've got 2 arm slots. Otherwise, give it a miss.

Stabilizer Arm Locks

Ranged weapons are very good, the only downside is that they can miss their target. The stabilizer arm locks are actually very effective in keeping your shots on target, practically regardless of your own accuracy. Especially early on when you don't have many cybernetics, this is a great one to have installed and you'll probably keep it in for quite a while. As you get more and more accurate weapons and increase your own accuracy more and more and get more cybernetics you want to have installed, this one will likely fall to the wayside but in the meantime it's quite effective.

Bionic Arm

The difference between the bionic arm and other cybernetics that increase your stats are twofold:

• They don't increase Strength
• They take up a competitive cybernetics slot

Since neither downsides are true for bionic arm, it makes it quite a bit better. Of course, this assumes that Strength is actually important for your build in some way, which may not necessarily be true. If you are rocking a melee build, there actually aren't an extensive repertoire of cybernetics to improve your melee capabilities so this is a fantastic one to add to give your hits a bit more juice. You'll still have another arm slot to add something else, or you can go all-in and use two bionic arms to get a +4 to Strength.

Grafted Mirror Arm

This one is tough to rate properly. It gives an extra throw slot per installation and allows you to throw everything in all throw slots simultaneously. If you're throwing anything, you're probably throwing either a geomagnetic disc or a grenade. If you're throwing a disc, it's pretty good, especially if you're throwing 3 at once. It's not the amazing damage it once was, but respectable ranged damage to many targets (and if morphogenetic, extremely good utility). If your build really struggles with many targets, it's a worthwhile investment. For grenades, anything you throw either risks serious damage to yourself or is just overkill.

Grafted mirror arm seems to be build specifically with another cybernetic in mind; namely the precision force lathe. It takes up yet another cybernetic slot, and the force knives you throw with that cybernetic are only marginally better than the geomagnetic disc and only are single-target.

This one has potential if you're able to build around it and get it off the ground (as well as find enough). However, it needs a lot to be worth it and takes up space for flexible cybernetics like penetrating radar.

Cybernetics - Hands Only

Carbide Hand Bones

Carbide hand bones change your unarmed attacks from doing 1 damage to 2d3 damage, which is a pretty significant improvement. This puts it on par with a one-handed carbide hammer, meaning that it's a very powerful cybernetic to start with especially. Carbide fists act as Cudgels, so you'll want to be sure that you grab up Cudgel skills if you use these. Additionally, you really should only use these if you have a melee-focused build as if you're not attacking in melee, you're missing out on the whole point of the cybernetic. Additionally, if you're at the point in the game where your normal weaponry has outscaled the carbide hand bones, then you're also not getting much from it either. While it won't be amazing forever, it will certainly be good long enough for it to be worth the installment.

While it is at least noteworthy that carbide hand bones have no PV cap, it is unlikely that this will really matter as by the time you can make use of that uncapped PV you should have better weaponry anyways. True kin do not have many great melee cybernetics, so these are a great pickup for melee builds.

Rapid Release Finger Flexors

This cybernetic only applies to Pistols, so if you're a ranged build focused on Pistols like most true kin are naturally geared to be, this is a fantastic option. They stack multiplicatively with Fastest Gun in the Rust which brings you nearly to be twice as fast at shooting Pistols than normal. Add on some extra quickness or fire off Empty the Clips and you become a whirlwind of Pistol shots capable of melting whatever is in front of you, especially so if you have extra gun slots from the gun rack cybernetic.

Of course, if you don't use Pistols then this won't help you. Even if you do use Pistols, unless you use them as your primary source of damage or as a significant source of damage, you may still want to swap this one out for another cybernetic in the hands slot.

Bionic Hands

Agility is good, don't get me wrong. If you have nothing to put in the hands slot, this is actually pretty nice. The problem is that it competes with the likes of rapid release finger flexors, carbide hand bones and giant hands and it just can't compete. +1 to hit and +1 DV just isn't enough to warrant the whole hands slot, especially as the game goes on and these bonuses become far less significant.

Giant Hands

For how early you can get this, it's incredibly good. It allows you to wield any two-handed weapon (melee OR ranged) in a single hand, no matter where that hand may be. This means it combines with helping hands and gun rack naturally as you can wield two-handed melee weapons in all 4 of your hands with helping hands and wield rifles in all hands as well. Since Akimbo shoots all equipped ranged weapons at the same time, that means you can fire all your held rifles at the same time.

