Efficiency (35) (5 perks)
- The Right Tools (Generic Cyberpunk) (100CP)
They can be hard to find, but when resources are hoarded and hard to come by you've learned to make do. You can easily improvise for tools and materials you lack by creatively using what you do have, even if that means using scrap to build the tools to build the tools you need. Even if you're lucky enough to have a fully stocked workshop or lab this will come in handy, as you'll be able to do a great deal more with what you have instead of needing to commission or build specialized equipment for every unique little thing. You'll never be empty handed and useless for long.
- Secret of Steel (Historys Strongest Disciple Kenichi) (400CP)
An illustrated guide created by the greatest master of weapons the world has ever known. It keenly details the techniques, methods and setup required to create weapons using traditional Japanese techniques.
This text goes beyond that however, and if the directions are followed perfectly it can be used to forge weapons, armor, and tools that are far better than anything that could possibly be made even with the most advanced metallurgic technology.
Objects created while still composed of steel will be significantly stronger than steel and can withstand blows from a Martial Arts Master.
Blades made using these techniques will be preternaturally sharp, able to cut through stone, steel and perhaps even more with proper strength and training. Such bladed weapons will almost never lose their edge and require virtually no maintenance.
Armor made using these techniques is nearly indestructible and will never rust or corrode. Normal tools will work with such efficiency that even primitive tools can accomplish feats of scale equivalent to highly advanced modern technology.
For example, a scythe made with these techniques could harvest an entire field in the same amount of time as a combine harvester
or a simple hoe could do the work of a tractor towed plough.
* Does not only work on steel, it works on other metals too
* This is a low level cultivation setting, Martial Arts Masters can take on tank shells and missiles and destroy armored buildings in one sword swipe. So the new strength of items made with the help of this perk can be imagined.
- HIVE PROCESSING (The Culture Minds) (400CP)
Different to the way Culture Minds are made, your mind is a collective process of many (from hundreds to hundreds of thousands) of sub-minds running on a Very Fast Substrate.
These sub-minds might themselves be artificial intelligences, copies of a singular Mind-State, or they might be a 'population' of uploaded bio minds all running at Mind speeds. Regardless, the collective output of these separate subminds still manages to be you. It is only natural, then, that you have a ludicrous ability to multitask even beyond that of regular Minds, able to remain aware and focused on a great many thousands to millions of inputs without sacrificing processing speed or power, and when considering a task with anything but the smallest amount of attention, your mind naturally analyses the problem from many different points of view.
Anyone attempting to Compromise you has to Comp all of your sub-minds without the other sub-minds noticing and doing something about it.
- Brain the Size of a Planet (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) (600CP)
You are now possessed of a brain that is, metaphorically speaking, the size of a planet. How it fits in your head is anyone's guess, but it's big enough to store quintillions of years of memories flawlessly, instantly recall anything you've ever seen, heard, thought, dreamed, imagined, or learned, never degrade, and output it into any format you can conceive of.
Not only that, but you can deliberately forget anything you've ever learned... and be perfectly aware you've deleted it... and undelete it later if you feel like it, though you can never be compelled to do that last.
You could even schedule it to undelete itself at some later date.
Anyone attempting to access your memory without your permission is liable to get lost in the nigh-infinite maze of idle wonderings or catalogues of all the itches you've ever had and never be heard from again.
Of course, a brain isn't only for memorizing things, and so you've now got the equivalent mental processing power of one hundred billion genius level human beings.
Does not come with crippling depression about how small the thought processes of mere mortals are.
- Transhuman Protocols (Generic Cyberpunk) (600CP)
The things we could do if only every advance wasn't riddled with unseen dangers and hidden consequences. If they're smart they'll listen to you. You can take any technology or procedure that you understand and easily figure out the flaws, pitfalls, drawbacks, and unintended or negative consequences, and as long as you put in the time you'll figure out how to get past them. Whether it's ensuring cybernetic augments don't result in lethal rejection from the body, a gene-modification doesn't make the body eat itself from the inside out with cancer, or that a device to transfer a mind leaves the same person that went in and not just a copy, or just working out the kinks in something you'll find a way. The future is an uphill battle, and there won't be time to make it if you spend it stumbling.
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Resources (36) (7 perks)
- Scavenger (Ravenwood) (100CP)
Sometimes, you do not have the luxury of top of the line equipment and need to rely on what scraps you can salvage. You, however, have an advantage, being able to cobble together scavenged bits into functional equipment that work as well as the real deal. This talent will also inherently improve the durability of such improvised equipment to function even when such materials should not feasible hold up under the strains of use.
- Delirium (Ravenwood) (200CP)
Raw skill, talent, or ability, with a touch of madness. You possess the ability to collect Delirium, a raw form of drug-like ki formed from madness and chaos. The battlefield is rife with this chaotic energy. Using delirium, it is possible to push a skill to insane levels, and allow for surprising uses of your abilities.
- Reclaimer (Smash Up) (200CP)
Not all parts are interchangeable, but the secret to fitting a square peg in a round hole is just to get a really good lathe to file the corners off with. You are the master of adapting parts to do wildly different jobs for systems they were never designed to interface with, even if you have to build the interface yourself.
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High-Tech, Meet Low-Tech (Revelation Space) (400CP)
Beyond the Yellowstone system, technology is often not quite up to speed. More so, in the Post-Melding time. Colonists isolated by lightyears from their nearest neighbors must be ready to handle any failure of their machines, so reliable, low technology is usually more common than quickmatter and full automation. Yet when it comes to merging the two, you have a fascinating ability to keep high-technology devices running by replacing failing systems with low-tech equivalents. Where a space station might have used superconductor radiator panels to manage temperature, you could find a way to replace them with steam cooling; when your shuttles run out of antimatter, you'll find it easy to replace those drives with a fusion torch or even chemical rockets. At the extreme limits of your ability, you might replace a simple but essential computer with a mechanical calculator, crunching out numbers with cogs, punch cards and levers.
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- Ultra-High Settings (Generic Video Game Developer) (400CP)
While many may wish they had the beastly computers needed to run games on max settings, many don't. But why should we limit the beauty of your art for such a mundane reason? Your art and animations are such that no matter how hi-res the models or complex the animation it will have a minimal, if any, impact on how well your game runs. This also applies to other items and products you help create, meaning even the shittiest of computers or consoles can run your game at the highest resolution without suffering too much, while products like swords can have designs might seem to hinder a user's ability to swing it when in fact it's just as usable as a normal one.
- Unfed Forge (Desolate Era Part II - The Chaosverse) (400CP)
The biggest problem with techniques or artifacts is that eventually, if you don't rise in power, status, or connections, you won't be able to procure the necessary materials needed to also bring your power up to par with others at your level. So I'd say it's a good thing that you have the ability to use the same materials at lower levels to create things at your level of power. If you felt like it you could use Steel to make a Golem capable of killing Celestial Immortals while you were a World God. With materials meant for actual immortals, even baseline Celestial Immortals, you would be able to create artifacts capable of comparing to Universe treasures while weaker than Hegemons assuming you have such a mastery of forging.
- Lost Art (Generic Video Game Developer) (600CP)
You are now an expert of the lost art, the art of code efficiency. Any code and software you make will now be far more efficient, using up far less resources for the same results and running significantly faster than most standard code. Your game would normally be 16GB and requires 8GB of RAM? Now it uses half that, at least. Game causing lag and crashing because too much is going on? Not anymore. Whatever you code, it'll run fast, and it'll run well.