Cyberware
Cyberware (chrome) is a roster of implantable robotic organs sold at the Chop Shop, the neon-lit parlor off the Dregs cantina at the Undertow Exchange. Every piece does something no printed equipment does, from seeing in the dark to a deployable pair of hardlight blades, and every piece costs neural load against a fixed capacity, so a build is a budget rather than a shopping spree. Street chrome sells for credits; the good stuff wants vouchers.
The Chop Shop
Splice runs the parlor from behind counter glass. Click them for the shop, sorted into Street, Pro, Military and Legend tabs plus an ammunition shelf. Bought chrome lands in your hands as an organ, which does nothing until it is installed.
Installation is the Chrome Cradle, the salvaged operating slab in the middle of the parlor, the only one in the galaxy. Drag yourself onto it and its console opens, showing your neural load, every piece of chrome within reach (installed, carried, or in the parts tray), and a projection of what any swap would cost and evict. Hit Install and the rig sedates you and does the work in seconds. Only you can ever order work on your own body, and only while conscious and unrestrained. Nobody can be strapped to the slab and carved for their chrome. Evicted and removed pieces wait in the parts tray, which anyone adjacent can eject.
The Cradle also removes chrome in three seconds flat, and runs a tune-up for 200 credits that clears EMP scramble and repairs all your installed ware. If you carry the Chromatic Dermis ink suite, the Cradle's ink panel re-keys its color and pattern for free.
Outside the parlor, ordinary organ-manipulation surgery at any operating table installs and removes chrome too, leg surgery exists for exactly this reason. Autosurgeons refuse the work entirely.
Neural load
Your body carries 20 points of chrome. Every installed piece sums its load against that, and the Cradle refuses any install that would take you over, though swapping within a ladder only costs the difference, since the piece being replaced comes out first. If you somehow end up over capacity anyway, everything browns out: every piece of chrome on your body goes offline until the load drops back under, and getting under is always as simple as pulling a piece out.
Same-slot ware is mutually exclusive, one operating system, one dermal layer, one leg rig, one piece of hardware per arm, which makes most slots either a ladder (Shock Coils into Hopper Pistons, Dermal Mesh into Slabskin) or a straight choice (Cascade Lattice or Redline Core). Arm chrome always claims the whole arm: installing Mantis Blades evicts whatever that arm already carried. Chrome optics replace your natural eyes outright. The one piece that raises the ceiling is the Governor Delete, worth +6 capacity.
Much of it shows. Plated arms, leg rigs, dermal weaves and spine lattices draw on your body under your clothes, and stacking enough chrome genuinely stops you looking human.
The catalog
Prices are Splice's, stock is limited per round, and load is the neural cost. "Pair" ware is sold as a cased set and installed one organ per arm.
Tier 1: Street chrome (credits)
| Piece | Price | Load | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chromatic Dermis ink suite | 400 cr | 0 | Programmable circuit tattoos. Pure show, but they flare when you take a hit and strobe whenever your chrome does something, which makes them the shared tell of every build below |
| Gastro Reactor | 400 cr | 1 | Stomach replacement: eat anything, eat fast, never retch |
| Shock Coil calf pistons | 500 cr | 1 | Halved knockdowns, shorter stuns, no slipping on wet floors, no fall damage |
| Nightshade optics | 600 cr | 1 | Night vision with no flash weakness, living bodies tagged in green, and a basic Chrome Read |
| Scrapper's Knuckles (pair) | 800 cr | 1/arm | +4 punch damage, doubled against structures and machines |
| Gecko Grip palm pads | 900 cr | 1 | Your hands cannot be stripped while you are downed; walk over tables; catch chasm edges. An EMP hurls whatever you are holding |
| Second Wind bladder | 900 cr | 1 | Three minutes of internal air, refilled by breathing normally |
| Cargo Cavity | 1,000 cr | 1 | A chest stash for one small item that no scanner, pat-down or Chrome Read finds |
| Rockjaw drill fist | 1,200 cr | 2 | Deployable forearm mining drill; ore from walls you crack auto-pockets into a hopper |
| Fixer's Fingers | 1,800 cr | 2 | Fingertip screwdriver, wrench and wirecutters, plus 25% faster timed actions full-time |
| Dermal Mesh weave | 2,000 cr | 2 | Light built-in armor: melee 15, bullet 15, laser 10 |
Tier 2: Pro chrome (credits or vouchers)
| Piece | Price | Load | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harpoon Spool | 2,800 cr | 2 | Reel loose items and small creatures to you from six tiles; anything heavier drags you to it |
| Hemoglass filter | 2,800 cr | 2 | Continuous blood scrub of toxins, drugs and radiation. Toggleable party mode keeps the booze |
