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# System prepended metadata

title: 'Coolant: A cyborg, mech, modsuit expansion'

---

# Coolant: A cyborg, mech, modsuit expansion

What is coolant? it's an expansion of the above three mechanics in the game, meant to deepen somewhat bland dynamics of legacy or bare features.

Coolant isn't 'necessary' to function, strictly speaking. Any coolant user can survive entirely out of the coldness of the vacuum of space. However, in warmer environments, coolant is very much obligatory for continued function.

It is perfectly possible to operate in intense environments as a cyborg, especially if engineering or with an upgrade, but as coolant winds down from damage it might cause issues?

Coolant isn't just one reagent. It's *any* reagent, sufficiently cooled, heat-capacityed and stable. Cryostylane, Rhigox, ice, frozen plasma, and many others are possible sources of 'upgraded' coolant, including the possibility of mix&matching., with each reagent having possible downsides. The default coolant is an unique reagent, an 'industrial coolant' with a tank of it at roundstart robotics and AI sat, alongside being purchasable from cargo.

Mechs also have it, though the effect is reduced, and syndicate mechs are very very resistant.

Modsuits are where the magic happens. The coolant keeps the core cold, which takes the place of some of the cooldown, allowing one to overheat their suit in times of need. Doing so will damage the core, which as we know is actually an ethereal heart, which needs to be kept stable to pump electricity.

Alongside this system, there comes another: Integrity. To combat the issue of wounding through suits, integrity blocks wounding through modsuits, taking integrity damage in the process. After a certain amount of integrity damage, depending on the suit, wounds can pierce through, and after another threshold, the suit isn't spaceworthy. Instead of wounds, the Modsuit itself will receive them. Here's some examples:

Blunt:
- Twisted hydraulics
  - Randomly increased/reduced speed on limbs. Mostly reduced.
  - Fixed by wrenching the affected part.
- Desynchronized Limb
  - Limb becomes incapacitated as the modsuit's part stops responding.
  - Fixed by deactivating, or screwing and multitooling.
- Shattered Plating
  - Suit slowly stops being spaceproof.
  - Fixed with metal and a welder. Maybe plasteel.

Slash
- Torn tubing
  - Coolant starts leaking into the floor, increasing core temperature.
  - Can be fixed quickly with a welder at the cost of increasing heat, or slowly with ???
- Faulty Motors
  - Randomly activates limb relevant modules. Minor coolant leak.
- Embedded Coolant
  - A coolant tube has embedded itself into your skin!
  - Needless to say, this is really bad. The coolant will do whatever the reagent does to you, which by default is going to be toxin alongside lowering your body temperature.
  - Can be torn right off with some brute damage to turn into Faulty Motors or carefully tweezed off with Wirecutters/hemostat to turn into Torn tubing.

Pierce
- Thrashed Wiring
  - Suit cannot be removed until this is fixed, which takes cable coil and wirecutters. Slowly leak coolant.
- Unhooked Module
  - One random limb-relevant module will drop from the MODsuit in 30 seconds to 1 minute unless the hole is cabled and welded.
- Tension Disruption
  - Chest only.
  - Your core is unlinked from coolant entirely. Either turn it off or explode!

Burn
- Melted Wiring
  - As you leave this wound untreated, the chances get higher that any module you trigger triggers something else.
- Sparking Combustion
  - You get ignited randomly!

Misc
- Catastrophic Core Event
  - Due to a terminally unfortunate impact, your heart itself and the core's, uh, 'biological power source' have swapped places.
  - Both you and the MODsuit still work, but the MODsuit will lose 3x as much power over time and be unable to reboot when powered down.
  - Good side is you have a cool resurrection heart now!


> Okay nice ideas and all but what's the point? This is just more garbage overcomplicating on a system that most people already dislike due to said complexity. It doesn't even give anything in turn.

Y- Uh.. you know, the... One thing I should... excuse me for one second.

### The benefits


Weeell, that was wonderful. A good argument was had, but I hope you're ready for some mouth watering benefits.

1. It makes you feel like batman
Having clunky effects like this makes you more likely to actually feel like you're in something that's in between a mech and a spacesuit.
2. It protects you from wounding!
As integrity goes down, faults accumulate, but you don't stand risk of getting wounded until your suit is very badly damaged. Most of the effects are in the end not life critical, which is quite a large boon over bleeding to death or limping.
3. It helps balance modsuits with armor
Somehow, i kinda forgot why.
