[A16] [WIP] Cybernetic Pets - v0.1

[TolSatha]

Note: I'm looking for artists to help me get this mod to a higher standard. If you have any artistic skills and like the idea, please either PM me or leave a reply in the thread.

Cybernetic Pets

Version: 0.1 (13.2.17)

What is this?

The mod allows you to surgically extract the brain of tamed animals and transplant them into robotic bodies.
This can be done either for the purpose of combat or in situations where you have a maimed animal which you don't want to put down.
At the moment, the mod is barebones and contains only the core transplant functionality with 1 robotic body.



How does it work?

• Craft an Empty Brain Jar on the machining table, which serves as temporary storage and life-support for a brain.
• Perform an Extract Brain surgery on any tamed vanilla animal. This will leave you with a new "pet", which is a brain in a jar (immobile, fragile, unconscious).
• Craft a Cyber Warg Body on the machining table.
• Perform an Implant into Cyber Warg surgery on the brain.
• Wait for the anesthetic to wear out.

That's it! Your beloved pet is now officially badass!
All attributes and stats that are related to the brain/intelligence will be kept throughout the entire process.
Any social relations (bonds) that the animal had will be kept, as well as it's trainable intelligence and any skills that it has trained so far.
Extracting the brain will also yield the dead body of the animal (with Brain: Removed), for a bit of extra food.
Crafting the brain jar and cybernetic body at the moment requires no research, and only costs a bit of steel and plasteel.

Note that this mod is barely started and still lacks a lot of fundamental features. I'm only publishing it here to get some feedback, ideas and hopefully some artistic help.
Cybernetic pets are still unfinished. They have custom bodies and body parts, but just like regular animals they eat food, sleep, and are healed with medicine.

Known Bugs

• If an animal has a brain implant (from other mods), then the "Extract Brain" surgery won't show up on the list
• If the brain-in-a-jar is spawned using the debug tools, it will be awake and move around (spooky)

In order to "transform" one pawn type into another, I'm tampering with things which probably shouldn't be tampered with.
Because of this, there is almost certainly a myriad of serious bugs which I've missed. Please, leave a reply if you encounter any.

The mod shouldn't have issues with older saves. Again - if you encounter any, please leave a reply along with any error messages you get.

Potential Future Features

• Research requirement (for balance purposes)
• Several tiers of role-specific bodies (melee combat, ranged combat, hauling..)
• A "Power" system with charging stations, replacing the need for food
• Paralysis during solar flares, vulnerability to EMP type weapons
• Additional craftable upgrades for robotic bodies
• Robotic bodies capable of construction, plantwork.. (?)

Download

https://www.dropbox.com/s/01s87fq0mxsusra/CyberPets.zip?dl=0

[ChromeMax]

Have you considered a collaboration effort with the creator of a dog said to use his bionic animal limbs, organs, etc. in your "bionic warg"? And by the way, wargs aren't the only badass animals in the game. I would much rather prefer a bionic bear or even a rhino, but neither of those would even come close to the absolute monstrosity that a bionic thurumbo that only consumes electricity would be worth.

[Smexy_Vampire]

my mgr:r blade wolf can come to life soon!

[TolSatha]

Have you considered a collaboration effort with the creator of a dog said to use his bionic animal limbs, organs, etc. in your "bionic warg"?

Hasn't really occurred to me, but I guess it's a possibility.
I'm trying to keep this mod as simple as possible, without tacking on too much stuff that people may not like, so it'd be best if it was free of any dependencies.
I haven't really decided where I want to take this - that's part of the reason why I made this thread.
If people like the idea, I'll probably build up some compatibility with A Dog Said, alongside a standalone version.

And by the way, wargs aren't the only badass animals in the game. I would much rather prefer a bionic bear or even a rhino, but neither of those would even come close to the absolute monstrosity that a bionic thurumbo that only consumes electricity would be worth.

Oh I know, I know. I just needed something to test the core mechanics.
Long term I intend having several different bodies for each role - probably split up by some kind of specialization.
I.e. - for melee you could have Raptors which are fast but soft, bears which are slower but tankier, and wargs being somewhere in the middle, with maybe a fourth kind that incapacitates the enemy instead of killing - stuff like that.
Or I could just split them up into tiers that each need to be researched, but then you'd have no reason to build the weaker ones in late game, which is a waste of content.

