I know how the mechanical arms work and stuff like that, but about earware? or voice modulators? retina scanners? etc.

No.

The long answer is that most things are available as non-cyberware, and they'd mostly need to be Special Equipment anyway.

I don't follow. Could you elaborate?

Take an anthroform drone, the Otomo for example. It (presumably) has some kind of listening sensors and some kind of speaker so it can talk. Could you slap a voice modulator into it?

I bow to Yerameyahu's take on this. He knows a lot more about the rules than me. Though I am curious if something like voice modulators are available as non-cyber someplace.

Hah, don't make me an 'authority'! I see what you're asking now: specifically things that are only available as cyber. When you said 'eyeware', I read that as 'thermo vision, etc.'

Voice modulator. Hmm. Something *like* that should exist, even if it's not in the books. I think that certainly qualifies as Special Equipment, using the cyber prices (typically, external gear is much cheaper, but this is 'special'). I'll check the books real quick.

Edit: Back. In this specific case, you don't need a Voice Modulator (hardware). You just replay a recording as normal. That's all the Voice Modulator does anyway, except for the Secondary Pattern system. *That*, IMO, is easily a software thing, that you could buy (expensive and forbidden) for this purpose. Pretty sure that's house rule territory, which is fine. That's what they're for.

Basically, if it's cyberlimb mods, that can go into a mechanical arm if your GM approves.

You can probably get other stuff and just list it as "Special Machinery", but again, your GM needs to approve it.

So ultimately the answer is "The books don't specify, ask your GM."




-k

I actually said earware before

With that I was thinking the select sound filter specifically. But now that I think about it, I could probably do that with an Edit check.

Thanks for looking into this for me. I'm in the process of trying to get an antroform drone, so weird ideas are popping in my head a lot.

Select Sound is an audio enhancement, so it's not cyber-only. You can add it to your drone's sensors as normal (that is, Microphones have audio enhancement capacity equal to their Rating, Select Sound counts as 1 AE-cap).

I think you're out of luck with the Retinal Duplication (by RAW), but here's my take: it's available as a Capacity mod to cybereyes, so it's obviously not wetware-only. Therefore, you can give your drone the Special Equipment of a Retinal Duplication cybereye. It wouldn't even have to be a real sensor, it just allows the use of the Retinal Dupe system. *shrug* Everything involving that damned drone is messy, in terms of 'is it cyberware, is it vehicle, etc.?'.

Doing these kinds of out-of-the-box things are always really hard. I generally don't use them if I feel like I'm cheating lol.

I really wish there was a way to get around mimic. That mod is expensive.

Mimic isn't THAT bad. Only 3 BP at most at character creation, 15,000 nuyen otherwise.

I mean, it's significant money, but considering what it gives you, well, to me it's a bargain.

I mean, a living external shell just like a Terminator, for only 5000 nuyen for level 1.



-k

The 2 slots part is a hefty price. The 5k isn't cheap, but it is doable.

I suppose I could always just go with a Latex face mask. I don't think a robot will care about wearing a mask 24/7.

Arsenal, somewhere around the Spy Toys section. Page 58?

I think you mean Voice Mask, which is actually before Spy Tools (Runner Toys); it's the equivalent of the Voice Mask cyberware, not the Voice Modulator, and so its function is masking your voice. Honestly, there *should* be a non-cyber version, but they haven't gotten around to it.