Two-handed weapons are just obviously far stronger than one-handed weapons, so being able to wield them in one hand just significantly improves your melee damage. The best part about this cybernetic is that it also does so for your ranged damage. Using giant hands, you can run powerful melee builds usually reserved for mutants like two-handed weapon and offhand Short Blade / offhand Shield or use Multiweapon Fighting with two-handed weapons. Combine with helping hands and you can Flurry 4 two-handed Axes for devastating results, especially if you have a pair of precision nanon fingers or two.

There are some extremely valid builds that don't benefit from this cybernetic at all, however. If your build revolves around Pistols, you gain no benefit from this as you already wield those in one hand. Similarly, if you have low Strength and compensate with vibro weapons, those are all one-handed and this also does you no good. It can be very powerful, just make sure you're actually getting something from it.

Fullerite Hand Bones

The big brother to carbide hand bones, all the same applies to the fullerite hand bones. The only difference is that these do more damage; equivalent to a one-handed fullerite maul (2d4 + 1). They're harder to find, but should you find them and already have carbide hand bones these are a fantastic and much-needed upgrade. If you didn't have a use for carbide hand bones, you likely won't for these either.

Micromanipulator Array

I won't lie to you, there have certainly been scenarios where I have lamented not having this cybernetic. The only reason for that is its ability to let your tinker in combat and that's just because I ran out of grenades. It's other effects are all largely inconsequential, and while I may have wanted to convenience once or twice of being able to craft more grenades to spam at enemies, it's not like I couldn't have just crafted more grenades ahead of time. I was just lazy.

Typically, if you have even average Intelligence you will have no difficulty identifying artifacts, so increasing your chance here is not very meaningful. Having a higher chance to recover bits would be pretty handy early when you're bit hungry, but by the time you get this and have the 5 license points to blow without impacting the rest of your build, you'll probably have all the bits you realistically need. Making this better with compute power is pretty snooze as well. You're just weaker for taking this instead of one of the other great options for hands cybernetics.

Crysteel Hand Bones

Here we arrive at the highest tier of unarmed damage, 3d4 per hit which brings it to be slightly better on average than the |crysteel mace. Unfortunately for this cybernetic, it's double the cost of the prior tier (fullerite hand bones) and there are no further tiers of hand bone while there are further tiers of Cudgels: flawless crysteel and zetachrome. While the raw damage per penetration caps off here, the PV does not. This is where the crysteel hand bones have the potential to outscale conventional weaponry. This does require a significant Strength score and while it can result in some of the highest damage possible in a single hit by a melee weapon, the fact of the matter is that it's just not that necessary.

Additionally, the crysteel hand bones will always be outscaled by the Fist of the Ape God as it will also scale with Strength infinitely and we can one-hand that with giant hands, which leaves us room to wield a Shield or offhand Short Blade and allows us to wield double rifles. By the time we get to the point that Multiweapon Fighting with crysteel hand bones becomes stronger than this combination in terms of melee DPS, we're doing so much damage anyway that it simply doesn't matter anymore.

Additionally, uncapped PV only does so much to help you due to the way the penetration formula works. The simple version is this: If your PV exceeds the enemy AV by 3 or more, more PV does not help you. So that uncapped PV will help on those stupidly high AV enemies, sure, but those enemies are always better beaten in other ways or by using the Penetrating Strikes skill.

If you for some reason have an unbelievably high Strength score to make use of the uncapped PV before you get access to flawless crysteel / zetachrome weaponry / Fist of the Ape God, then this can be a good weapon in the meantime. But once you get there (which should be pretty soon), you can free up the 8 points and cybernetic slot for something else.

Cybernetics - Feet Only

Tibular Hydrojets

It's certainly not a competitive member of the feet cybernetic family, but given how common it is and it's low cost, it can be a useful tool in scenarios where you're not careful about moving through water. In particular, the liquids in Bethesda Susa and especially Golgotha can be make a good bit safer to move through when you don't have your movement slowed down. Mind you, I wouldn't buy this from a merchant but if I found it in an early becoming nook, it'd be a welcome addition for sure.

Anchor Spikes

The main use for this is that it prevents slipping of all kinds and from being moved with Slam. In the Moon Stair update, a lot more creatures now make use of Slam so this is actually pretty nice for later in the game. It will also prevent you from being dragged from Hook and Drag or from madpoles, so it's also great for that.

I'll take a moment and list out some of the less-obvious cases where you would be moved if not for anchor spikes:

• Stunning Force
• Blast cannon (turrets or leering stalker)
• Industrial Fans
• Conveyor Belts
• Force Bubble from another creature

Additionally, anchor spikes will prevent you from being knocked prone which is a major plus for this cybernetic in all tiers of play (even the galgal and Shield Slam knockdown), but especially for Golgotha as you won't have to worry about getting knocked prone in sludge and getting diseased or poisoned or having your gear rust away. The feet slot is very competitive, but if you wish to keep the option of anti-gravity boots, keep around anchor spikes especially if you're not going to be melee focused.

