To have C-3PO go Jet Li on someone.

Exactly: C-3PO sucked. If he'd had blasters, yeah!

I'm a little confused about your point. First off, anything you make in this game using armorer or any such skill is house ruled. SR didn't put any rules down for cost and function, just time. So it is inherently house ruled.

That being said, the manservant specifically tells you what is disabled on the drone. So if you buy it a new set of arms, it can use them to fight. No house rules need apply. Same with the legs. The other stuff is purely cosmetic.

C-3PX.

No, lowendz. I meant that there are no rules for replacing the legs. You could probably get away with replacing the arms: they cost 4000¥ each, before any upgrades. I don't think I was talking about Armorer anything, nor making anything not on the mod list.

Removing and then re-adding a modification. There are rules for that.

Possibly. It's not clear that re-adding Walker does that; it might, and it might not. You could just swap in wheels, though.

Eh, I like the idea of removing the arms and legs and then putting newer ones on again. And then a hardware removal of the panic button.

I may need to take another look at the stuff I posted on here and make sure that the autosofts are the proper price.

I'd be happy to houserule it that way, yes. I just meant that the RAW doesn't say that; therefore, it's a houserule. (House rule is not a dirty word.)

You're paying more than the drone costs for the arms (each), and Walker Mode isn't free, either; it seems perfectly fair to de-cripple by that method.

Yeah. One of the thing I say often is that house rules are not neccessarily a bad thing. Like houseruling that spirits can actually Inhabit, Possess, or Materialize (those are all Physical powers that you're not supposed to be able to use on the Astral...), or that bows and crossbows can be fired (since Fire Weapon specifically mentions firearms).

Haha, I remember those examples. Those aren't house rules in the sense that anyone *else* means it, though. Those are 'oh, look, a minor error in the rules. How droll; let's ignore it and continue playing.'

That makes a house rule.

Not really. Things so stupid that they're errors don't count.

i would leave the panic button in. but instead of calling lone star (or knight errant, or whoever), it would be modified with the anti-theft system

on a side note, i'm not sure that i would charge the *full* price for the modified arms and legs. after all, part of that cost is all the connections, wiring, etc, which the manservant drone should already have. you don't have to modify the frame to fit arms and legs, that's already been done. (note: i'm not saying i would take a massive amount out of the price or anything; you're still essentially buying parts for which there is only a very small market. but i would give maybe a 10% cost reduction, maybe a bit lower threshold on the extended tests, to reflect the fact that there is a bit less that needs to be done. if someone were to make a non-crippled manservant drone and mass-produce it, i'd probably only have the price a little bit higher, if at all; the manservant isn't crippled because it's cheaper to make it that way, it's crippled because it's easier to sell that way)

I think the point is that it can't be sold (that is, mass-produced) un-crippled, due to market attitudes. It's a mistake to mess with game balance in such an overt way without admitting that's what you're doing, that's all. I'm as annoyed as anyone with the huge gaping holes in the vehicle lineups of SR4, but the important thing is that you get what you pay for. For 2500¥ (nothing) you get a crippled mass-market butler-droid. For much more than 2500¥, but MUCH less than 150,000¥ or 350,000¥, you get a low-end de-crippled drone. That's fair; which is to say, 10% off is perfectly reasonable as a house rule.

Actually it does, as you're changing the Rules As Written.

on the contrary, that would be operating under such assumptions as:

- the current selection of drones we have seen are *all* of the possible permutations of any form of drone that could ever exist without modification.
- the entire market consists of only one demographic.
- the corporations don't have such "low-grade"* humanoid drones for other uses (and it's almost a sure thing that there are humanoid drones with mimic that for aesthetic reasons can't have gimped arms and legs that won't move right, because it's almost a sure thing that there is a massive market out there for drones that appear to be exceptionally attractive - and probably exceptionally flexible - human men and women)

* low-grade is relative. by low-grade, what i really mean is that they're not specifically designed to be turned into superhuman death-dealing engines of mass destruction and mayhem that only appear to be humans on the surface.

As far as game balance is concerned, some of the vehicle stats are way out of whack anyway, with some vehicles/drones with improved stats being marginally cheaper than similar vehicles/drones.

Eg, compare the cost of the orderly and the manservant, compared to what you get for your money...

Is it me, or is the Orderly not at all an anthroform? The image in Arsenal is very misleading, else.

Jaid, I dunno what you're talking about. I *said* that the vehicle lineup has gaping holes.

Correct, that's been errated.

