This cyborg was built using standard chargen rules with the only exception that the CCU was allowed to be bought for 50 BP (sort of like a metatype). Even with that big exception, the cyborg still completely sucks as a combatant and can't afford any programs as a hacker. A big problem is that not only did he have to spend 50 BP for essentially lackluster cyberware and 200 BP for 100 BP worth of mental stats, but he also had to burn 20 BP on a chemical facility just for maintainance. At least he doesn't need to pay for Lifestyle, a nice parking spot on someone's roof would work fine.

I expect that with Arsenal, he'll be able to buy a better body to work as a combatant, but with the rules so far, he's terrible. Even though he takes half damage from all physical attacks and all physical damage becomes stun damage, his damage resistance dice pool is laughable and has no chance to improve later. Too bad he can't get a Pain Editor installed without turning him into a cyberzombie. Even with max BP in mental stats, his perception and combat pool sucks because of the drone's low Sensor rating. I made him an Elf (or rather a cloned Elf brain) so I could get some decent Chr for him, doubling the cost of mental stats kept his attributes awfully low. Maybe that 30 BP could be better spent somewhere else, like hacker skills. He does have one advantage, with his skillwires included in his CCU, he can buy a ton of rating 4 skillsofts (they're only availability 8), making him fairly versatile.

As fun as it would be to play a brain in a jar, I'm pretty sure any chargen cybersam could kick his ass out of the sky, and he's nothing compared to a good possession mage.

Later on this week I'm going to try retooling him as a hacker, but I just wanted to post this rigger before I hit the big DELETE button. Did I miss something perhaps or does anyone have any suggestions?

For starters, I´d take a flight capable drone as main body.

Nice spot on the elf regarding charisma costs. Considering what you are you might go with CHA 1 as well and save 30 points. Use those to buy cracking group 4 instead of just hacking. Now crucial self defense skills are always-on and do not need to be loaded before use. In combat you are likely to load perception and dodge, any sec. hacker forces you to face "interesting" choices.

My mistake. Somehow I thought "Doberman" instead of "Dalmation".

It is not hover-capable, alltough it can do VTOL if absolutely necessary. I´d probably take a rotor drone for combat and a mini-blimp for surveilance.

...haven't read through all the rules in Augmentation yet. So you are telling me this "guy?" is actually a conscious drone? Like "Kit" from Nightrider? or "Bomb #20" from DarkStar?

After my RiS campaign concludes I am going to have to read up on this a bit.

actually this "guy" is a brain in a jar with an implanted VCR Comlink that is constantly rigging it's own body-drone . . and because in SR4 everything is like uPnP the brain can be switched between anything with the right port . .

He's more like RoboCop. A human brain in a drone body.

..ahh more like the brain ships from Anne McCaffrey's The Ship who Sang. Now this is very intriguing. Got a couple weeks before the next RiS session, maybe I'll have to sit down with the PDF tonight for a bit of reading.

Aurora Air™

...the Smart way to fly...

something i will probably try is building johnny 5 as a player character . . *g*

...I was looking at them on more the NPC basis, and not necessarily as combatants either. The idea of the autonomous airliner (hence the "Aurora Air" tagline) that didn't need a meat crew in a flight deck but still had a "living" presence controlling it is what interests me. This kind of was inspired by discussion in the SINless Travel in 2070 thread, Basically the aircraft would have direct control of all it's own systems. The fight controls would be completely isolated as there would be no need for a conventional flight deck. It could still have various countermeasures (security drones, Neurostun emitters, etc. discussed in that thread) under the "pilot brain's" control for thwarting a hijack attempt.

...just a thought.

Having a brain-in-a-jar directly plugged in from somewhere on board would allow you to extend to passenger cabin forward a bit as you would no long need the flight deck area at all.

Chris

just on a side note, the cyborg does actually get +4 to pretty much all meatworld actions. +2 from hotsim (rigging is a matrix action) and +2 from control rig (it is also a vehicle action)

which brings dodge up to a very respectable 9 passive, and just makes a lot of his dicepools a lot more attractive in general.

the problem is not whether it's competitive with a sammy (i still agree that it is not, btw) but rather whether it is competitive with a rigger.

hmm, rather then using a computer to balance a flying wing, one could use the brains built in sense of balance?

hell, forget about flight attendants, go drone carts

hmm, a formation of cyborg t-birds...

hell, i just recalled a old comic about a race, where one of the competitors was a guy encased in a tiger shark like car. not fully "brain in a jar", but close enough to get chills.

i dont know, i dont think cyborgs are up there with sammies. thats what you have cyberzombies for. but its still something that could trip up a team. i would love to see the face of a rigger or hacker thinking its a remote drone, and tries to hack its control signal, only to find that there is none

The same effect minus any ability to think on the fly, sure.

We're gonna have to wait for Arsenal and Unwired both, before we really see the full potential of a Jarhead, but most starting Sammies aren't capable of running with 4 initiative passes and deciding that a dive-bombing run is a viable approach to the target they've just encountered. And just wait till you start seeing anthroform drones wearing mil-spec body armor.

Um. Now I'm thinking about Krang as a Shadowrun character...

The tech is currently at an early beta stage. And, like the MBW we had before (SR3) only really useful for NPCs. Right now too dangerous to the brain, too expensive and too high maintenance. That will change (hopefully before SR5, with arsenal).

