Oof, sorry for the late reply; I meant to get back to this and then it slipped my mind.
For characters taking apart the communicator and putting it back together without certain components: whether it works or not will be completely and frustratingly random. Take out the scrunchie, and it stops working entirely. Put the scrunchie back and take out a paperclip and and it's fine. Put the paperclip back and take out a different, identical-looking paperclip and suddenly the communicator is in black-and-white. Tomorrow they could run the same experiment with the exact same steps and get totally different results.
For characters adding foreign objects into the communicator's inner workings: same as above. Sometimes it'll still work as normal, sometimes it won't work at all, and sometimes it technically works but in a different way (text-only, weird coloring, suddenly the video feed is sideways). This too will be completely random, and useless for actual experimentation because following the same steps never give the same results.
Additionally, in both cases, it will always move in the direction of deleting/limiting functions rather than adding them; characters will never be able to bumble their way in to giving their communicator special functions that it doesn't ordinarily have.
no subject
For characters taking apart the communicator and putting it back together without certain components: whether it works or not will be completely and frustratingly random. Take out the scrunchie, and it stops working entirely. Put the scrunchie back and take out a paperclip and and it's fine. Put the paperclip back and take out a different, identical-looking paperclip and suddenly the communicator is in black-and-white. Tomorrow they could run the same experiment with the exact same steps and get totally different results.
For characters adding foreign objects into the communicator's inner workings: same as above. Sometimes it'll still work as normal, sometimes it won't work at all, and sometimes it technically works but in a different way (text-only, weird coloring, suddenly the video feed is sideways). This too will be completely random, and useless for actual experimentation because following the same steps never give the same results.
Additionally, in both cases, it will always move in the direction of deleting/limiting functions rather than adding them; characters will never be able to bumble their way in to giving their communicator special functions that it doesn't ordinarily have.