As far as non-stat balance, I think cultural is the most probable. How
people react, what the thoughts of the locals are.

If there's no visible mods, then nobody notices unless you do
something really odd.
If the mods are only a little visible, then people may think they're
mods, or may think you're some minor race they never heard of.
If the mods are more extreme, then the first thing they'll think is
you're some other minor race, unless the locale has a history of
having to deal with Moded people

In T5, the +1 Stat you get in chargen are explicitly listed as Gene
Mod. If you're using the rules for "DNA", then one of your die is you
"Genetic" and the other your random. If you die and get cloned, then
you keep the Genetic dice, and reroll the others. So, a +1 Str as you
muster out goes in the Gene side, and if you clone to come back, you
keep it.

One thing that does frustrate me with T5, a lot, is that it says these
things exist, and they're fairly common, but there's rarely an
explicit price. Clone backup, for example, is a mustering out benefit
along the lines of TAS membership, and you can buy such a policy for
1Mcr.
There's a pricing guide for biological Androids in T5, and they're not
cheap by a long shot.
But... no price anywhere for the +1 Stat injection.
Now, you could go and use the numbers they have for Biologicals, which
basically say (Stat^2) kcr to buy the stat for your critter.
If I were GMing, I'd say that you pay the difference between current
and new stat prices and can buy the tailored retrovirus to increase
the stat.
Going from 7 to 8 , for example, would be 64kcr-49kcr=15kcr.

T5.09 has rules Synthetics, which are a mix of bio and robot.

One suggestion in T5 is to give the player a budget for their "body
and brain" and let them design it, then start the normal chargen
process from there, with them following the normal career progression.

Also, keep in mind, law level is going to apply. Concealed weapons?
The laser carbine in your forearm? yeah, that makes getting shore
leave on the TL A /LL A world awkward.

On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 1:59 PM <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No, but I'll see what I can find out.
>
> I know both Vargr and Dolphins were uplifts (and I'm sure there were others) in Traveller. The Dolphins are different enough to begin with that comparisons are hard. In the Vargr's case, they have a bit of better dex and suck a bit more in end if I recall the alien modules. The claws and bite they have are... underwhelming. And nobody ever suggested they have better hearing or sense of smell, both of which I would believe should have been in there.
>
> I want a bit of game balance, but not simply by boiling differences down solely to stat mods. That's kind of a flavourless way to go (D&D has basically done that in a few incarnations and it makes the demi-humans often bland vs. what they could be).
>
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