I just got a copy of Augmentation and decided to play around with the new rules a little to see what's possible now. Definitely looks like mundanes have options to put them on par with magicians again -- woohoo!

That said, I went through and created a quick full-body cybernetic conversion for player characters (as opposed to a "rigger in a box" style cyborg or other similar options). I didn't bother with any flavor text at the moment because I was putting the stats together for fun rather than creating something viable for a campaign, but it seems like there's quite a bit you can do with the new rules.

Cyberware Suite:

Customized Cyberskull [0.75 Essence, 28,600Â¥]
- Base Stats: Body 6, Agility 6, Strength 6, Total Capacity 8
- Armor +2 (Ballistic +2/Impact +2) [-4 Capacity]

Customized Cybertorso [1.50 Essence, 38,600Â¥]
- Base Stats: Body 6, Agility 6, Strength 6, Total Capacity 14
- Armor +2 (Ballistic +2/Impact +2) [-4 Capacity]

Customized Cyberarm [1.0 Essence, 45,100Â¥]
- Base Stats: Body 6, Agility 6, Strength 6, Total Capacity 19
- Ultimate Champanion (+1 to Unarmed Combat) [-2 Capacity]
- Armor +2 (Ballistic +2/Impact +2) [-4 Capacity]
- Cyberarm Gyromount (+3 Recoil Compensation) [-4 Capacity]
- Shock Hand [-3 Capacity]

Customized Cyberarm [1.0 Essence, 40,600Â¥]
- Base Stats: Body 6, Agility 6, Strength 6, Total Capacity 19
- Ultimate Champanion (+1 to Unarmed Combat) [-2 Capacity]
- Armor +2 (Ballistic +2/Impact +2) [-4 Capacity]
- Datajack & Sim Module [-3 Capacity]

Customized Cyberleg [1.0 Essence, 38,100Â¥]
- Base Stats: Body 6, Agility 6, Strength 6, Total Capacity 24
- Nightengale Feet of Fury (+1 to Unarmed Combat) [-2 Capacity]
- Armor +2 (Ballistic +2/Impact +2) [-4 Capacity]

Customized Cyberleg [1.0 Essence, 38,100Â¥]
- Base Stats: Body 6, Agility 6, Strength 6, Total Capacity 24
- Nightengale Feet of Fury (+1 to Unarmed Combat) [-2 Capacity]
- Armor +2 (Ballistic +2/Impact +2) [-4 Capacity]

Wired Reflexes 1 [2.0 Essence, 11,000Â¥]

Base Cost: 240,100Â¥ and 8.25 Essence.

The total cost for this Alpha-grade suite is 432,180Â¥ and 5.78 Essence, and it has *tons* of room for customization. You're also a walking tank with +6 Physical Condition Monitor boxes, +12 Ballistic and +12 Impact armor, +4 dice for Unarmed Combat plus a Shock Hand, gyrostabilization, and the ability to "redline" to boost your Physical Attributes significantly for a short duration. You're a little slower than other combatants (only room for Wired Reflexes 1), but you more than make up for that in tons of other places.

Note that with the Capacity available in each limb, you still have plenty of room to boost your Physical Attributes by +3 each for only -9 Capacity and +2,100Â¥ (adjusted for suite bonuses) per limb in which you wish to do so. Only the cyberskull lacks the room for the full boost.

I didn't see any rules on how to calculate the Availability of a suite, but only the Cybertorso and Cyberskull break the standard Availibity 12 limit after a quick exam.

Also, there wasn't room for a full set of eyes and ears, but there's non-cybernetic options available there. Not only that, but there's tons of Capacity room to install this bad-boy with just about every sensor system in both SR4 and Augmentation which more than makes up for that.

EDIT: It's probably actually cheaper than this, though not by much (and definitely not enough to lower it to starting character limits). I didn't bother seperating the cybernetic components that require the same grade (and cost) as the host limb from any features that don't necessarily need to be. Color me lazy and unsure if that's even permissible with the rules.

There's also doubtlessly a few other minor mistakes I made, but the whole leaves me feeling very good about the possibilities in the near future. What do you guys think?

I should also point out that I assumed it was for a Human with no bonus attribute qualities or anything like that. The stats for a troll would be more pricey, but still doable up to their racial modified maximums (+3 with further augmentation).

Woah woah woah. Where can I get my copy of augmentation?

Edit: SWEET! Time to read!

Edit 2: I see the kept that terrible cover. Definitely not buying this one hardcopy.

http://www.battlecorps.com/catalog/advance...ntation&x=0&y=0

oh ye flippin god!

edit:

i take it that customized cyberlimbs allows one to match the user stats without taking up capacity?

well woopdie doo. augmentation just made my number one must have!

Get out of here with your smelly "synthetic cyberlimb" propaganda. Shoo, I say. Anyone who uses such a thing deserves to be left behind.

[quote]I would also note that the "full body conversions" (aka cyborgs, "jarheads") presented in the book are something different and will really come into their own when we get Arsenal out (ie. anthroforms et al).[quote]

who needs anthroforms? just give me the ability to be the brains of a T-bird loaded to the max and im happy

hmm, sounds like when arsenal comes around with anthroforms one can do living metal (cpv3 alt-cult) in SR.

well living metal is the name of the group. what they are, is basically a brain and spine in a can (a mobile can, that looks like a sperm, but thats another story) that can be moved from shell to shell. these shells are anthroform in design, but so far 2 of them have had special features (one being able to fly thanks to winglike extensions and lifting body design. and the other can operate as a motorbike, and even carry a passenger, but comfort may be a issue).

looking forward to arsenal

I actually haven't picked up CP3.0 yet (mixed reviews and I've just been too busy with SR) so I'll take your word on the parralels.

