Soy Processing Units (SPU) See Runners Companion pg 152 for more details.

The standard SPU has all but replaced the oven, microwave and larder in the common household in 2070. It is a combination mixer, microwave, oven, and beverage server. There are differing costs and qualities of SPUs though. Below are some of the examples:

Format:
Name of SPU
Cost: How much you would pay for one at the store.
Necessities/Lifestyle: Included in your lifestyle costs at this level.
Nutrient Slots: These are the number of slots that you can have nutrient pastes made of Soy, Algae, Krill or other basic building blocks for making meals. Each slot holds enough to make approximately 20 meals
Flavoring/Additives Slots These are the slots for flavoring, additives and color to be added by the SPU to the base nutrients to make various meals. They also include instructions for the SPU on how to prepare those meals. Each slot holds enough additives to make approximately 10 meals.
Beverage Slots: The beverage slots hold syrups or powders to add to common tap water to create various beverages and drinks. Each packet can make approximately 30 drinks.
Wirelessly enabled/Manual only: Wirelessly enabled SPUs can be controlled via comlink or by the Central Home Node’s (CHN) system. Otherwise they have a touch screen interface.
Description: Basic description of how the machine works and what it looks like.

Slurpy Straw (AKA Leftover Straw, Dumpster Diver)
Cost: Can not be bought. To build one takes 10 hits on a Logic + Survival Extended test.
Necessities/Lifestyle: Street
Nutrient Slots: NA
Flavoring/Additives Slots: NA
Beverage Slots: NA
Description: A Slurpy Straw is a device found on many homeless people that is built to suck the remains of a Nutrient container that has been discarded dry. Many times there is not enough nutrients to make another meal and the SPU will tell the owner that it is “Empty”, but there can be as much as a few cups of food left in the container.

G. Form Grill
Cost: 30
Necessities/Lifestyle: Squatter
Nutrient Slots:1
Flavoring/Additives Slots:1
Beverage Slots:0
Description: The G. Form Grill is panini press style cooker designed for the creation of nutritious snacks on the go. It is roughly the size of a small toaster oven and uses interchangeable metal plates to shape the nutrients (patties or bars). As it is designed to be used anywhere it can run off of a rechargeable battery (for use in the gym or camping) for short periods of time (roughly 2 meals worth of use time before recharging for 30 min). It uses proprietary nutrition containers with built in flavor packets. Due to its small size the Nutrient containers only have enough product to make 5 meals, but only cost 5

Aztechnology Home Stuffer
Cost: 100
Necessities/Lifestyle: Low
Nutrient Slots: 2
Flavoring/Additives Slots: 3
Beverage Slots: 2
Manual only
Description: Roughly the size of a large microwave oven the Home Stuffer is a product of Aztechnology Stuffer Shacks. They use a proprietary slot system so that it can only use Nutrient and flavoring containers sold at Stuffer Shacks, hence the low cost. While the containers cost the same as more universal systems, they are made with the lowest quality ingredients and limited flavor/coloring additives. They use an injection molding process that, when combined with the lack of color range, produces food that looks like it is made of plastic. Still do to the low cost and ease of buying pastes and flavorings it is a common product in many homes. None of the meals can be larger than a hamburger and complex dishes may take several passes through the machine to be produced. The beverage nozzles also do not clean properly and changing the drink can add a slight bit of the flavoring left over from the last drink.

Kenmark SPU
Cost: 300
Necessities/Lifestyle: Low
Nutrient Slots: 2
Flavoring/Additives Slots: 3
Beverage Slots: 2
Wirelessly enabled
Description: Roughly the same size and quality of the Home Stuffer, but it is able to use universal pastes and flavorings. The molding quality is still low and the oven has issues with producing the right texture (things tend to be to crunchy or too soggy.) The Cooking area is still very small and can not make anything larger than a large sub or small pizza so larger meals will require multiple uses.

Maytag Home Maker
Cost: 1,000
Necessities/Lifestyle: Medium
Nutrient Slots: 4
Flavoring/Additives Slots: 3
Beverage Slots: 4
Wirelessly enabled
Description: The MHM is one of the larger home SPUs on the market and is slightly larger than the size of a modern oven. Their larger numbers of nutrients slots are designed for large families or big eaters. They do not have many flavor slots; so many meals tend to be a bit bland. The molding process however is designed for higher authenticity to help with picky younger eaters. The cooking area is fairly large, able to create items up to the size of a whole turkey.

Ginzu Home Chef
Cost: 1,500
Necessities/Lifestyle: Medium
Nutrient Slots: 3
Flavoring/Additives Slots: 6
Beverage Slots: 5
Wirelessly enabled
Description: The GHC is one of the most popular home SPUs on the market and is roughly the size of a modern oven. Its larger number of nutrients slots allows of a much wider variety of dishes to be prepared and the SPU can check with the CHN about what items it can make with the nutrients and flavorings at hand, allowing for a much wider variety of dishes to be served. The cooking area is fairly large, able to create items up to the size of a whole chicken. It is the SPU of choice for corporate families.


