Augmentation
Basics
The human condition can be improved, adapted for various purposes with augmentation. Whether genetic or cybernetic (often both in the cases of the more advanced worlds in known space), these augmentations can increase the capabilities of military units, as well as having civilian benefits.
Rules
Augmentation can be purchased in two types-Ubiquitous and Installed. The former are found in the vast majority of your nation's population, whether because they're genetic modifications that breed true or everyone gets them installed during childhood. The latter are specialized equipment that must be paid for to install.
The former come free with every unit, while the latter must be paid for per every unit of draft.
Although augmentation enhances basic capabilities, they are only as good as what backs them-they do not make up very well for a lack of that capability. Cyborg supersoldiers with dermal armor and enhanced strength are still at a disadvantage when the enemy fields power-armored baselines with assault shotguns. But give them power armor and close-in weapons of their own, and suddenly the tables turn.
Specific Adaptations
Environmental
Radiation Tolerance
Cost:
There were some particularly radioactive planets that were colonized in the hedonism of the previous ages not out of any particular utility, but because it could be done. Rad-adapts come from those planets, with heavily redundant backup DNA, bodies that sequester heavy metals and radioactive isotopes into waste, and advanced cellular repair techniques.
Aquatic Tolerance
Cost:
In the ages before the fall, there were those who wished to experience the ocean as if they belonged, unfettered by diving gear. Some of these subspecies have survived to this day. There are also soldiers who equip themselves with cybernetic or vat-grown gills, armored skin, and decompression-tolerant bodies for aquatic operations.
Vacuum Tolerance
Cost:
The most extreme adapts of the posthuman empires were capable of living in Zero G with little assistance, their bodies resistant against vacuum and capable of producing their own oxygen supplies. They are nearly nonexistent now, but with cyberware one can still adapt to vacuum as whales and dolphins have adapted to water. Zero-G commandos often take these extreme modifications, which are almost always entirely cybernetic in nature and leave little recognizably human.
Cold Tolerance
Cost:
There are a few planets where the average temperature hovers around 0 degrees Celsius on hot summer afternoons. Although completely possible to survive as baseline humans, most people on those planets wished for additional convenience and embraced technology to adapt them to their world. Adaptations to reduce heat loss range from blubber to fur to advanced insulation layers that are not as unsightly or obvious, and other adaptations like antifreeze in blood can increase one's ability to stay active at below-freezing temperatures.
Heavy-G Worlder
Cost:
Heavy-G worlders are the least extreme adaptations, as they simply are reminiscent of squat baseline bodybuilders and have few more changes than that. Their cardiovascular systems are improved, their lungs have better efficiency, and there's not much else to it. Although heavy-G worlders are stronger than baseline humans the strength increase without buying Strength Augmentation is relatively minor-certainly no more than 20 to 30% higher. However, there are many heavy-G worlders who also have Strength Augmentation.
Combat
Direct Neural Interface
Cost:
One of the earliest invented modifications, the DNI is also one of the most widespread mods because of its great utility. At the high point of posthuman civilization organic versions existed that would be passed down to offspring. After the crash, a handful of nations have survived with inborn DNI systems, but a greater percentage must build new ones again. DNIs allow a soldier to interface with specially designed gear, linking them to their weapon or their vehicle and increasing how well it responds to commands.
Dermal Armor
Cost:
Whether woven carbon nanotube backed by shock-absorbing cellulose created by injected nanomachinery, or polymer weaves and hardened alloy plates to hard metal shells, dermal armor increases the resistance of a soldier to small arms. Rarely capable of stopping more than small arms, when combined with external armor, however, the additional shrapnel resistance and spall resistance greatly improves a soldier's resilience. Dermal armor can be bought multiple times.
Strength Augmentation
Cost:
It is debated whether or not the use of anabolic steroids for muscle growth should be legitimately thought of the first use and application of human augmentation technology and the dawn of the age of human engineering. Although these treatments, whether they involve the implantation of servomotors and the reinforcement of skeletal members with metal, or genetic treatments to boost muscle strength and bone density, share little in common with steroids, the end result is similar-the subject becomes stronger. Not shared with anabolic steroids are the side effects, of which strength augmentation has few. Strength augmentation increases a subject's close combat prowess and reduces the mobility penalty for support weapons.
Speed Augmentation
Cost:
Whether the augmentation improves the legs with metal and myomer, or reengineers them into digitigrade versions of themselves, speed augmentation increases the mobility of an infantryman so modified. This obviously does not affect any other ground units-unless propelled by a pair of pedals, a vehicle doesn't care how fast your legs move.
Reinforced Skeleton
Cost:
The skeleton is one part structural support, one part armor for vitals. Augmentation technology can reinforce it, grafting metal and servomotors to one's skeletal system, increasing both its durability and its bulk. A reinforced skeleton slightly increases a unit's toughness, and is required to make efficient use of modifications that increase the stress put on it, like strength or speed augmentation.
Damage Control Systems
Cost:
Often consisting of tweaks to the immune system as well as backup organs, and commonly backed up by nanotech medicines in higher-tech polities, damage control systems might be infamous in movies as allowing someone to regenerate from even grievous wounds in minutes or hours-but in reality they are nowhere near as potent. They are still common, however, because a wounded soldier is recoverable, while a dead soldier is not. Damage Control Systems increase the chance of a soldier being merely incapacitated instead of killed.
Boosted Endurance
Cost:
Although rarely glamorous, augmented endurance is rarely useless. It might not make you move faster, or hit harder, or let you take bullets more easily, but when you've got 200 miles of thick jungle ahead of you that you need to make within 3 days, you'll appreciate the machines that scrub fatigue toxins out of your blood and the reengineered muscles that don't tire easily. Boosted endurance increases the strategic speed of infantry units, allowing them to cover ground much faster over long periods of time, and also commonly gives incidental benefits. After all, a fresh and awake soldier is better than a tired one.
Enhanced Reactions
Cost:
One of the most complex and most powerful combat enhancements, reaction enhancement increases the ability of someone to react to changing conditions, often bypassing the nervous system entirely with cyberware and improving the twitch speed of the muscular system. Enhanced reactions increases the reaction speed of a unit, improving their defenses and their ability to acquire targets before they are acquired in turn.
Enhanced Senses
Cost:
This augmentation increases the ability of a unit to perceive their environment, giving them natural low-light vision, improving their sense of smell and hearing, and giving them better than human eyesight.
Miscellaneous
Stealthskin
Cost:
Dermally integrated active camouflage is pointless for frontline troops, or even most special forces. Most notably, they require one to have the camo layer exposed, which means going without body armor-or even clothing. Although dermal armor can mitigate some of the issue it is still often more convenient to have the active camo layer on the armor itself. However, certain types of spies or commandos may be inserted without access to military equipment, in which case the ability of stealthskin to blend into any environment is useful for evasion or infiltration. Stealthskin increases a unit's stealthiness as long as it has no external armor or environmental adaptations. It also does not stack with external stealth.
Disguised Augmentation
Cost: +200% of total augmentation cost
Most augmentations, whether biotech or cybertech, are fairly obvious to scans. They might be invisible on the surface, but there are sensors that can distinctly tell that someone is augmented. More subtle augmentation is possible, but extraordinarily expensive. Generally reserved for paramilitary units of intelligence agencies, disguised augmentation renders it so that it's nearly impossible to tell if someone's chrome or vat-grown or all natural without a surgical examination.