Idle thought while messing around in the basement workshop: a cyberhand mounting a set of dedicated measuring tools. This is inspired by the concept of a cybernetic tool hand (Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk Red) and by Adam Savage’s measuring tattoo.
A measuring cyberhand (or metrology hand for the highbrow ‘punk), as the name suggests, is equipped with an array of sensors and tools:
- The thumb and forefinger function as calipers, with retractable articulated jaws at the tips for particularly small or inner-distance measurements.
- The middle and ring fingers mount retractable probes for a multimeter.
- The little finger contains an infrared thermometer and a low-powered infrared laser rangefinder/tape measure, with both devices emitting through a dual-lensed aperture in the fingertip.
- The palm contains a digital inclinometer, enabling measurement of a surface’s angle when the hand is placed flat and palm-down on it.
- The hand can measure a held object’s weight, using pressure sensors in the palm for small items and strain gauges in the joints for larger or heavier objects.
All data can be displayed in a digital readout on the back of the hand or sent to a cyberoptic.
Cyberpunk 2020: negligible surgery (assuming mounting to a cyberarm); cost 300eb; Humanity loss 3.
Cyberpunk Red: install at clinic; cost 500eb (expensive); Humanity loss 3 (1d6).
Shadowrun 1e/2e/3e: This is a modification to an existing cyberhand. Due to the internal volume consumed by the various sensors, no other modifications can be installed in this hand. Cost ¥1,200; no Essence loss. The optional metrology datalink (data routed to any other cyberware for display or storage) costs ¥300 and costs 0.1 Essence. A measuring cyberhand is legal with Street Index 1.5 and Availability 3/24 hours.
If using the concealment and equipment capacity rules from SR3’s Man and Machine (p. 35), a measuring cyberhand has an ECU of 0.9 and a concealment modifier of -4. The metrology datalink adds 0.1 ECU. If, at the time of installation, the user chooses to omit the digital data readout and rely entirely on the metrology datalink to receive results, this reduces the concealment modifier to -2.