Biohacking

Biohacking

Give a colonist a hacking implant and they can reach out and breach a hostile's bionics, a mechanoid's control systems, or an enemy turret's targeting uplink from a distance, no melee required. Shut a mech down, scramble its aggression, seize it outright, hijack a turret, or fry an enemy's artificial limb. Every cast is a gamble: outclass the target and you'll usually skip straight to the effect, but fall short and you're routing signals through a tripwired grid to finish the job by hand, with a chance the countermeasures hit back at your own hacker. Requires the Biotech DLC.

Getting started

Research remote biohacking (Spacer tech, needs Bionics researched first, built at a HiTech Research Bench with a multi-analyzer). That unlocks the hacking implant: 10 plasteel and 2 spacer-grade components, crafted at a fabrication bench and installed into the brain like any other bionic. Any colonist carrying one gets all five hacking abilities and can start targeting hostiles in range.

What you can do

• Disable bionic: scrambles one of a target's artificial body parts for several hours. Needs a target with implants to work on.
• Mech shutdown: forces a hostile mechanoid's control core into a hard shutdown for several hours.
• Mech berserk: scrambles a mechanoid's aggression judgement so it turns on everything nearby, allies included.
• Seize mech control: hijacks a mechanoid's control uplink. A mechanitor with free bandwidth keeps the mech permanently as their own; anyone else can only puppet it against the colony's enemies for a while before it reverts.
• Seize turret: hijacks a hostile turret's targeting uplink, so it fires on its former owners instead. You can only hold so many turrets at once, and each one reverts on its own after a while.

Hacking power vs. hack defence

Every hack rolls your colonist's hacking power (implant baseline, boosted by their Intellectual skill) against the target's hack defence (chassis mass for mechanoids, implant count and faction tech level for people, or structural integrity and weapon sophistication for turrets). The gap between those two numbers sets your odds of an instant success versus getting dropped into the minigame: even a hacker who's completely outclassed still has a shot, and even a huge power lead is never a guaranteed skip. The targeting UI shows the live percentage under your cursor before you commit, so you know the odds going in. Hacking power isn't fixed at whatever your Intellectual skill gives you. Two follow-up research projects - refined intrusion protocols and adaptive intrusion heuristics - add flat bonuses on top of that baseline once researched, giving a specialized hacker real headroom against the toughest mechs and turrets instead of capping out on skill alone.

When the roll doesn't go your way

A failed odds roll costs nothing by itself. It just means you have to finish the job through the signal-routing minigame instead of skipping it outright. Losing or aborting that puzzle is what actually hurts: the target gets a temporary hack lockout (no re-hacking until it wears off), your ability goes on cooldown, and the target hits back. Mechanoids go berserk, raiders turn aggressive or break, and if the target's faction can hold a grudge, you'll take a hit to their goodwill. Turrets have no mind to retaliate with, but the goodwill hit still applies. Losing or aborting can also backfire on your own hacker. Countermeasures sometimes surge back through the intrusion, leaving them with a jolt of neural feedback: painful and disorienting, but temporary, with no lasting damage. On rare occasions that jolt is sharp enough to tip them into a berserk episode of their own.

The signal-routing minigame

Route the signal from entry to exit by rotating pipes into place - left-click turns one clockwise, right-click counter-clockwise - and don't let it touch a tripwire. You've got a fixed number of rotations to work with, not a clock, so the game pauses while you think. First time through, a hint overlay walks you through what every symbol on the board means; it turns itself off automatically after your first win, and you can bring it back from the mod settings any time. Backing out of an attempt in progress, whether through the Abort button, Escape, or the close button, always asks you to confirm first - the penalty for a lost or aborted hack only ever lands once you've actually committed to losing it. Not every player wants the puzzle every time. A mod setting lets you choose when a failed hack roll drops into it: always (default), only when you're genuinely outclassed by the target, or never — a skipped puzzle still rolls the same odds, just without the dialog.

Electing the puzzle yourself

A toggle on the implant lets you skip the odds roll entirely and route the signal by hand on purpose, any time you like, on any target. Win that elective breach and you're paid for the risk: a longer-lasting effect, an immediate cooldown reset on the ability you just used, and even permanent mech seizure for a caster who wouldn't otherwise have the free bandwidth for it. Lose or abort it and it costs exactly what any other failed hack costs - no special penalty for having chosen it, and no discount either.

Enemy hackers (optional, off by default)

Everything above can point the other way. Raiders can be seeded with their own hacking implants, and once you flip the matching settings on, they can try disabling your bionics, shutting down or seizing your mechs, or hijacking your turrets - the same mechanics you use against them, aimed back at you. Bionics, mechs, and turrets each have their own on/off switch, and a chance slider tunes how often an enemy hack actually lands, so you decide exactly how much of this you want. Everything here is off by default - nothing changes for you unless you opt in. Countering it works the same way it does for them: craft and install hack shielding, a defensive implant that makes its wearer meaningfully harder to breach - the direct answer to an enemy hacker once you've turned this on.

Mod integrations

• Vanilla Races Expanded - Android: androids become valid targets for the mech effects. Shutdown drains their neutroamine reserves instead of capping consciousness, and seizing an android is always a temporary puppet, never a permanent one, even for a mechanitor.
• Cyberpsychosis: every successful hack strains your own colonist's neural interface, draining their Biostability need.

Disclaimer

Portions of the materials used to create this content/mod are trademarks and/or copyrighted works of Ludeon Studios Inc. All rights reserved by Ludeon. This content/mod is not official and is not endorsed by Ludeon.

Thanks

• Ludeon for the Game
• Marnador for the Rimworld Font

Attributions

• Tiger_claw_custom_laser_pistol_shot_sound_12182024 by Artninja -- freesound.org/s/777258 -- License: Attribution 4.0
• 2018-09-07-2 by Doctor_Dreamchip -- freesound.org/s/457903 -- License: Creative Commons 0
• Bright Synth Ping / UI Bell Tone by subquire -- freesound.org/s/833599 -- License: Attribution 4.0
• Wrong answer. by SgtPepperArc360 -- freesound.org/s/341732 -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0