As a move action, you can repair damage to a starship’s systems or modify a suit of armor or weapon to function more efficiently. To use this ability, you must be able to handle the item affected without impediment. You can use this ability once per day at 7th level, plus one additional time per day for every 4 mechanic levels you have beyond 7th. The exact effect of this ability depends on the object or system you are modifying.

• Armor: You grant a +2 enhancement bonus to a suit of armor’s EAC and KAC for 1 minute.
• Weapon: You grant a +2 enhancement bonus to a weapon’s attack and damage rolls for 1 minute.
• Damaged Ship: You restore a number of Hull Points equal to the starship's base frame HP increment. If this raises the ship’s HP over a multiple of its Critical Threshold, you can repair critical damage to one system per multiple, reducing its severity by one step. For example, if your starship’s Critical Threshold is 8 and you restore 10 HP, reducing the damage to the hull from 17 HP to 7 HP, you could restore one system from wrecked to glitching. Using this ability during starship combat is your action for the turn, and you can do it only during the engineering phase. See page 292 for more on ship construction and page 320 for more on damage to ships.

Your overload class feature now affects androids, drones, robots, and creatures with the technological subtype, which must succeed at a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + half your mechanic level + your Intelligence modifier) or be dazed for 1 round. If the target fails its saving throw by 10 or more, it is not dazed and you can dictate its actions for 1 round, though these actions can’t be obviously self-destructive. Once a creature has attempted a saving throw against this attack (regardless of the result), it is immune to this attack for 24 hours.

If you have a drone, whenever both you and your drone make attacks against the same target, you each receive a +1 circumstance bonus to your attack rolls. If you have an exocortex instead, whenever you and your exocortex are both attempting to hack a system, you each receive a +1 circumstance bonus to the checks to gain access. In either case, these bonuses increase to +2 at 17th level.

Your custom rig’s computer functions gain a bonus firewall countermeasure (see page 217). This firewall has no additional cost, does not count against the maximum number of countermeasures your custom rig can have, and can block off a module or group of modules already protected by a firewall.

In addition, you can use your custom rig to communicate over an encrypted channel with your ship, allowing you to access the ship’s sensors, control its security systems, and prepare its engines for takeoff (as well as use the encrypted communications functions of your expert rig) at a range of 50 miles. If you have a drone, you can issue commands to or directly control your drone over an encrypted channel at the same range.

You are capable of operating multiple AIs, one in a drone and one in an exocortex. You must divide up your mechanic level between these different AIs, and each gains abilities based on the number of levels you assign to it. Every time you gain a level in mechanic, you can change the distribution of levels between these AIs using your custom rig after 24 hours of uninterrupted work. While each AI can act independently to the limits of its ability, you can control them as normal (although you can directly control only one AI at a time). If the number of levels assigned to your exocortex is less than your mechanic level, your exocortex grants a smaller increase to your base attack bonus when using combat tracking (see page 79), as noted in the table below. You gain additional exocortex abilities, such as wireless hack and multitasking, based upon the level you assign to it as normal.