[Tgr]

does... this mean you can extract an animal's brain from its body, put it in a cyber warg, then feed the cyber warg its old body?

sick

[TolSatha]

does... this mean you can extract an animal's brain from its body, put it in a cyber warg, then feed the cyber warg its old body?

sick

Uh... yeah... I suppose that's possible... if you're into that sort of thing... 

[Smexy_Vampire]

extra bodys and other mod intgration is secondary keep working on the core mod please

[Dragoon]

ptf

[Lennbolt7]

Nice! Hope to see more from this in the future.

[cap75]

How do i repair it? Also mods? Scyther blades?

Sounds awesome.

However it can cause a lot of balance issues, pigs/dogs are very easy to train and breed very fast.

[Techgenius]

OH MY GOD ARE YOU FOR REAL? THEY'RE AWESOME GREAT IDEA THE BEST IDEA EVER OH... BLESSYOUIMLOSINGCONTROLPLEASE HALP

Keeping track alright, very interested on what types of mechanical/cybernetic critters you can come up with, may I make a very obvious suggestion? Cyberdogs. Yes, fallout new vegas like tho. It might inspire you.

References:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cyberdog

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cyberdog_(Fallout:_New_Vegas)







See the Brain receptable? they also still retain some limbs, but thats impossible right? because you're ridding it of ole good old body

[Smexy_Vampire]

OH MY GOD ARE YOU FOR REAL? THEY'RE AWESOME GREAT IDEA THE BEST IDEA EVER OH... BLESSYOUIMLOSINGCONTROLPLEASE HALP

Keeping track alright, very interested on what types of mechanical/cybernetic critters you can come up with, may I make a very obvious suggestion? Cyberdogs. Yes, fallout new vegas like tho. It might inspire you.

References:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cyberdog

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cyberdog_(Fallout:_New_Vegas)







See the Brain receptable? they also still retain some limbs, but thats impossible right? because you're ridding it of ole good old body

get out of here with your infiror binonic dogo dogmeat is not the king binonic Dog BLADE WOLF IS   jk i'm just playing i just want this mod so bad

[TolSatha]

See the Brain receptable? they also still retain some limbs, but thats impossible right? because you're ridding it of ole good old body

Inferior flesh weakling! 
It's not "impossible" - technically speaking it could be made pretty easily, but I just don't feel like it fits into what I'm trying to do here, especially with the stuff planned for later on like repairing damage and the power system.

How do i repair it? Also mods? Scyther blades?

Sounds awesome.

However it can cause a lot of balance issues, pigs/dogs are very easy to train and breed very fast.

At the moment it's just a reskin, so you still just heal it with medicine. Will do something about this in the future.
Minor damage will probably just be repaired at no cost (just like damage to other object), while replacing destroyed parts may cost a few components or something.

There will be additional modules / upgrades that can be crafted and installed via the "surgery" system. That's pretty easy to do but I've still got a lot of basic stuff missing which need attention first.

And yes, I've been thinking about how to balance this properly. At the moment they are still a drain on your food supply, so that limits it.
Later on I'll probably switch it to some kind of a power system, where they have internal batteries and have to recharge every once in a while. Then the limit would be your power production I guess.
If you have other ideas I'd love to hear them, because making this balanced is probably going to be a pain. As you said, there's little stopping you from breeding dozens of dogs and then turning them all into a robotic army.

[Techgenius]

FONV cyberdogs also use a power source, but it think its nuclear. Unsure though.

C'mon guys? they are good looking! aaah... alright, lets go the Warhammer fullmetal route:







Also, a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIAI6XsMjag
Da cybah mastifs


Idk, something about cyber dogs make them quite awesome

[TolSatha]

Tiny update just to swap the placeholders.

• Updated textures for the Brain Jar
• Added textures for unfinished Brain Jar and unfinished Cyber Warg body
• Reworked the Cyber Warg body with actual cybernetic body parts
• Balanced Cyber Warg combat stats
• Balanced temperature tolerance for both the Brain Jar and Cyber Warg
• Fixed a few minor issues with inheriting stats on extract/implant surgeries

Here's the new textures. Not the highest quality but it's the best I can do until I find an artist.