Going into Augmentation we wanted something different from the standard full-body cyber replacement (which was already possible if expensive), that would still keep its coolness factor and offer a few twists. Jarheads are the result and they offer something very different (with both upsides and downsides) from both full cyberlimb replacement 'borgs and cyberzombies.

heh, more often then not the bad reviews of CPv3 seems to come from people that had a deep commitment to the older game, and dont like where the new one goes story wise with its transhuman like nano-organic city and similar.

to me thats much the same as those here on dumpshock that talks about SR not being gritty enough.

when you have a group of "people" living out in the desert, whos rite of passage is to rip out the brain and spine of the adult to be and implant it into a cybernetic shell of choice i would say the place is gritty...

Yikes! That suite would make one hell of a monster. Armor 12! Naked!
I'm still unsure about the cumulative v. averaged armor ratings for limbs though. I mean, I understand the arguments for cumulative armor as they'd follow practically every precedent in the book, but I'm still hesitant about it for some reason. I mean, this guy in an armored jacket is tougher than...any vehicle I can think of at the moment.
He could use the amusing tactic of wearing a bomb vest, blowing it up and killing everyone around him while still basically being fine himself.
I do like that in the suite examples they included one made by shadowdocs to show it is possible for suites without corp backing to exist, such as this (may I suggest government military origins?) one.
One question about the wired reflexes though, is it in there just for the price break or just for more fun playing about with cyberware suites? At the price level this reaches I'd think synaptic boosters (even though they couldn't be included in the suite and thus not as fun to play with) would be a fairly attractive alternative to wired reflexes. That would also open up room for cybereyes/ears. Right, done disjointedly brainstorming for now.

Honestly, I don't know if you can work Bioware or any of the other 'wares into a Cyberware Suite without it being a homerule. I was planning on looking in on them more closely when I start planning my first SR4 campaign.

But yeah, with no budget, you'd be better off just going with Move-By-Wires even. I just through Wired Reflexes in there to make sure he'd have some Initiative booster with all that hardware.

I'm pretty sure bioware can't be included in cyberware suites, at least not as part of the discounted package. I was working on a similar suite, so thanks for doing most of the math for me!

about the armor thing. we are talking about a person thats 90% metal here.

the more i think about armor in SR the more its as much about coverage as it is about being able to "stop" the damage.

also. if one want to be picky, why should he take stun damage if its his full metal body that takes the hit and he is armored enough to turn it into stun damage?

Did they include ANY anthroforms in Augmentation? Like a sample generic anthroform that jarheads usually take so we have something to run with?

nope, because originally we should already have arsenal to cover that bit...

Quick question - is the Armor +2 for each body part is cumulative? Call me an idiot, but I'm not sure having +2 Armor on my nifty cyberarm wouldn't do me much good when I shoot myself in the (meat) foot.

armor in SR is whole body. so adding +2 to your arm (most likely) means adding +2 armor for your whole body.

best examples are the helmet from the main book.

I'm not so sure that would be a good idea considering how high it would be possible to jack your Armor Rating up to, especially if you allowed a cyberhand to count the same as a cyberarm.

Hence the part where I said; "I'm not so sure that would be a good idea ...".

Thanks for the replies, though this makes those cyberzombies (and street sams since the OP was below 6 essence) _really_ scary now.

I thought armor was averaged over the body, like, well, Body. I thought helmets and shields are the only exceptions to armor stacking. Otherwise a full cyber bod with maxed out armor for each body part would give you way more armor than a tank.

If you really wanted to push the envelope...

Delta Grade......... = -50% Essence Cost
Cyberware Suite.. = -10% Essence Cost
Adapsin EPE......... = -10% Essence Cost
Biocompatibility.... = -10% Essence Cost

Total.................... = -80% Essence Cost

That would allow a total of 29.99 Essence worth of hardware to be installed. That 29.99 Essence after all the mods would be 5.998 which would leave the poor soul with a mere 0.002 Essence (which is canon in earlier editions. I believe the example is in MiTS.).

If the SR4 rules demand at least 0.01 Essence, then you could have 29.95 Essence worth of hardware. Not much of a difference really.

Who needs cybermancy with that? Daddy just needs a large bankroll and some delta grade goodness.

Yep, it's pretty absurd. But it's also something that's likely to never come up in anything but the most over-the-top power-gaming groups.

What is nice is that a Cyberware Suite, Adapsin, and Biocompatibility basically makes the equivalence of delta-grade implants accessible. Beta with those three mods is a 50% reduction, which is pretty nice for hardcore cyberjunkies.

Bah, yes. I was thinking "Alpha" but put down "Beta." Sorry about that.

I was a little upset on my first read-through of Cyborgs... I'd been hoping for something more like this than BiaB. But within about 10 minutes, it occurred to me "they've given you a bunch of tech that reduces essence costs, suites, and customized cyberlimbs. You just need to use those instead, and you're golden, and your GM can decide to have full-body conversions in his game seperately of having jarheads in his game!"

So, yeah. I'm happy with how this turned out. And jarheads are cool

Though you can be sure the first full Body replacement suite will come from EVO.

And I think that among transhumanists this will be a very popular sell. If people will pay to get their genetics altered to turn them into furries, you know this will catch on.

Are there any social penalties from being a "jarhead" outside of Positive and Negative Qualities? I don't recall seeing anything that stood out aside from fluff comments that they're supposed to have serious troubles in social situations.

For me, that's the main reason I'm not all that interested in a jarhead.

well i guess one can run the risk of being treated as property, not a person, if the other side isnt aware that your a brain in a jar inside the drone...