So, is there anything in between a Manservant and Otomo when it comes to human form walker drones? I haven't come across anything but that might just be a matter of not having the right book. If not, has anyone built one for a home campaign for use by the Rigger or full conversion cyborg?

I personally have not found anything else besides the Manservant for a humanoid counterpart, if your GM allows, you could try a full cyborg body & just add a Rigger Adaptation to it I suppose, & that may be marginally cheaper than the Otomo.

I don't think there is anything. That's why I wrote Cyborgs Unveiled (link in the signature), which has a few additional cyborg bodies.

If you read the description in Arsenal, the Orderly is a Humanoid Drone. Just a case where the artist didn't read the text. I visualize it as looking like the medical droid in Star wars.

the tan dem drone in milspectech 2 is clearly supposed to be something along those lines. except that, picture notwithstanding, they didn't give it any arms whatsoever. or walker mode of transportation

it isn't exactly awe-inspiring, but it *is* better than a manservant (presuming you give it the arms and walker mode it's clearly depicted with as standard). not that we're exactly setting the bar high here. the improvement is not by any means a major one either, but hey, at least it doesn't cost a few hundred thousand nuyen (it is, unlike most things in the milspectech books, actually very well within reach of a shadowrunner budget).

It's also 16F, so not exactly street legal.

A Motorcycle. With legs and a rigger cocoon

So, a Bubblegum Crisis motorslave?

Thundercloud Contrail, Walker Mode, Two Full Mechanical Arms, and a Rigger Adaptation. That's what I'd use. If your GM is reasonable you can consider those standard upgrades and have Body slots left, the overall cost being the cost of a 6 Body/Strength humanoid drone with standard metahuman speeds.

That might be a walker, but it's certainly not "human form."

yeah, that's also quite an absurd choice on their part. first off, it's a *security* drone, not a military one (which also begs the question, what the crap is it doing in milspectech in the first place?). that makes it pretty obvious that there are legitimate reasons to own one for private individuals and small corporations, just like other security drones.

secondly, the only remotely worrisome part is that it comes with some very low grade combat software (for security) and a weapon mount. you know, that thing which danged near every drone that isn't specifically not for combat has, and which does not make most of them anything worse than restricted.

i'm not convinced nearly enough thinking went into designing that particular drone, but it *is* (supposed to be, based on the picture) a humanoid drone which is between the manservant and the otomo in terms of what it can do and the cost. i just wanted to point out that, while most people were saying there was absolutely nothing, there is in fact something. sort of. if you can persuade your GM that the very clearly humanoid-looking drone which got it's own half-page graphic and a part of the description which reads "The anthroform body also allows the purchaser to equip the unit with nearly any desired small arm" should have the stuff depicted which would actually make it anthroform in the first place.

so yeah, my suggested changes to bring this drone to where it should be?

1) give it legs and arms, for crying out loud. at the very least, based on the picture, one full arm, two legs, and the other arm could be counted as the weapon mount. although two arms and no weapon mount would make more sense, because then you could actually say stuff like "The anthroform body also allows the purchaser to equip the unit with nearly any desired small arm" and not be spewing out utter drivel (though to be fair, that could just be marketing speak)

2) change it from 16F to 16R. it's not a problem that it is hard to get... frankly, it's clearly inferior to the majority of similar size and price security drones, so it being rare makes sense. it's a very niche market; basically the only reason to buy one is that you want your security drones to look kinda humanoid.

but those are changes that i can only make for games where i GM (which, currently, is none). others will have to persuade their GM to make those or similar changes for their own games.

Arsenal errata removes 'humanoid' from the Orderly's description.

Agreed; when running games, I houserule the Tan Dem to have a Full Mechanical Arm to match its gun-arm.

Yeah, because it's easier for an editor to later errata a single word than try to explain and fix an art error.

Pretty sure the original author intended it to be a humanoid ASSISTING patients, not a walking wheelchair, because text mentions doctors remote-controlling the units from halfway around the world to perform medical procedures. As well as assist multiple patients, something kinda difficult if there's a patient strapped to the drone using it as a wheelchair.

"Art error" also explains the silliness of having TWO wheelchair drones in a game book.



-k

In all fairness, I'd think twice over allowing MilSpecTech 2 in my games at all, since its stat blocks are hilariously bad (see APC with Improved Suspension et al).

Ladies, gentlemen. Thank you all for your input and brainstorming ideas. We will likely be using Fatum's Cyborgs Unveiled for a reasonable upgrade. Average physical stats at a reasonable price. I do like the idea of the Walker motorcycles, but that is kind of obvious running around in Seattle with a small team that would prefer to do sneak work (even with a chameleon skin mod..)

Yay! I am useful! <3

Was there ever any doubt?

Why the sudden rhetoric questions? :ь

Ummmmmm.... Shrug?
The stuff you put together is pretty good (even if I do not agree with all of it). You deserve props for doing so. Do you feel it was inappropriate?

I have no way to know how needed anything of the stuff I do is.
Yeah, I've heard back from a couple people, and I've met a group using CU on IRC, but generally, everything's pretty silent on my end.

Whether it is needed or not is irreleevant in my book. It is good work. I like most of it. Really like the Fluff bits.

What can I say, I'm glad you like it.

On a side note: I've run a quick log analysis on my filehost, and Cyborgs Unveiled has been downloaded about 300 times since the release :3