It can, apparently, still do everything that a manservant can, though, without the limitations, and it is faster and better armoured. Plus it comes with a box full of potentially dangerous drugs and needles and a medical database that tells it where your vital organs are. If there is going to be a footsoldier for the next robot uprising, its these guys marching out of the care-homes to take over the streets, each one coming pre-supplied with an elderly hostge...

And yet its 500 cheaper than a manservant. And knowing that a rating 6 medkit costs 600, the drone itself is effectively 1100 nuyen less than the manservant but superior in almost every way...

Hmm - I think I just laid the groundwork for a very challenging run. Rescue the inhabitants of a self-contained old-persons care centre from the rogue AI that's taken over the buildings central core and isolated itself from the outside.

The runners must fight their way through the facility to the central core without killing any of the wrinklies, which is going to make shooting at the murderous syringe-wielding orderlies out of the question. Plus the occasional surgeon-droid, maintainance bot and security bot... And anything else that the AI can manipulate to hurt them. (Like opening all the oxygen cylinders in a small room then teasing the players into shooting at a bot that *doesn't* have a hostage...)

For added kicks - one of the Runners' grandparents are in there...

God, Mayhem, that's ridiculous. It definitely should be more expensive. Oh well, thanks.

Completed updates for increased cost of autosofts. Edited out some unneccessary parts or parts that were made obsolete.

Note: As far as I can tell, that drone on page 1 can't run that software. At some point you need to add Response 6 (8000 @ avail 16).
For starting characters, Response 5 (5000 ) might be better to avoid restricted gear.

but.... "A device’s hardware ratings may only be upgraded by +2 with regards to their original ratings" (SR4A pg 222). Looking at pg 222, I'd say the Manservant sounds like "Standard personal electronics, headware, vehicles, drones, home/business terminals", so it's starting with a response 3 and the best it's getting is a response 5 anyway. You may want to look at Optimization as a program option for your Common, Hacking, Autosoft, and Simsense programs.

I'm also not sure that "a Pilot program counts as a System". I thought a Pilot Program was an Agent. I believe you'll still have to buy a System once you buy that Response. If so, that's another 2500 for a System 5.

I may be wrong on all of the above.

Pilot doesn't just count as System, it *is* System.

suoq, what drone are you talking about? The Manservant can run all two of his autosofts with his Pilot of 3 (and that means his Response is at least a 3 also), and Glitch is mentioned as having Modular Electronics and a R6 Response.

And if you're talking about the software suites, well those are counted as 1 program for operating room.

Is Agent System as well? I'm confused.

<-Runs search.
Oh good lord, Arsenal contradicts itself. Pg 103, it is a system, on Pg 102, it isn't.
102: "The individual Response, System, Firewall, and Signal ratings may be upgraded as normal (see p. 240, SR4). Note that Pilot rating is listed separately, and is not considered part of the Device rating."
103: "The Pilot program for a particular vehicle or drone serves as its operating system."

Now to re-decipher this: "Pilot: A robotic brain program similar to the System program but including semi–autonomous decision–making abilities. Used for
agents and drones.".
If I'm running an agent on a commlink does that commlink need a Pilot instead of a system or is the agent the Pilot and the System. I'm lost. I think I'll go with "Agents are pilots without systems designed to run on a variety of systems" and "Pilots are agents with systems designed to run on specific hardware.". I'm just making up those quotes, but I think it's how everyone else is doing it.

I was looking at the software suites (which have a lot of R4 and R6 programs) and the Manservant (not Glitch). I wasn't aware that you only intended those software suites to be used with your second drone (glitch) and not with the first one. I must have misunderstood.

It's really not hard, suoq. It's confusing the way there's Pilot (vehicles) and Pilot (agents), but they're distinct. Pilot (vehicles) replaces their System (because they're nodes). Pilot (agents) is their smartness rating; agents don't have System, because they're not nodes.

Not a problem. We could built the 'servant to run them, but it'd be a waste without dumping the monies into it to make sure it could actually survive.

But the Agent's Pilot rating still limits the number of programs the Agent can use and their rating, doesn't it?

Honestly, I don't think so. I mean, an Agent's Pilot *is* its Rating, but I don't think it limits their payload. Does anyone have a rules reference?

Agents are limited by the system/response of the node they are in. Their "Pilot" rating just tells us how many dice they are using.

What/where is Modular Electronics? I can't find it in Arsenal or Unwired.

It's only found here

This is the same tired argument we have already seen several times on the threads.

Um. Which conversation are you commenting on? There's several in this thread alone.



-karma

HA.