Implants and cyberpsychosis

In Night City chrome is put in by ripperdocs. An implant gives your body what an ordinary one lacks: a scanner in your eyes, a double jump, a second heart. But every implant puts a load on your mind, wears out and costs money to service, and too much chrome leads to cyberpsychosis. Everything implants do is worked out by the server, the same for everyone.

#The ripperdoc clinic

• Where. At any of the 16 ripperdoc clinics walk up to the ripperdoc and press E: the “Ripperdoc Clinic” opens. Where the clinics are: see Places on the map.
• What's in it. On the left “Your body” by its systems: the eyes, the frontal cortex, the circulatory and nervous systems, the skin, the skeleton, the legs and the operating system. On the right “The clinic's implants” with their prices and “Your implants” with their wear. At the top the “Cyberware Capacity” and “The psyche's load”.
• The ripper's goods. The “The ripper's goods” button opens the old counter: medicine, the “Immunoblocker” and the cyberdeck. The cyberdeck can be bought straight from the clinic too: its “Cyberdeck” row, “Buy”.
• Paying. Cash first, the rest from your bank card. If the clinic has an owner, the owner sets the price, as in any business.

#How to get an implant

• Taking one out works at any clinic: “Uninstall”. Half its price comes back to your bank account, or half of what you paid if you paid less. Putting it in again costs the full price.
• One implant of each kind. Implants can't be handed over, sold or lost: they're in your body, not in your pockets.

#The implants

“Cells” here are how much of the “Cyberware Capacity” an implant takes, the “Load” how much it adds to the load on your mind, and “From level” the character level it's put in from.

#What each one gives

• Kiroshi Optics (eyes). A scanner that works with a look: the name, NCPD wanted level, chrome and signs of cyberpsychosis of a person within 30 m, and O refreshes the scan. An officer with it finds a “Subdermal Pocket”.
• Biomonitor (circulatory system). When you're knocked out, it calls Trauma Team by itself and says where you are.
• Blood Pump (circulatory system). Medkits and bandages heal 20% more, but only out of a fight.
• Second Heart (circulatory system). After an accident (a fall, fire, a crash, hunger, an overdose) it gets you up with 25 health in 20 seconds. It works once in 120 minutes and never after someone else's harm or in a fight.
• Metabolic Editor (frontal cortex). Hunger and thirst come 20% slower.
• Pain Editor (nervous system). Falls hurt 30% less (a deadly fall stays deadly), and hunger and thirst take half as much health.
• Microgenerator (nervous system). After an EMP grenade the implants come back on in 8 seconds, not 20.
• Subdermal Armor (skin). Shots, blows, blasts and cars hurt 6% less, and a hit of 25 damage or more goes through whole. The only combat implant.
• Fireproof Coating (skin). Fire hurts half as much.
• Subdermal Pocket (skin). Illegal, put in only by back-alley clinics. It hides up to 400 g of drugs and contraband from a frisk.
• Titanium Bones (skeleton). You can carry 8 kg more.
• Reinforced Tendons (legs). A double jump. It's off for 30 seconds after any hit, yours or on you.
• Chrome Compressor (operating system). 4 more cells of “Cyberware Capacity” and the heaviest load on the mind.

#Prices and fights

• The city's prices. At a clinic with an owner the price may differ: the implant's card shows it before you buy.
• Implants don't make you stronger in a gunfight. None adds damage, rate of fire, range or speed, lets you see through walls, helps you aim or heals you in a fight. The “Subdermal Armor” takes off only 6% of the damage, and a strong hit goes through whole.
• In a fight. The “Blood Pump” works only out of a fight, the double jump of the “Reinforced Tendons” turns off for 30 seconds after a hit (“In a fight: double jump off”), and the “Second Heart” won't get you up after someone else's harm.

#The Kiroshi scanner

• The scanner works with a look, no key needed. Look at a person within 30 m, and in under half a second a “SCAN · KIROSHI” card appears to the right of the screen's center. While the server answers, it says “Reading data…”.
• It shows the name as you know them (a stranger stays a stranger), the NCPD wanted level (“Not wanted” or “Wanted by the NCPD”), chrome (“No chrome”, “Light chrome”, “Medium chrome” or “Heavy chrome”) and “Signs of cyberpsychosis” if the person's risk is high.
• Look away and the card fades. O refreshes the scan of the one you're looking at, but a new scan comes no more than once every 3 seconds. Looking at nobody, O reminds you: “To scan a person, look at them (up to 30 m)”.
• The scanner doesn't work without the Kiroshi Optics, in menus and the phone, while unconscious, in handcuffs, while you fly a drone, at the wheel and while aiming down the sights.