Renraku Iron Chef
Cost: 15,000
Necessities/Lifestyle: High
Nutrient Slots: 4
Flavoring/Additives Slots: 20
Beverage Slots: 5
Wirelessly enabled
Description: The RIC is one of the most versatile home SPUs on the market and is roughly the size of a refrigerator. Its huge number of nutrients slots can allow for extended use without needing to resupply or allow for a truly astounding number of base nutrient components. The SPU can check with the CHN about what items it can make with the nutrients and flavorings at hand, allowing for a nearly infinite amount of tasty and authentic tasting of dishes to be served. The molding and cooking elements are fine tuned to produce just the right amount of texture to any food items. The cooking area is fairly large, able to create items up to the size of a large turkey. It is the SPU of choice for workaholics or low level executives.



Viking Diamond Edition
Cost: 50,000
Necessities/Lifestyle: High
Nutrient Slots: 6
Flavoring/Additives Slots: 50
Beverage Slots: 10
Wirelessly enabled
Description: The VDE is the top of the line in SPUs. It is roughly the size of a side-by-side refrigerator. Its huge number of nutrients slots and flavorings allow for any meal to be created and the high tech rapid prototyping technology is the pinnacle of food recreation. Many users like to tinker with dishes and then upload their favorite recipes to their social networks. It is the be all end all as far a gourmets are concerned.

Nutrient costs:
Soy: 5
Krill: 6
Algae: 6
Beef puree: 15
Chicken puree: 10
Whitefish Puree: 20

Flavor packs: Between 5 to 100 based on the quality of the ingredients and the number of flavors. They range from Authentic Stuff Shack to Wolfgang Puck’s French Specialties.

Beverages: Between 5 to 20. Soycafe is the most popular.

Very interesting, and cool. Being a cooking enthusiast myself, I can see using these in a game, my character paging through a Matrix catalog, drooling over the Viking Diamond Edition.

Thanks. One of my great fears with making all this stuff is that no one will ever use it or even find it all that interesting. But when I started thinking about how SPUs worked I realized there was a great amount of variety and options that separated the good from the bad, but were never covered. Also I like to give my runners something to do with their down time and stuff like this helps to flesh out there desires and motivations.

I think things like this should appeal to pretty much all characters. Even if you don't give a toss about cooking, most people prefer good food to crappy food.

Very Cool!! will definitly get used. I repair appliances for a living and think this is great. makes it real for me.

Just a few nitpicks.



The Kenmark is the cheapest unit with wireless capability, its description should reflect the added bonus over cheaper models.

The Ginzu does not have "a wider variety" of nutrient slots over lower priced models. It has flavor slots.

The Ginzu has more slots then the Home Stuffer and the Kenmark is what was intended.

I'll make a edit to the Kenmark to make it comlink only and change the description.

Hey BRodda

Are you going to compile all of this great extra flavour / fluff stuff anywhere so that us lazy people who don't want to have to search all of DS for it can find it and use it in our games ?

The bulk of the stuff I make is scattered accross DS, but I made a post a while ago with most of my early creations. I'll try to update it with the new stuff I've created to keep it up to date. Glad to hear people are liking and using my stuff
Link to BRodda's Index Post.
Just because I am a completest here are the equivilent SPUs for Street and Squatter Lifestyles.



Slurpy Straw (AKA Leftover Straw, Dumpster Diver)
Cost: Can not be bought. To build one takes 10 hits on a Logic + Survival Extended test.
Necessities/Lifestyle: Street
Nutrient Slots: NA
Flavoring/Additives Slots: NA
Beverage Slots: NA
Description: A Slurpy Straw is a device found on many homeless people that is built to suck the remains of a Nutrient container that has been discarded dry. Many times there is not enough nutrients to make another meal and the SPU will tell the owner that it is “Empty”, but there can be as much as a few cups of food left in the container.

G. Form Grill
Cost: 30
Necessities/Lifestyle: Squatter
Nutrient Slots:1
Flavoring/Additives Slots:1
Beverage Slots:0
Description: The G. Form Grill is panini press style cooker designed for the creation of nutritious snacks on the go. It is roughly the size of a small toaster oven and uses interchangeable metal plates to shape the nutrients (patties or bars). As it is designed to be used anywhere it can run off of a rechargeable battery (for use in the gym or camping) for short periods of time (roughly 2 meals worth of use time before recharging for 30 min). It uses proprietary nutrition containers with built in flavor packets. Due to its small size the Nutrient containers only have enough product to make 5 meals, but only cost 5

I love this kind of thing, but we don't do much in the way of non-mission stuff, so it's all just filed away in the back of my mind, for when I'm picturing things, or occasionally describing a scene. Like, "everything seems to be in order, except you find a cooked, untouched meal in the Ginzu Home Chef."

Thanks!

I take the meal out. Put it on the table. And steal the Ginzu.

Very nice stuff!

I'd imagine the higher quality/pro models would actually require an active skill to use properly, what with all the variable options.
It also brings to mind appliance shopping in the Sims.
And that brings to mind Sims: Shadowrun edition.

I think that the cooking skill covers using the hihg end SPUs.

And I realized I was getting a bit to Sims (Sims:SR did pop into my head at one point too). That is why I'm holding off on the Sythahol mixers I stated up at the same time.

I'll post those next week.

Yes! No more yellow mush for meee!

Sometimes I drink Sanka and wonder if that's how soykaf was supposed to taste.