Tools

In today’s highly specialized, highly technical world, tools are as much a part of life as street grub and newsrags.

### AIRBELT PACK

Airbelt packs are personal mobility assist devices designed for use in low-gravity environments. They consist of a set of air jets worn around the waist and controlled by a handheld virt panel. An experienced user wearing an airbelt pack can move in zero-g as easily as if they had wings.

While your character is wearing an airbelt pack, they do not treat movement in zero gravity as movement through difficult terrain.

### CLIMBING HARNESS

In a city as vertical as New Angeles, climbing gear occupies a useful niche for anyone who has reason to go clambering around on the outside of buildings. A climbing harness includes a fully secured harness, two hundred meters of micro-filament rope strong enough to support the weight of two adults, and a set of quick-stick pitons with an adhesive that locks onto nearly any surface in seconds. The harness has a small motor that allows it to automatically ascend the rope, and a one-shot grapnel launcher for quick ascents.

To use the grapnel launcher, your character must make a Ranged (Light) skill check with a difficulty set by the range of the wall, building, or other structure your character is trying to hit (in the same manner as determining the difficulty of a ranged combat check). Securing a piton requires a maneuver. The motorized harness allows your character to ascend or descend without making a check.

### EMERGENCY REPAIR PATCH

Emergency repair patches are to machines what slap-patches are to humans. Available in sizes that range from mere millimeters to square yards, they consist of an alloy patch that bonds to any surface by means of a powerful adhesive. Although meant as very temporary repair measures, emergency patches are remarkably sturdy and can even be used to patch up shuttles and dropships in a pinch. They can also offer basic repairs to bioroids.

Your character can use an emergency repair patch in two different ways. They can use it when making repairs on a mechanical system, in which case it adds1 BOOST to their Mechanics check. They can also use it as a slap-patch to heal bioroid characters. In this case, it follows all of the rules of slap-patches.

### FLASHLIGHT

While modern flashlights are more powerful, use less energy, and are made from more advanced materials than older models, their basic function hasn't changed for centuries.

A flashlight provides light and removes 󲊸 added to checks due to darkness. It can provide light out to medium range.

### FORENSIC KIT

Investigators not lucky enough to be a part of the CORSEC's forensic division (and have access to their comprehensive and state-of-the-art laboratories) need to make do with portable and limited forensic kits. A forensic kit is about the size of a large suitcase. It has storage compartments for small pieces of evidence (including a cold-storage microfreezer), tools for recovering fingerprints and DNA samples, a hand-held magnifier/recorder, a chemical and DNA analyzer, and a combination camera and las-scanner that can holographically record a scene, allowing a PI to take a snapshot of a crime scene and walk through its holo- graphic projection later.

In addition to the basic recording, analyzing, and evidence-gathering uses, your character adds 1 BOOST to Vigilance and Perception checks made while searching a crime scene using a forensic kit.

### HANDHELD DIAGNOSTIC SCANNER

Designed to diagnose mechanical and electrical trouble, these all-purpose scanners can interface with any computer-controlled machine or smart system to detect malfunctions. They are typically sold with software suites that help users navigate the millions of potential error codes in everything from PADs and hoppers to industrial machinery.

When your character makes a Computers or Mechanics check to work on a piece of hardware while using a hand-held diagnostic scanner, they add 󲊴 to the results.

### LAS-SCANNER

Ostensibly a civil engineer’s tool, a las-scanner is used to measure and map enclosed spaces. Using laser-imaging technology, a las-scanner can produce a highly detailed three-dimensional map of a room, ship compartment, cave, or other space in seconds. That image can then be run through the enclosed software for post-processing, markup, and notation. Las-scanners are useful to criminals and spies when infiltrating secure areas.

### MAKERBOX

“Makerbox” is a catchall term for a 3D printer or other commercially available automated fabrication suite.

Using a variety of materials, typically synthetics and composites derived from buckyfullerene, a makerbox can make nearly any item imaginable if the space and mate- rials are available. While these machines cannot produce complex, multipart items such as firearms or PADs, with the right materials, it can make the components from which to assemble such items.

Your character can use a makerbox to assemble a simple tool (or equivalent part) that has an encumbrance value of 2 or less. The process takes five to ten minutes, depending on the size of the tool, and requires an equivalent amount of raw materials (plascrete or metals).

### MICRO-WELDER

Micro-welders are small, hand-held arc welders used to make emergency repairs and to bond lightweight materials. They are equipped with a swivel head for getting into hard-to-reach areas and a flip-up shield to protect the user’s eyes from damage. While a micro-welder may not handle heavy-duty work, it can still help fix a weapon or seal a door in a pinch.

### O2 BOTTLE

Emergency oxygen bottles are a common sight from Midway Station all the way to Void's End. They have disposable mouth pieces and modular valves, letting them serve as an emergency O2 supply or refill a pressurized compartment.

Your character can use an O2 bottle to avoid the effects of suffocation in a low-oxygen environment (such as in vacuum, underwater, or in a choking cloud of gas) for up to ten minutes. Your character still suffers any other effects from that environment (such as wounds from being exposed to vacuum, for example).

### PORTABLE TOOLKIT

Portable toolkits are sold by numerous manufacturers and contain everything a runner needs to carry out basic mechanical and electronic repairs. Most standard kits come with a selection of hand tools like wrenches, screw-drivers, pliers, ratchets, and sockets. Many also include circuit testers, voltmeters, diagnostic scanners, probes, feeler gauges, jumpers, and other specialty tools for doing every- thing from changing a broken PAD screen to overhauling a hopper’s turbine engine.

This kit provides your character with the equipment needed to make a Mechanics check without penalty.

### RESPIRATOR

Part gas mask and part rebreather, a respirator is one of the most common pieces of survival gear available. Starships, space stations, and outposts keep stocks of them, and most shops have simple respirators that can filter out smoke, irritants, and toxins. Some respirators only cover the nose and mouth; others have integrated goggles to protect the eyes.

While wearing a respirator, your character adds 1 BOOST toResilience checks they make to resist poisonous atmospheres or hazardous environments.

### ROPE

Modern rope is made from reinforced synthetic fibers. It is lightweight, has incredible tensile strength, and is every bit as useful and versatile as old-fashioned hemp rope.

### SPACE SUIT

Space suits have come a long way since Yuri Gagarin took his first trip around the Earth. Modern space suits are lightweight, flexible, often formfitting garments built with comfort, and occasionally style, in mind as much as protection. They are temperature controlled, radiation shielded, and they have their own oxygen and power supplies. Some models are armored with slip-on plates or buckyweave.

Higher-end suits may have built-in thrusters, power couplings for tools, light power assist, and even magnetic plates in the boot soles. Every space suit sold comes with an emergency repair kit that allows for quick fixes of tears, leaks, and bad gasket seals.

When worn, a space suit’s encumbrance is 3.