Cybernetic hands are the first thing you appraise for the Appraiser Board. The Board hands you the Cybernetic Hand Appraisal Guide when you join, and hands are the only item appraisal customers bring while you’re a Junior Appraiser, 2 to 4 at a time. You never get to keep one: each hand leaves with its owner once they accept your estimate, so the formula only matters for getting that estimate right.
A hand’s material sets its starting value, then its control interface, condition and add-ons move it up or down, and two matching combinations earn a set bonus on top. No hand is ever worth less than 50 credits, however battered it is.
As a Junior Appraiser, the customer accepts any estimate up to 50% off. Hands keep coming after you’re promoted, though, and each promotion makes the Board stricter, so learn the formula properly now.
Inspecting a hand
Use a Magnifying Glass on the hand to open the Inspection Tray. The estimate panel sits under the tray: its buttons move your estimate by 1, 5, 10 or 100 credits, and Send Estimate hands it to the customer. The panel opens at 100 credits for every hand, whatever it’s really worth, so that number tells you nothing. Open the Cybernetic Hand Appraisal Guide as well and you can keep it beside the tray while you work.
How the value adds up
- Start from the material’s value.
- Add or subtract for the control interface.
- Subtract for wear or damage.
- Add each add-on the hand has.
- Add a set bonus if the hand matches the Tactical or Deluxe set.
- If the total ends up below 50, the hand is worth 50.
Material
| Material | Starting value |
|---|---|
| Aluminum Alloy | 100 |
| Carbon Composite | 150 |
| Gold Plated | 300 |
The material is the easy part, because each one has its own color: Aluminum Alloy is grey, Carbon Composite is black and Gold Plated is gold.
Control interface
| Interface | Change |
|---|---|
| Neural Interface | +120 |
| EMG+ | +45 |
| EMG | No change |
| Unspecified | −60 |
The interface is marked on the hand itself. The in-game guide’s example has it on the plate at the base of the palm, so run the Magnifying Glass over that plate. EMG, EMG+ and Neural Interface hands carry either the full label or only its symbol, and a hand with no marking at all is Unspecified.
Check for the plus sign: plain EMG adds nothing, while EMG+ adds 45. A blank plate is easy to miss and costs you 60 credits, the biggest discount after damage, so look at the plate before you send an estimate.
Condition
| Condition | Change |
|---|---|
| No wear or damage | No change |
| Wear | −35 |
| Damage | −85 |
Wear shows as scuffs and scratches on a shell that’s still whole. A damaged hand has its shell broken open, with the circuitry showing.
Add-ons
Each add-on counts on its own, so a hand with both gets both bonuses.
| Add-on | Change |
|---|---|
| Armored | +50 |
| Blade | +80 |
Set bonuses
| Set | Bonus | Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Tactical | +100 | Carbon Composite, EMG+ or Neural Interface, no wear or damage, both Armored and Blade |
| Deluxe | +200 | Gold Plated, Neural Interface, no wear or damage; add-ons optional |
The sets can’t overlap, because Tactical needs Carbon Composite and Deluxe needs Gold Plated.
Worked examples
The first two are the examples printed in the in-game guide.
| Hand | Sum | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Carbon Composite, EMG+, worn | 160 credits | 160 |
| Aluminum Alloy, unspecified interface, damaged | -45 credits, raised to the 50-credit minimum | 50 |
| Carbon Composite, unspecified interface, damaged | 5 credits, raised to the 50-credit minimum | 50 |
| Carbon Composite, unspecified interface, worn | 55 credits | 55 |
| Tactical set: Carbon Composite, Neural Interface, Armored, Blade, no wear | 500 credits | 500 |
| Deluxe set: Gold Plated, Neural Interface, Armored, Blade, no wear | 750 credits | 750 |
The third example is the one to watch for. A carbon hand sounds valuable, but damage and an unspecified interface wipe out almost all of it, and only the 50-credit minimum keeps it worth anything.
The fourth is a hand a customer brought in, on the left below. Take its interface for plain EMG and you get 115 credits, more than double the real 55, and the customer rejects anything above 150% of the true value as way too high. The blank plate is what gives it away. The hand on the right is the in-game guide’s second example: Aluminum Alloy with damage and a blank plate, worth the 50-credit minimum.