Grounding Shunts

There's not a ton of creatures that actually make use of electric attacks, so if it was a more prevalent damage type perhaps this would be more useful. As it stands now, electric damage is just too rare to warrant a cybernetic slot; especially a feet slot for only 50% resistance. Just hang onto some rubbergum injectors since they give you 100% resistance as well as other effects if you're worried about electric damage.

Hyper-Elastic Ankle Tendons

Yea +6 move speed of all things is... really underwhelming to say the least. It gives you the ability to outrun any creatures eventually as long as they don't have increased quickness or spring-loaded footgear, but by that time you could probably pop Sprint twice. If you have the free slot and points, go ahead but this is the bottom of the barrel for feet cybernetics.

Pentaceps

The fact that this is so cheap and so common is crazy for how amazing it is. Increasing your Charge range just ups your melee threat by a lot as you can so easily close the distance instantaneously from massive distances. Not only is it good practically, it just feels amazing to blitz something from 7 tiles away.

Unfortunately, most true kin are better set up for ranged focused builds, which makes pentaceps not quite a good for non-melee builds. If you run a melee build, this is a strong contender for most of the game. If not, then you can find something better for sure.

Pneumatic Pistons

There is no world where Jump is even half as good as Charge. It doesn't do any damage, it has less reach, costs more, no skills directly improve it and it has a far longer cooldown. Use pentaceps instead unless you're trying to use Jump to get away.

Ultra-Elastic Ankle Tendons

The advanced version of hyper-elastic ankle tendons and we get... +4 more movespeed for a total of +10. This change is not even a meaningful one, and the lower tier version was already super bad. Get something else.

Motorized Treads

I will say one thing that needs to be talked about more about this cybernetic is that while it is good; it's very good, it's not without significant trade off. We gain +150 movespeed, which is massive and we get a large bonus on quite a few types of saves, including saves vs prone which is also huge. With it and especially with a ranged build, we become very maneuverable and slippery. It also protects us from being run down by templar that also have this cybernetic.

Now, about the cost. This is a permanent change, so you need to be sure of your build before you install this. You lose the ability to wear normal footgear and can instead only wear tread guards, which can result in 2 maximum AV granted when both treads are worn and no chance to improve DV. These are also quite rare to find, and most of the time I've actually had to craft them before I could find a single one. While these can be modded, none of the applicable mods give statistics except for refractive which is not as impressive as spring-loaded and fitted with cleats. To be fair, we already get those benefits from motorized treads anyway, but the point being here is that we're not getting much more than the bonus movespeed from this cybernetic in the grand scheme of things.

For that movement speed, we have a maximum possible AV bonus of 2 compared to the zetachrome pumps which give 4 AV. This isn't as significant a cost as a true kin, as we can use sphynx salt injector Precognition in order to consume neutron flux safely and get our AV up that way, but we're still going to be slightly behind in AV in full gear compared to a true kin that does not get the motorized treads. To be clear, this trade off is still usually worth it, especially for ranged builds.

The trade offs unfortunately don't end there. We are also prevented from wearing anti-gravity boots, which means our only chance for perfect Flight as a true kin is relegated to the ultra-rare and very costly cathedra. Flight is an extremely powerful ability, but it becomes significantly less powerful when the chance to fall is present, like in the non-footgear Flight options.

The final trade off is that if we get improved movement speed in another way and want to sacrifice 80 movespeed for the 5 AV of ironshank, well we actually can no longer contract ironshank. Motorized treads completely removes your legs, and if you have no legs you can't actually contract ironshank. In some cases, this is good but if we wanted that trade we actually can no longer make it once we install motorized treads.

All-in-all, it still tends to be worth it to make the installation, especially as mentioned before if you are a ranged build. For melee builds, it will be less worthwhile as you'll probably hunger for those AV bonuses you're missing out on and you can compensate for being slower quite easily by equipping pentaceps instead.

Cybernetics - Flexible Slot

Air Current Microsensor

Always knowing where the stairs are is really quite nice for exploring zones a bit faster. Long-term, you're definitely not keeping this in the body slot so it starts to compete with head slot cybernetics. This essentially means if you're not using a flexible cybernetic in the head slot and you're not using reactive cranial plating or inflatable axons, this can be a good pick.