#The cyberware capacity

• Cells. Each implant takes cells of the “Cyberware Capacity”. A level 1 character has 6, every level up to the 10th adds 2 more, 24 at level 10. The “Chrome Compressor” adds 4 more.
• Not everything at once. All 13 implants together take 38 cells, so everyone has to choose. About levels: The character and the name.

#Wear and service

• Wear. An implant wears out while you're in the game: from 0 to 100% over 30 hours of play. Time away from the keyboard doesn't count.
• Half strength. From 80% wear an implant works at half strength (“Worn: half strength”) and loads your mind one and a half times as much. At 100% it fails: “Worn out: off”.
• Service. Any ripperdoc services implants: “Service all for ...”. It's needed from 5% wear and costs up to 4% of the implant's price, depending on how worn it is.
• A reminder. When an implant is worn down to half strength or has failed, a “Needs a service” chip glows over the “Biomonitor”.

#When implants go quiet

Implants don't work:

• in cuffs and in prison;
• while you're knocked out, except the “Biomonitor” and the “Second Heart”: that's what they're for;
• for 20 seconds after an EMP grenade: “EMP: implants out” (8 seconds with the “Microgenerator”);
• during a cyberpsychosis episode and for 10 minutes after it: “Overloaded after the episode”;
• once the wear has reached 100%.

#Cyberpsychosis

#The load on the mind

• Safe up to 35. Each implant has a load of its own (see the table), and together they make “The psyche's load”.
• Above 35 the risk of an episode grows while you're in the game: by 1% an hour for every point of load over 35. Under 35 the risk eases by 10% an hour.
• A worn implant loads your mind one and a half times as much.

#Warnings

• At 50, 75 and 90% risk warnings come, and at 75% also a text from the “Ripperdoc Clinic”. A risk over 50% shows on a “Risk of an episode N%” chip over the “Biomonitor”.
• At 100% the banner “THE EPISODE IS COMING”: “An episode of cyberpsychosis in 10:00 of play”. The countdown runs only in the game, and an immunoblocker or a check-up at a ripperdoc stops it.
• Not everywhere. In a green zone, in a car, in cuffs, in prison and while carried an episode won't start: it waits until you're out.

#The episode

• 2 minutes. A “CYBERPSYCHOSIS EPISODE” banner and interference on screen: “You are losing control. Play the episode out: voices, paranoia, rage.”
• It's role-play, not a licence to attack. The server's rules stand during an episode too: nobody attacks anyone without a role-play reason.
• Others see it. Everyone within 60 m sees a red “CYBERPSYCHO” over your name and an “A cyberpsycho nearby” card, and the police on duty get a 911 call from “Witnesses”.
• How it ends. Cuffs, an EMP grenade, a shot from a Trauma Team medic on duty (“Calm down” in the G menu), being knocked out or leaving the game stop the episode. Otherwise it ends by itself after 2 minutes.
• After. The risk becomes 40%, and the implants don't work for 10 minutes.

#Bringing the risk down

• The “Immunoblocker” is sold by every ripperdoc among “The ripper's goods” for 2,500 €$. Take it from the inventory, “Use”: the risk drops by 30% at once and doesn't grow for 90 minutes.
• A “Check-up” at a clinic for 6,000 €$ takes the risk of an episode away completely.
• Less chrome. Take out heavy implants: less load, less risk.

#Back-alley clinics

• The black market. Fingers M.D. in Japantown and three ripperdocs in Dogtown: by the Longshore Stacks, at the Stadium and Farida's. Their clinic is marked “Black market”: “This clinic also puts in what the police don't like.”
• The “Subdermal Pocket” is put in only there. It hides up to 400 g of drugs and contraband from a police frisk, but an officer with the “Kiroshi Optics” will find it, and then everything in it is seized.
• The other implants are legal wherever they were put in.

#The police and medics

• A call about an episode reaches the police on duty with its place, like an ordinary 911 call.
• A Trauma Team medic on duty sedates someone having an episode: G on them, “Calm down”.
• The “Biomonitor” calls Trauma Team by itself while you're knocked out: the medics on shift see the call with its place at once.