| Hopper piston calves | 3,600 cr | 3 | A targeted leap up to four tiles, clearing tables and gaps. Evicts Shock Coils |
| Coolant Loop lattice | 3,600 cr | 3 | No heat-exposure damage, half burn damage, actively sheds fire stacks |
| Icepick Jack | 1 voucher | 3 | Data spike: suppress a hostile turret for 15s or flip its IFF to you for 10s, and force bolted doors. Spiking a player ship's turrets alarms its crew |
| Heartbeat Doppler | 1 voucher | 2 | Toggleable motion sonar, moving living things paint through walls within nine tiles |
| Graverobber's Jack | 1 voucher | 2 | Read a corpse to paint nearby loot caches amber and patrols red, through walls |
| Deadeye link | 2 vouchers | 3 | Tag a target: your next three shots hard-track it. Carries the itemized Chrome Read |
| Slipwire reflex shunt | 2 vouchers | 4 | 15% chance to dodge projectiles while moving, plus a small always-on speed boost |
| Dead Channel pain editor | 2 vouchers | 4 | No pain, no soft crit, half stamina damage, no damage slowdown, but your own health readouts go dark while it runs |
| Prospector Suite optics | 2 vouchers | 2 | Pulse that lights ore veins through rock out to nine tiles. Carries the itemized Chrome Read |
| Skyhook wrist winch | not sold | 3 | Grapple to a wall or structure up to seven tiles away. Expedition-cache loot only |
Tier 3: Military chrome (vouchers)
| Piece | Price | Load | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlas frame | 2 | 4 | Bones cannot break and limbs cannot come off; knockback against you is halved |
| Gorilla Arms (pair) | 3 | 3/arm | 20-damage punches with knockback, fists that break rock, and bare-handed airlock prying |
| Widowline monowire | 3 | 5 | A two-tile whip that ignores armor entirely and cleaves bystanders for 75% |
| Popup Ronin housing | 3 | 5 | Deployable full-auto machine pistol in 10x24mm caseless. Reloads are parlor-only |
| Rigger socket | 3 | 4 | Jack into your own ship's helm from anywhere aboard and fly it from a corridor |
| Slabskin plate | 3 | 6 | Heavy built-in armor in every damage type. Solid hits visibly spark off you. Everyone can see you are plated |
| Mantis Blades (pair) | 4 | 3/arm | Deployable hardlight blades, plus a five-tile lunge that knocks the target down |
| Bunker Buster housing | 4 | 5 | Two shaped micro-rockets: 60 damage, no splash, will never breach a hull. Reloads are parlor-only |
| Ghostskin weave | 4 | 5 | Ten seconds of optical camo. NPCs will not target you, and Chrome Reads scatter. Attacking, taking a hit or an EMP drops it |
| Lazarus node | 4 | 5 | The moment you drop into crit, it charges for a second and shocks you back to your feet at 30% health. Once per six minutes |
Tier 4: Legend chrome (vouchers, one of each per round)
| Piece | Price | Load | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governor Delete | 5 | 0 | +6 neural capacity. Nothing else, and everything else on this shelf needs it |
| Redline core | 6 | 10 | Twelve seconds of stun immunity, 40% less brute and burn taken, +8 unarmed damage and a roar that staggers everyone nearby, then the crash |
| Cascade lattice | 8 | 12 | The sandevistan: eight seconds at double time with halved melee cooldowns and 40% projectile dodge while moving, then the crash. An EMP mid-window ends it early and eats the cooldown |
| Meteor Piledriver frame | never sold | 8 | An eight-tile leap that crushes whoever is standing on the landing tile and hurls everyone around them. The exclusive top reward from Vex's own contract board |
The ammunition shelf is the return-visit hook: Ronin magazines at 250 credits, Buster rocket pairs at 600. Splice also buys back removed street chrome at about half list price; military chrome is never bought back.
Finding chrome in the wild
Most of the roster also drops from zone loot caches at the band matching its price, street chrome in common caches, military chrome in prime ones. The exceptions: Legend chrome and ammunition never drop, the Skyhook drops only in expedition caches, and the Meteor Piledriver comes only from Vex's hardest contracts.
Living with chrome
- EMP is the hard counter. A pulse downs every piece you carry (nine seconds on a heavy blast, four and a half on a light one) then it reboots on its own. Gecko Grips spasm and throw whatever you are holding, Ghostskin camo collapses, and a Cascade window crashes on the spot. A Cradle tune-up cancels the reboot early.
- Detection cuts both ways. Chrome optics carry the Chrome Read, a scan that names a target's ware (street optics only count it), and the subject always feels the handshake. The Cargo Cavity never resolves on any scan, and Ghostskin scatters reads entirely.
- Death does not keep it. Gibbing, dusting or destroying a limb ejects every piece onto the floor, and killers absolutely loot a chromed corpse. Cloning leaves the chrome on the body.
- Nothing is subtle. Slabskin sparks on every hit, the Chromatic Dermis flares whenever your chrome fires, and the heavy installs change how you look. Chromed is a fashion statement whether you want it or not.