Bio-Overdrive

Bio-Overdrive(Major) by Taalismn

“I dunno what exactly the lass is doing to our engines, but it’s not anything harmful! I’m seeing power conversion ratios better ‘an this tub saw when she was shipyard-new!”

This super ability is similar to several vehicular link/enhancement abilities in that it allows the superbeing to temporarily fuse with machinery and improve its performance, by adding the superbeing’s own life-force to the mechanism’s power. This particular power works with vehicles, supercharging them.

Range: Touch-Contact. Ideally, the superbeing will attempt to be in direct contact with part of the propulsion/power system.

Duration: The superbeing can comfortably maintain the bio-overdrive power for their P.E./2 in minutes + 1 additional minute per level of experience. It takes 2 APMs for the superbeing to maintain this power, allowing the character to use his or her remaining actions to so other things(pilot the vehicle, run a weapons console, defend himself from security/engineering, read a book, etc.).

Effects:

1)Enhance Performance---The metabeing can increase the performance, particularly the speed, of a vehicle

Small Vehicles(up to 200,000 lbs/ 100 tons, roughly the weight of a small commercial jet ) Increase speed by 10% per level of experience

Medium Vehicles( to 900,000 lbs/ 450 tons, roughly the weight of a large military airlifter) Increase speed by 5% per level of experience

Large Vehicles( 450 tons +, up to a maximum of 10,000 tons, roughly the weight of a modern naval frigate or a small starship) Increase speed by 3% per level of experience

Modifiers

’Human’---As above

Superhuman(Extraordinary P.E. or P.S.) ---Increase the weight category limits by x5

Supernatural(Supernatural P.E. or P.S.)---Increase the weight category limits by x10(so at the upper limits the superbeing can push aircraft-carrier-sized vehicles).

2) Overcharging----The metabeing can attempt to push the envelope and performance of larger vehicles than they can safely by pouring more of their bio-energy into the effort. This can be done to BOTH the duration of the push and to the percentage of improvement, as mandated by the weight class of the vehicle they are attempting to enhance. This is not without risk; for every minute the superbeing spends ‘pushing it’, they take 1d6 damage to their Hit Points, +1HP per level of improvement they seek to modify. Example: Pushing an oil tanker(a LARGE heavy vehicle) for an extra 4 minutes of speed will cost 4d6 HP in ‘burn’. If the superbeing ALSO attempts to raise the speed beyond what they can comfortably do(say, from a marginal 1st-level speed increase of 3%, to a more substantial 15% for the full 5 minutes, will cost an additional 4d6+20 HP. Given this is a first level character, unless he’s got bucketloads of Hit Points, he could be in serious trouble of burning out!).

At ZERO Hit Points, the metabeing loses consciousness and lapses into a coma-like state from which they recover at a rate of 4 HP per day(unless modified by other powers and/or professional medical treatment).

3) Jump-Start---While the metabeing may not be able to power an entire craft, they CAN shorten the time a system needs to power-up, including weapons capacitors, engine boosters, and jump-drives. This includes cold-starts. Can reduce the amount of time needed to charge up/start a system by 20% per 2 levels of experience(so, yes, by 10th level, the character can INSTANTLY get the car’s engine to turn over, even after a long cold night).

4) Hot-wire---The superbeing can effectively and instantly hot-wire and start a vehicle, bypassing its normal key or security mechanism. The vehicle gets NO saves against this.

5) Damp Powerplant---Conversely, the superbeing can use their power to DAMP/throttle down the powerplant of a vehicle by TWICE the percent per melee as the superbeing would be able to BOOST its speed. This can be used to sabotage a ship’s power, or control a runaway engine reaction, even if normal safety mechanisms are damaged or otherwise inoperable(So, for example, a 1st level character would be able to power down a shuttlecraft’s reactor, without using the cockpit controls, at 20% per melee). Note, however, that even with power cut/diminishing, the vehicle may still have forward momentum; unless its propulsion system also serves as passive brake(as with automobiles), the vehicle will continue on until friction in the transit medium or collision with an obstacle stops it.

Also note that if somebody else is attempting to use the vehicle’s regular controls to try to prevent the throttle-down, the superbeing’s control takes precedence.

The superbeing can attempt to use this power on OTHER (non-vehicular) powerplants(for example a municipal power generator), but their damping rate will only be equivalent to their normal rate(Example: Upshift attempts to take the fusion reactor of Doctor Negative’s weather control machine off-line. As the reactor is roughly 500 tons of stationary apparatus, 5th level Upshift can only draw down its power at 15% per melee. That leaves about two minutes for Doctor Negative’s goons to try to shut UPSHIFT down before the weather machine powers off).

6) Essence Protection---While linked to the propulsion system, the superbeing will be effectively IMMUNE to dangers from the nature of the powerplant, such as heat, coal smoke inhalation, steam, carbon monoxide fumes, electrocution, or radiation.

7) Other Bonuses:

+10% to piloting skill if the metabeing already knows how to pilot the vehicle he or she is linked to.

While linked, repair attempts(by the superbeing or others) to the propulsion system can be made with a +10% bonus.

Limitations:

While linked, the superbeing is susceptible to sympathetic feedback from the vehicle. Should the vehicle take damage while the bio-overdriver is still linked, the superbeing takes proportional damage to their Hit Points(so if the vehicle’s damage amounts to 10% of its total structural integrity, the linked superbeing will take damage equivalent to 10% of their HP). Note that this is only applicable to damage done to the actual physical vehicle; if the vehicle has a forcefield or other virtual barrier, then the bio-overdriver is NOT affected by damage done to the shielding.

Unlike Overcharging, the damage inflicted on the metabeing CAN kill the character. Damage is recovered as normal.

(Example: Shivvie is aboard a TMC space destroyer attempting to escape two Kybyree slaver cruisers that both outgun it and can outpace it, leaving the only hope to outrun them. Not wanting herself or her friends on the destroyer to be captured and enslaved, Shivvie locks herself in the engineering compartment and links herself to the ship’s engines. The destroyer masses some 13,900 tons, putting it within the upper limit of Shivvie’s ability to affect, even with her superhuman physiology, but she’s desperate, so she gives it her all and decides to push it to the limit. Shivvie is 3rd level and has an Extraordinary P.E. stat of 24 and a HP reserve of 76. The Brandestoc-class destroyer she’s aboard normally has a speed of Mach 14, so she could boost it’s speed by 9% for a full 15 minutes, but she doesn’t think that’s enough; those slavers are closing FAST. Instead, she elects to increase its speed and acceleration by 54%(pumping the ship’s speed up to roughly Mach 20), for a full 5 minutes, allowing it to open up the distance between it and the pursuing slaver ships. In the process she burns 75 HP (15 levels of extra speed x5 minutes x1 HP/minute). Fortunately, the destroyer’s shields remain up during the pursuit, so the slaver ships are unable to land any long range shots on the ship’s hull.
The extra distance allows the destroyer to reach a safe gravitational gradient where they can engage their Jump-Drive and they escape. Totally exhausted by her efforts and 1 HP away from falling into a coma, Shivvie collapses into the arms of a grateful engineering crew, and spends the next week in the infirmary recuperating.)