- Corporations will use it the way KK said: control of commercial vessels. The brain can rest for most parts of the journey, and the autopilot is instructed when to awaken its pilot. Great for long hauls, regardless of transportation methods.

- Military use? Manned aircraft that are NOT susceptible to high-G forces. Tank crews that don´t leave the vehicle and don´t die because home-made explosives made their tank jump.

I found a cool picture of a brain-in-a-jar that looks like it could be the cover art of the next Shadowrun adventure:

A brain-in-a-jar having a nice night out at the local Johnny Rockets with his human and dwarf teammates just before being attacked by a horde of Horrors

Or, you could put it in a decent vehicle, such as a mobmaster, a tbird, or a big helicopter. Throw some missiles in with it, and some other weaponry, and you've got something to be scared of. Sure, he doesn't go in buildings, but thats not his job, his job is to take out whatever needs taken out.

With a bit more miniaturization of the support equipment, we could be seeing GitS level prosthetic bodies soonish. Wonder if that would help with the insanity problems?

The insanity seems to come from brain miniaturisation. As in loosing greater parts of the brain during the process.

and putting a rigger in them is throwing away cargo space

as SR4 is back at the mystical side for explaining essence loss, yes...

Y'all have got it wrong. Putting your jarhead into a Biodorm is where it's at.

A jarhead will be much more dedicated to being the best at his job than any rigger. The main advantage of jarhead PCs is the forced concentration on a very reduced skillset. IF one considers that an advantage, min/maxing is forced here (subject to change with anthroform drones of high quality).

heh, i liked the transhuman space idea.

pop a "comlink + skillwires/MBW" into the biodrone and let a AI or braincopy control said "comlink".

And when you catch syphilis, you can just trade out bodies!

Yes, I meant biodrones. And I like to think, that even though the flavor text says they don't have it working with humans YET, they are lying. So you can have your jarhead rig an appropriately diodroned cyberzombie. Hell, even if they don't have it perfect, rig yourself a goddamn cyberbear. Cyberzombie bear. Jarhead cyborg cyberzombie polar bear with fricken Lasers on it's head.

If it helps (and I can't imagine it would) I thought you meant "biodome". Which admittedly, I did think would be kind of cool.

Probably the blood circuit control system would do that. Just narrow down so the blood doesn't rush outta his head, and he'd stay awake.

or into, there is a effect known as redout when to much blood hit the brain.

Hmn. Polar bears -are- the most vicious killers in the animal kingdom.

... much like their enemy, the hideous shark.

IGNORE THAT! Moving along.

I don't think cyborgs have reached PC status at all... yet. As ( several ) people have pointed out, we need the Arsenal book and its vehicles to really make them viable.

However, as NPCs, they could be duly terrifying. While I haven't done so yet, why limit yourself to BP? Cyborgs, like cyberzombies, in my opinion should not be things made to any sort of player template. You figure out what ungodly horror of a challenge the team needs this week, kit it out, deploy it. While a cyborg doesn't get that nice immunity to normal weapons, the larger drones, or as someone mentioned biodromes ( not sure I want to go that route ) get a reasonable body stat and a fair amount of armor.

Or you could just use them as super drones, which is probably what I will use them for for the time being. Kit out a security system that uses the things. Don't need rigger input! Just a small amount of supervision, and a patrol area. Then proceed to let them do things a normal drone wouldn't. Chase characters down. Call shots. Suppress an area while other drones sneak up behind them. Operate in pure radio silence. Move very, very quietly. Follow the characters, while not -looking- like they're following the characters ( "You killed the cameras in this area and shut off the network, right?" "Yeah." "Okay, this tank drone -must- just be on patrol..." ).

Also, this may just be a stepping stone. Technology in its infancy. Cyberzombies have gotten scarier in SR4; cyborgs may get scarier along the way as well. And like someone else mentioned, this may be the first step to GitS-style prosthetic bodies. Which would be cool.

Unrelated: The Arsenal book is being billed as 'weapons, vehicles, chemtech, and other gear'. This seems to be a combination of the old Cannon Companion and Rigger 3. Considering the Cannon Companion was small, this doesn't seem out of the question... until you realize that the Rigger 3 was -huge- and really did require its own book. Also, there were -other- books that had vehicles in them as well during the SR3 cycle. Heck, it wasn't until SOTA2063 that we got our first tanks.

Not that I've ever used Shadowrun for a military mercenary campaign *cough*.

More to the point, though, will Arsenal actually have rules for making weapons and vehicles, or will it just have expanded rules and expanded lists of such? Does anyone know? And if it does have rules for making vehicles, let's hope it's a bit more accessible than Rigger 3 was. I think I'd reach enlightenment if I ever understood that book.

iirc, they have said there won't be rules for designing vehicles (or guns) from scratch, but that they do intend to provide a variety of basic vehicles, and a system for modifying them.

Until Arsenal shows up and solves all our problems, I can't for the life of me see why the heck anyone, especially a profit-minded corporation, would spend 250,000 nuyen to put a CCU in a drone when they'd be a lot better off just buying 50 more 5000 nuyen drones for the same price as one CCU.

Especially if they're say, the big S-K or Ares Macrotech; spitting out gigantic, heavy machinery is kinda their thing.