Skin Glitter

16% chance to refract light-based attacks. Let's go down the list of sources of light-based attacks:

• Light Manipulation
• Light rail
• Hand rail
• Laser pistol
• Laser rifle

Pick something else.

Translucent Skin

It's remarkable this costs the same amount as skin glitter. Anyways, +2 DV is really nice especially with how early you can get this. Add on to the fact that most worthwhile body and back slot cybernetics are higher tier and / or more rare, and it's pretty likely you'll have the open slot for this. It doesn't keep stacking up to the high tiers indefinitely as DV becomes less and less appealing, but it's a good cybernetic for a large portion of the game.

Transparent Skin

For 1 more license point we get 1 more DV. It's otherwise the same as translucent skin and everything that I said above applies here, only with the added caveat that if you have translucent skin and happen to find this before something better it's a pretty easy choice to make the upgrade.

Medassist Module

The medassist module isn't quite as good as some of the other options in the available slots, but this is assuming that you're on top of your build and your tonics. The AI around the tonics isn't that great, and if you know your build well situations like automatically popping a salve at 50% HP can just be completely unnecessary. The reduced cost of applying injectors is quite nice if you've really flubbed combat, but the problem with this one is the better you get at the game the less scenarios this even becomes useful in.

If you're still learning the game and constantly die with injectors available, this can be a great tool to keep your runs going and will also cover for situations where you get locked down with stun or sleep and can't apply any healing until it's too late. Once you get more comfortable with the game, you'll find less and less use for this and will swap it to something that makes you more powerful.

Dermal Insulation

A 6% reduction in heat, cold, electric and acid damage is actually very negligible. Especially considering what you're giving up in order to install this, you won't notice the difference that this makes. Most sources of this kind of damage do maximum around 20 damage, so this is giving us 1.2 damage of resistance.

Fire Suppression System

It's pretty rare that you'll ever catch fire outside of very specific areas of the map, and if you're really worried about it you might as well just carry a bit of gel yourself and soak yourself ahead of time rather than install this cybernetic as you can get some better stuff for sure. However, if you've got nothing else then why not.

Dermal Plating

This will give us 1 AV, and while that is a little boring for a cybernetic it nonetheless is pretty handy to have. As the game continues and single points of AV become less and less significant, we'll want to replace this with more impactful options but it'll be handy in the meantime before we get some better options.

High-Grade Dermal Insulation

For 1 more license point, we only gain 3 more resistance than normal dermal insulation. Again, most creatures do about maximum 20 elemental damage, which results in a resistance of about 1.8 damage. An extra .6 damage resistance, we're still skipping out on this one.

Palladium Electrodeposits

Palladium electrodeposits grant 20 units of compute power, and you can install multiple instances of this cybernetic in the applicable slots for another 20 units. If you were to install palladium electrodeposits in all 5 applicable slots, you'd end up with 100 units of compute power.

Now, what improves with compute power? Since cybernetics are not that easy to swap out on a whim, we're interested in including them as part of our build. Here are the relevant cybernetics and items that you'll likely be interested in improving:

• Cathedra
• High-fidelity matter recompositer
• Inflatable axons
• Penetrating radar
• Point-defense drone

Each palladium electrodeposits will improve these by 20%. None of these items or cybernetics are really so good that we would want to give up one or more cybernetic slots in order to improve them this small amount. If you happen to have one and you also have a free slot for the palladium electrodeposits, it's worth installing just for the bonus. If not, you should be able to find something better.

Precision Force Lathe

This cybernetic replaces any empty hand and thrown weapon slots with force knives, which are vibro weapons with a d8 damage die. It can slot into the head slot, which is basically dominated by reactive cranial plating and inflatable axons so if you're not finding those useful there's a place for this. The problem is what you get; the force knives are just outpaced by other equipment.

The melee attack is outpaced by the ceremonial vibrokhopesh and the thrown attack is outpaced by the geomagnetic disc. However, these are fairly rare items to find, especially in bulk. If you're able to find this cybernetic early and a grafted mirror arm or two, this cybernetic can definitely be worth your while if you're going with a Short Blades build. It's fun and thematic, but when it comes to the numbers it's a lot to give up for not enough.

Navigation System

This is essentially a compass bracelet with a 30% chance to not get lost in ruins on top. It frees up your arm equipment slot and you likely have more to put there than you do cybernetics to install, so it's a nice early option. It's very flexible, so you probably have one applicable slot for it to go into. It's not going to be a part of your end build, but in the meantime it's pretty convenient.

