Arthreform drones.
Can it be done.

Seing as every cyber limb has an internal power supply and powerful computer under SR4 can you obtain 4 cyber limbs, cyber torso and cyber skull (or not as you choose) all ungraded, and attaché them together without any meat involved, add a pilot program (ether specially designed or generic) some autosofts for skills, armour up the cyber limbs as well a bumping up strength, qui and reaction and have something that will make the average cyber zombie look like a fluffy bunny.

Edward

Sure, as long as you have space.

Don't forget to upgrade Response.

so how much bonus space do you get fornot needing heart. lungs, intestines etc etc

thats not the best use for such a thing, really. sure you can have humanoid robots- but what fun is that?

dont think in terms of cyberwear. think in terms of vehicles. while you could build a drone out of standard grade cyberware limbs, it would be very expensive to do, and require the cybertechnology skill to put together. an anthroform vehicle drone, however, would use automotive mechanics to put together. it would be made from cheaper parts, and in some cases have better performance and durability.

we do have a cyberware eyeball drone in the main book. detachable hand drones are very likely when they get the next cyberware book out, as we had detechable hands in SR3.

the only real reason to build a pure-cyberware drone is if you have the right skills and parts and tools for the job on hand, and need it soonest.

or because you want to abuse the body stack rules
or because you don't have the vehicle design rules yet

You think a pure-cyberwear drone might be better at passing for human than a 'vehicle' humanoid drone?

until the new vehicle book comes out
yes
because there are no humaniform vehcile drones

You mean anthroform?

Or maybe arthroform? Looking for spider drones?

I do mean anthroform, however the system uses anthroform to represent any legged drone so I was being more specific

I GM'd a run where Mitsuhama was developing anthroforms just like this. The advantages were that they could easily pass for a metahuman, except to an astral scan, as body heat was easy to simulate. Also, they ran off of electric power, so they didn't make any extra noise. They didn't need life insurance, which was a plus, and any rigger could jump in to one, and just use the VCR they already had instead of expensive wired reflexes. Plus, since it was third edition, small to medium arms fire just messed up their clothes.

The biggest disadvantage was the change of losing control of one to a hostile rigger, so they had some very good ECCM built in. It was a very experienced team on this run, and just one of these things messed them up pretty badly. But they extracted it like they were told ,along with the specs, and delivered it to Ares. Of course, the rigger kept a copy and was building his own.

Another good point was that with a VCR and skill wires, even Joe Salaryman could be rmote-rigged to one and be deadly. We haven't used them in 4th edition though, so we'll see how it goes. Have to decide what body rating to assign for one.

I hope they realized that they could have just shocked the drone to submission

The only complication I see in all this: Making hunoid droids out of cyberlimbs is that there is no brain to attach the cyberlimbs to... All cyberlimbs have a DNI control, how did you create the 'brain interface' to simulate neural processes to control the limbs remotely? Headware in the splat books doesn't allow that level of fine motor control.

This is starting to sound too much like RoboCop to me..

I suppose with SR4 now if you create a high level pilot controller, you could do such a thing.

If a cyber limb can interface with something as complicated as the human brain, it can certainly be set up to work with something like a drone 'brain' easily enough.

Part of the point of the Mitsuhama research was , in fact , to create something robo-copp-ish. They are very in to bio-computers, robots, and drones. The original point of the research in the game was to be able to simply create a soldier. Implant a brain, implant 'skill wires' to the brain, or something of the equivelant, and built the body around it. Instant soldier that is "theoretically" going to be smarter, more advanced, and more adaptive than any drone system. The Ares angle was simply rigging it. Not worrying about the possible advancing tech but going with what was there.

And no, they never thought to lightning bolt it.

Really? I've never looked at Deadlands before. How'd it work out in that game?

in SR3 the lack of a brain was a problem. In SR4 if a cyber limb is blown off a hacker can still hack in and control it.

in this the DNI links would be disabled and all limbs would be slaved to a single computer (probably the cyber torsos integral one) with a pilot program.

things get problematic however when you start considering the instillation of reflex enhancers not that there needed already running at drone speeds.

Edward

Sounds like a way to get an army of budget cyberzombies.
With the weakness they can be hacked.
Ice up thoses brains, to make it a little bit harder.

*reads thread*
*gets evil ideas*

Remember a drone has to use 1 action per turn to "drive" or it will crash.

This effectively means that a human wired up has 1 pass more than any drone.

Atleast if you stick with the rulebook.

I’m feeling in a mood so I’m actually going to price it out.

Left arm 15000 hiting things
Armour 4 1200
Strength 7 1750

Right arm 15000 shooting things
Armour 4 1200
Agility 7 1400 (more efficient than gyro mount)

Torso 20000 holding things together
Armour 4 1200
Body 2 400

2 legs 30000 running around
Armour 4 each 2400
Strength 7 each 3500
Hydraulic jacks 4 8000

Scull 15000 to look menacing and hold senswear
Cyber eye rating 4 1000
Flair comp 750
Low light 1000
Smart link 1000
Thermo 1000
Vision enhancement 3 4500
Vision magnification 1000

Cyber ears rating 4 1500
Audio enhancement 3 4500
Balance augmenter 5000
Dampener 750
Select sound 6 6000
Special recogniser 750

(Or we can replace the senswear with a drone sensor sweet that would be cheaper and more effective, but not as cool).

Total price for hard wear 145,800

The starting character available version is a bit cheaper, not quite as strong or agile in the gun arm and lacks a skull, instead having a sensor sweet bolted to eth top of the torso.

