Bionic ear

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Bionic ear

Bionic ear

An advanced artificial ear implant. A collection of invisible subdermal microphones capture sound and transmit it to a biogel nerve interface that links directly with the auditory nerve. It's sensitive enough to hear a cat before you see it, can't be damaged by loud noise, and automatically tunes itself to pick out meaningful sounds in noisy environments.

Base Stats

Type
Medical ItemsBody Parts
Market Value
785 Silver
Mass
0.1 kg
HP
50
Flammability
100%

Creation

Crafted At
Fabrication bench
Required Research
Bionic replacements
Skill Required
Crafting 8
Work To Make
26,000 ticks (7.22 mins)
Resources to make
Plasteel 10 + Advanced component 3
Technical
techHediffsTags
Advanced
tradeTags
TechHediff, Bionic


A Bionic ear is an artificial body part that replaces the ear and provides 125% part efficiency, improving the hearing of the implantee.

Acquisition

Bionic ears can be crafted at a Fabrication bench once the Bionic replacements research project has been completed. They require Plasteel 10 Plasteel, Advanced component 3 Advanced components, 26,000 ticks (7.22 mins) of work, and a Crafting of 8

They can also be bought from exotic traders, Empire traders, and at Outlander faction bases. They are also sometimes offered as a quest reward.

Summary

Bionic ears have a part efficiency of 125%. Since there is 75% weighting placed on the more capable part when calculating a pawn's hearing capability, installing a single bionic ear increases hearing by 19%, and a second increases it by a further 6% for a total of 125%. Note that as of the time of writing, hearing over 100% does not improve any stat beyond that which an healthy pawn would already have.

Bionic ears fully replace a missing natural ear, including removing the "Disfigured" opinion penalty from other pawns. They are universal and can be installed on either the left or right.

Installation

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, ?x medicine of ?? quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

Removing the part requires ? of work, ?x medicine of ?? quality or better, and a Medical skill of ?.

If the operation fails, the part has a chance[What Chance?] to be destroyed.

Analysis

While it is significantly better than a Cochlear implant, with a part efficiency of 125% vs. 65%, its rare that the bionic ear is necessary. There is no benefit to having a hearing higher than 100%, and even the only stats it does affect are those pertaining to Social and Animal handling tasks, so the only pawns that could need a bionic ear are colonists who both serve those roles and have damaged hearing.

Keep in mind that if your colonist only suffers from hearing loss, since hearing is weighted 75% for the better ear, replacing just one pushes hearing over 100% and so one is all that is needed. If the ear is totally destroyed however, this will only get the value to 94%. Even in that case, a bionic ear and a cochlear implant provides 110% hearing and is significantly cheaper than two bionic ears. A colonist with hearing loss or a cochlear implant in the non-bionic ear will still have over 100% hearing.

Body modders, of course, will benefit from anything that does not hurt their functionality in the colony, but unless they are performing the social/animal roles, the cheaper cochlear implant serves just as well.