Good idea, I like the concept of being able to adapt current tech and make it more specialised or fit a particular role. Things I would suggest...

1) RCMs should be faction specific, i.e to prevent to much crossover between factional types, I like the idea of enhancing particular faction traits, not making everything one homologous mess.

2) RCMs should be permanent. As was stated on podcasts, we need to make sure there are enough NIC/Resource faucets. With reasonable cost and the flexibility, lets have some permanence in the game. This should also enhance understanding of playing a role in combat, being to swap out lessens this impact as you still see one Tyr in your hanger which you can adapt (albeit with cost as stated). Lets see the Tyr head change in response to a sensor RCM and it be a different bot permanently, not Transformers

3) Suggest a +1 on 3 required skills, one robot control, 1 type specific (i.e. Shield in your example) and one engineering/electronics specific. This reminds players that support skills are important too!!

In terms of general balance, I was worried it may end up creating freakish Chimera type builds which may drive us towards a flip/flop balancing act but with the addition of 1) or something like it, this is tempered a little and becomes less of a concern.

I really like this idea. I think there should be a focus on creating more choices and flavours in the current robot classes before proceeding to introducing completely new classes of bots.

Your suggestion would surely do this, and I hope as well as changing the stats slightly, it would also change the actual appearance a bit.

On the level of persistence, I think the RCM should be removable, but at a fairly low cost. As Malakian mentioned it would be strange to expect people to have several bots of the same type to fulfil very narrow roles.

A nice idea.. Very nice.

I really like the prototyping idea, and would be a really nice way to introduce some new minerals or any kind of gathering stuff, maybe alloys made from old and new materials. And adding the new customizable cts in artifacts would make probing a lot of more interesting and profitable.

This was kind of where my idea wanted it to go. I don't see the issue in having multiple bots, having something that's special in some way should have a cost, I also like the concept of it being built into the prototyping.... Think of it like this...

| - - -  RCM Sniper - - - Sniper - - - Artemis - - - Close Range - - - RCM Close Range - - - |

In moving to either extreme in this example you obtain significant advantage in your chosen field. There has to be a cost to gain the advantage at the extreme, this cost in RCM terms is permanently fixing your bot to gain that advantage. If you want to retain flexibility, you fit out but don't get the advantage.

This adds something I have been ranting about for a while, industrial influence on the PvP combat dynamic. It also means attrition is possible in extended combat. Lets say snipers are good at defence in intrusions (work with me here) then there is a tactical advantage to an attacking force focussing on these initially to get them off the battlefield to reduce the defenders effectiveness in future battles. Now say it takes time to create more Sniper RCM Bots (through prototyping etc), as an attacker I have gained an advantage. If you can swap this stuff out left right and centre, that attrition advantage is eroded (not saying it is removed completely, but it is lessened).

tl:dr;

If you want super bonuses to specialise and gain tactical advantage we should have permanence, if you want flexibility, you don't get the super bonuses.