Given the possible range of anthroform (i.e. humanoid) drones and the immense possibilities for outfitting them with high-end electronics gadgets and wepaonry...

Given the phenomenal advances in cybernetic interfaces and the seamless "tele-kinesis" (in the sense of literally moving objects at a distance) possibilities offered by Vehicle Control Rigs...

... what's stopping a rigger from building a powerful humanoid drone, covering it in synthflesh, a mask--which many runners wear on the job anyway--and clothes, and simply performing all of their runs through it? Arm it and it's effectively a "street samurai" (using the term loosely here--don't want to offend any bushi who might be reading) with Wired Reflexes, enhanced Attributes and top-of-the-line senseware. It uses the vehicle damage rules () and can carry the heaviest weapons you want. Alternately, for stealth runs, it can lug as much gear on its back as you need. With the right gear built in, it can even act as a relay station for the rigger to control other, more traditional drones at the same time. Have the anthroform on the ground, the surveillance blimp overhead, the roto-drones as backup for when the shit hits the fan, etcetera.

Aside from the possibility of having the drone highjacked by a security rigger or jammed by some high-end ECMs, what are the potential problems with this?

any test to manipulate an object are limit your remote arm operations skill. can't use more dice than success in each test, iirc.
Other than that you're okay. so long as mages don't assence you and you never need to observe radio silence.

Being Assensed only matters if the rigger is trying to conceal the nature of the drone. If her teammates know that she's running through an anthroform drone, then it doesn't matter. In fact, that reminds me of another bonus: immunity to stun effects.

The tests to manipulate objects could be tricky, though... hadn't thought of that. Still, how hard can it be? If the rigger is reasonably competent they should be able to handle most demands for fine manipulation, no?

Cost, mainly. Your rigger could probably make more money taking the price of one of these superdrones and investing it in a money market fund or something. The anthroform drones exist, but they aren't cheap. Plus, any damage it does take will cost an arm and a leg to repair. There's also question about the Load rating of these things - that'll severely limit the amount of vehicle armor you can have.

Now, if the anthroform drones were super low cost then you'd be on to something. But Shadowrunners tend to work in teams for a reason - you need help from deckers, faces, mages and so forth to get the job done. When teams want a mildly clumsy but nearly indestructible killing machine they tend to just hire a troll. Besides, bringing out something like this is a little like pulling out your Steel Lynx ground combat drone or Panther Assault Cannon. It's a statement that says: "I use whatever firepower necessary to win, and I'll just use it right up front instead of messing around with the whole stealth angle."

I guess it comes down to your campaign style - if the GM and players are big on lots of explosions and muzzle flashes but not so much on clever heists and tricks it'll work fine. If the GM has an issue, he'll just apply sufficient firepower or say no in the firstplace.

Frankly, it's hard to see many objective reasons not to do this. The softer social and psychological issues that some runners might have could be a bigger problem, though.

The law of adaptation might come into play here. Corps will get burned up the first few times that your tele-runner sends this super drone after them. Thus, they will investigate. The guards say the guy was indestructible and super strong. Forensic investigation of his footprints reveals a weight of something like 500kg - pretty hefty. Yet there's no karma hazing or other bad juju associated with a cyberzombie - and the lone surviving security mage confirms that. Sooner or later a security rigger will make his sensor test by enough dice to figure out that this mysterious "intruder" is actually part of a drone network. "Click" goes the last piece of the puzzle.

At this point, corps have two options. Option A is just to beef up electronic security - the primary goal is to locate the rigger controlling this drone and vape him with an AVM, the secondary goal is to just jam the hell out of it. They'll hire freelancer or shadowrunner riggers to defend their sites if necessary. Option B (if you've been burned and you're Aztechnology, for example) is to go out on the streets and see if you can find out who is running this super drone. Then you hire him yourself, with or without his consent.

Really, every super weapon or unbeatable tactic in Shadowrun (and it's awesome that people are still thinking up new ones, don't get me wrong) relies on corporate security staying fat dumb and happy and never adapting their style. In reality, police and military forces (along with criminals and terrorists) are constantly changing tactics and strategies to stay ahead of each other. And the speed of the change is generally proportional to how badly you got beaten up in the last engagement. In Iraq, the insurgents first used RPGs and AK-47's. The US stepped up convoy escorts and equipped everyone with anti-rifle body armor. So the insurgents switched to bombs. The US jammed the radio signals that set off the bombs and started armoring vehicles. The insurgents are now using infrared to set the bombs off, and building shaped charges that attack the belly of a car (its softest point). This will continue until one side or the other gets hammered.

Irecommend the MK-6 if you are going obvious drone. it's wheeled, but has a pretty low handling so a VCR-2 should even handle stairs and the arms are strong enough to have it lift itself at quite a hefty load and has built in tool storage.

Actually, I am the GM. The rigger in my campaign has been musing about this and I thought I'd get some feedback from the fora before offering her any opinions around the ol' gaming table.

depends onthe optempo costs for the feed and care of said troll w/mmg. after all, what does atroll with an mmg eat? anything he wants.