Stasis Projector

Due to the flexibility of this cybernetic, you can usually slot it in without too much issue. The 6 generated stasis fields only last for 5 rounds, but because we have control over where we place these fields, we can use it as a pretty good defensive tool in order to escape from enemies or even as an offensive tool to hold enemies in place for us to catch up to them. We can also use this in order to level the playing field for a few rounds if we're facing multiple enemies.

While this cybernetic isn't the best defensive tool available, it's one of the best in such a flexible position. Depending on your needs in this area, you may skip this cybernetic for more power; especially if you have defensive tools already like the high-fidelity matter recompositer.

Penetrating Radar

The penetrating radar is truly the pinnacle of vision tools in Qud. We get a perfect view of every tile within a radius, even through normal obstructions. Because of this, the penetrating radar fits very well as a face slot cybernetic, given that many cybernetics that can only slot into the face are not as interesting or useful as the penetrating radar.

The best part of this cybernetic though is its flexibility. There are so many places to slot in this cybernetic you will surely find a way to fit this cybernetic into your build.

Electromagnetic Sensor

It's pretty rare that robots appear early, and the robots that do appear early can vary greatly. It's one real use is really just to see if there's a turret behind a wall, and for that it does a decent job.

Since this is such a flexible cybernetic and it only costs 1 license point, it can be handy to have in very early in the game. The moment that robots become a common occurrence this becomes more annoying than useful and will likely be uninstalled.

Force Modulator

In most cases where this is applicable, this is actually very handy. It also makes you essentially immune to stasis fields, so can even be used in combination with the stasis projector cybernetic to put stasis fields on yourself for more escape opportunities. It also is very convenient to ensure you don't get trapped against creatures who are capable of generating forcefields around you such as creatures with the Force Wall mutation.

While in most cases going through forcefields is preferable, it's not always preferable to do so. In particular, against creatures with Force Bubble like the chrome pyramid, you may actually want to be pushed by the bubble instead of going through it to prevent the creature from actually getting within melee range of you.

Whether you want to go through forcefields or not, being required to even make one of these decisions at all is fairly rare as not very many creatures are capable of generating forcefields. Because of this, unless you anticipate needing this capability, you'll likely keep this uninstalled but holding onto this mutation for cases where you need it it a generally good idea.

Communications Interlock

Perhaps it's just because I've done a lot of mutant runs where rebuking robots isn't an option, but I've never found this ability particularly inspiring in general. It can be handy if you need a way to escape from specifically robots, but we're giving up a whole cybernetic slot just to make this ability a bit better. It does have the benefit of being very flexible, but you definitely would just rather use a defensive tool that works on all creatures and not just robots.

Phase Harmonic Modulator

Conceptually, this is really cool. Practically, the only creature that you'll reasonably encounter that is phased will be the astral tabby and that's always phased and can't hit you normally. For you min-maxers that like to collect mutations on true kin, even if you get Phasing from a gamma moth or from cooking you won't want this cybernetic because it results in creatures also being able to interact with you as well. Since phase is a non-issue in the normal game, this is just not a useful cybernetic to install.

Anomaly Fumigator

Normality gas can be kinda handy in some circumstances, but if you really need to puff out some normality you're going to be better suited to just using a normality grenade. You have the added benefit of not necessarily inflicting yourself with normality with the grenade, or you could use a weapon with the nulling mod on it. If you don't have either of these options for Bethesda Susa and want a solution for twinning lampreys, then sure go for it. Otherwise, you can find something more worthwhile.

Intravenous Port

The problem with tonics is that the buff they give you is not useful enough for how short they last. Doubling this is unfortunately not enough to really save it for most of the tonics. Even the salve injector usually is enough on its own to heal you to full even from very critical health.

The one place where this can be quite handy is with sphynx salt injectors as getting double the duration on your Precognition is quite good if you're trying to do some cheesy strats around things like gamma moths and RNG manipulation. Otherwise for normal, more intended uses around Precognition the default duration is sufficient. It may be handy to have a copy of this, but as a permanent member of your cybernetics build you should be able to find something more useful.

Security Interlock

This is just the less-useful half of Psychometry. This is really only useful in Grit Gate, so if you have a pickaxe and patience or have already unlocked all the doors in Grit Gate, this really won't be of any use. Use it once to unlock Grit Gate doors and then uninstall.

Onboard Recoiler

This cybernetic functions as a reprogrammable recoiler that doesn't consume any charge. This makes it pretty handy as long as you have the space for the cybernetic. If you have the space in your build, this is super nice. If you don't, it's probably not worth sacrificing combat power for. If you have sufficient power cells and the capability of making reprogrammable recoilers or just have a reprogrammable recoiler in general, then this is also not really useful.