And then there is the nasty version, with 2 melee arms and 2 old style articulated tracking arms each mounting a "big gun ^tm" with full recoil compensation and being operated buy an independent drone pilot (meaning they get actions separate from the body)

The nasty version is NOT AVALIABL TO PCs.

Edward

Decapitate it, and install a drone sensor package and you'll cut about a third of the price off. No corp would stick a head on these things unless they're going for covert operations. To be honest, I'd ditch the Strength upgrades for Body upgrades. That way, it's tougher.

the hitting things arm needs agility too.

and, for the record, i don't think you can install cybereyes, ears, etc into a skull... they don't take up capacity. and it would be much cheaper to just attach a sensor package anyways. which, for the record, can include unlimited visual and audio enhancements, as long as you spend 100 for a camera, and 50 for a microphone.

oh, and the separate drone pilot for the guns *is* available to PCs already.

you put a gun with a smart firing platform into a weapon mount. costs 2,000 for the platform, but that gives it a max pilot and autosoft of 3 unless you blow a lot of money. so, if you give this thing body 6 (only need body enhancements averaging 3), you can install two extra weapon mounts (2500 each) with the smart firing platform guns.

note that this way, only one of the pilots needs to make the check to drive the vehicle (and it should do it the third IP in the round, after everything has been killed or the drone has been blown up anyways).

have a nice day.

oooh
drone pilot in each of the 2 articulated arms
drone pilot operating the two normal hitting arms with teir cyberspurs
and a drone pilot for the torso and legs

6 passes of shooting
3passes of HtH
and maneuvering
need an extra agent to coordinate stuffs and choose targets

ni extra agent is required. each drone simply has to subscribe to one another to share information and such.

which makes sensor-enhanced targetting look a little better, no?

And just like that, drones that would make Deus wet!!

Seriously there isno upper limit to this, I think my players may live to regret this thred.

How about mounting Hydralic jacks in some of the arms for "surprise" weapons and "extra" movement purposes.

I'm gonna spend sunday building the suckers.

It doesn’t get truly ludicrous until you stop using standard parts and make slightly oversized limbs with incensed capacity. And clamed cyber torsos get increased capacity on the grounds that you freed up space buy removing unnecessary components (like the liver)

Really we should we waiting until the rigger book comes out and using arthreform drones with cyber augmentations like we did in SR3

I know it says that cyber limbs don’t get augmentations that take essence and that makes sense for actual limbs but not for torso and skull. Althow in this case arguably it would.

We will use a sensor package but the thing will “have a greater psychological impact on the target” (be more likely to make the poor saps we set it on wet themselves) if it has a angular scull with glowing red eyes, of cause this doesn’t necessitate cyber scull. We can just bolt an appropriately shaped lump of iron on the top with a couple of LEDs in it.

Edward

Understanding this an old thread I wanted to make a comment none the less. This is on a similar point.

If, during a combat, the team kills a cyber monkey. My character has the biotech skill group at 4 and logic 6. I drag the thing back to my van and make quick repairs to the cyber. The hacker then hacks the corpse and takes control. Right there you have yourself a cyber zombie.

Of course they probably will not have two cyber arms, two cyber legs, a cyber torso and a cyber skull. However such a corpse is a ready made building block dont you think.

Its just giving me ideas for my crazy Hemetic Doctor in NightHaunters game. Considering my last Shaman bought it is an absoulutly fatal and stupid mistake by myself.

Waiiitasec.. Anthroform Vehicle drones?

Edward, Kremlin, I am NOT letting you build Transformers!

Then you could build a custom-commlink that has a very specialized SK named SKYNET to control them all

The nastiest part of an anthroform drone (just speculation here) is that you can slap full body security on it, and suddenly they are practically invincible to small arms fire because drones ignore stun, and full body armor will reduce most small arms fire to stun. And there is little reason such armor should protect a drone less than a human.

Perfect tool for a corp, govt, etc... that needs to raid a building ASAP without losing human lives. This is less meaningful for an association where life is cheap, and it is cheaper to send unskilled mooks in first.

Jesus look at what you've done... I don't think the rules were meant to be used this way.

Let's see....

22 armor from full cyberlimb,torso,skull enhancement
+10 / +8 Full Body Armor
+2 / +2 Helmet


34 / 32 Armor on your brand spanking new corporate sponsored walking tank.



question though...
Where in the book does it say that vehicles or drones are immune to stun damage?

[quote=SR4 p152] Stun damage—bruising, muscle fatigue, and the like—
[/quote]

Vehicles drones and the monstrosities I designed do not have flesh to suffer this kind of damage

[quote =SR4 p161]If the attack’s modified DV does
not exceed the vehicle’s modified Armor, no damage is applied.
[/quote]

This quote explicitly allows the drone to e safe behind heavy armor but could still allow a powerful stun damage attack threw.

On a personal note I wouldn't allow a player to mix Vehicle rules and cyberlimb rules to make an invincible drone. ( Not that I have anything to worry about. This monstrousity is beyond the finances of anything beyond an NPC. )

In this case I'd just say that the hardened armor rule for vehicles doesn't apply as the drone I described above with 34/32 armor uses armor and cyberlimbs meant for non-hardened armor characters.

I have androids in my games... but they're dang rare, not likely the team would go against one. of course, also adding powersuits and 'landmates' (ala Appleseed), who'd be the likely hunters of a rogue military attack robot... but in both cases, quite rare, very military spec. A talented rigger could work up one if they wanted, but it'd likely drag attention to them in bad ways. big one is, if you could make some sort of attack robot, and used it, it would get huge amounts of attention. Whole corporate armies and gov't militaries would likely hunt it down, and you... and then either give you a job or kill you either way, character likely gets himself unusable for spending all his time making a terminator robot and thus dragging waaay too much attention upon themselves.