So if anyone who was lucky enough to grab a BBB of SR4 at con able to answer the question: did cyber limbs get fixed to become a actual praticle choice of cyberware or are they just glorified tool boxes again that eat to much essence?

Lots of cyberware are significantly cheaper, including Cyberlimbs. You can do a full body conversion into chrome for 90,000 nuyen, if you'd like. Increases in rating (all limbs start at Strength/Agility/Body of 3) can be purchased for 200-300 nuyen per rating point. Capacity rules are very similar to what they were before, so you can load up on accessories and such.

I wouldn't say you can really load up on accessories. Not for synthetic cyberlimbs, anyway.

How about essence cost? Sure you can go full chrome for cheap but does that still cost like 6.5 essence. For increasing attributes it still seems like it would be easier to just have a stat naturally and way to costly to increase a cyberlimb to actually do cool cyber limb feats.

Someone mentioned that cyberskulls are beyond starting availability, so if essence costs remain constant (which it looks like they did), then you can only get 5.5 essence plus whatever additional mods exist to increase your physical attributes. So you're close to full-borg, but not quite.

A full chrome conversion would cost 6.25 essence, but considering the low prices, you can easily get that in Alphaware at character creation. But barring limits on character creation, let's cook up a theoretical example of maxing out a full body (no skull conversion for this particular example, just to save Essence):
2 Cyberarms
2 Cyberlegs
1 Cybertorso
80,000 nuyen

Upgrade all limbs and torso to Body 10 from Body 3 = 5 * 1400 nuyen = 7000 nuyen
Upgrade all limbs and torso to Agility 10 from Agility 3 = 5 * 1750 nuyen = 8750 nuyen
Upgrade all limbs and torso to Strength 10 from Strength 3 = 5 * 1750 nuyen = 8750 nuyen.
Natural armor of 4 on all limbs and torso = 5 * 1200 nuyen = 6000 nuyen

Total cost for Chrome Conversion, except head = 110,500 nuyen
And you'd have 10s in Body, Agility, and Strength. Individual enhancements are probably cheaper as bioware (4 levels of muscle augmentation and muscle toner is 60,000 nuyen), but the whole Cyberlimb Chrome Conversion package is actually a lot cheaper than getting Orthoskin/Dermal Plating + Muscle Augmentation + Muscle Toner + Bone Density Augmentation/Bone Lacing all combined.

I thought Augmentations were capped at Racial Max * 1.5. Couldn't you only increase B, A, and S to 9 then for Humans?

Ah. Such trickery. You'd think by their nature cyberlimbs would start out at one point higher than racial average, you know, being mechanical and all. That'd get you across the board 9s. And can I assume that like in Man & Machine, higher grade cyberlimbs have reduced capacity?

Thanks for the info, though.

I've wanted to make full cyborgs for SO LONG... I'm so happy!!

You always could, under SR3. 4 Cyberlimbs, cybertorso, cyberskull; all alpha, and you've done it. To do it at chargen, make it all used alpha.

b

I think by 'full borg' he meant a character who's body is made up entirely of cyber, not a character who's body is made up entirely of suck. The SR4 rules seem much kinder in that regard.

I wonder why it was decided that it's fully plausible to start with a full cybernetic replacement of the torso and all limbs, but replacing the skull is somehow past a line that shall not be crossed before play begins.

how does SR4 handle mismatched cyberlimb stats? like say i have one limb ith body 5 and another with body 3. is it the same avaraging that was in SR3?

as for the alpha grade having less space stuff, from what i have read on this forum it seems that anything added to a bit of cyberware have to be the same grade as the base cyberware. im guessing that you have to add a markup to whatever equipment you want to install in a limb to indicate it being reworked to work that grade limb. makes a bit more sense then decreasing available space atleast

The guy in GITS whose lips don't move when he talks has brain damage?, he has no control over muscles in his face. It took a really good face artist to make him a face that was more or less normal looking. Speaking more generally a 'fractally generated' face based off a generic template will provide you with a unique look, you'll just have a lot of 'siblings'. Getting an acutal unique face would take a bit more work.

sounds similar to how SR3 did it to me...
except for that use lowest when careful coordination is needed...

The cyberlimbs in SR3 got so rule-screwed, I never had a character use them.

Oh, just a note: While Cyberlimbs no longer directly add to your Body (a pair of cyberarms used to give +1 Body, while a pair of cyberlegs added +2), each cyberlimb (with torsos and head counting as one "limb") adds 1 box to your Physical Damage meter. Your Body could still increase from upgrading the Body rating of your cyberlimbs, as well.

I am glad they seem to have made cyberlimbs more reasonable (the were utterly useless under SR3). My major worry was that they would go overboard and into Cyberpunk 2020 mode. It sounds like they got the balance right. No minibar in the leg cavity though?

I wouldn't say they were utterly useless in SR3; they were just expensive and tended to be Essence hogs if you just got the limb and no other built-in devices. They were a great way to save on Essence for certain characters with the capacity rules. I think 2 of our riggers in our past games have had cybernetic RC decks with signal boosters built into their arms or legs, simply because it saved them a boatload of essence. And our 1 character with a tactical computer had it built into his cyberarm (saved a LOT of essence there).

Yep, good for suitcases.

But since the S & Q ratings were so low or required even more essence, they would drag down the characters attribute when averaged, and usually hurt Reaction and combat pool. Those mods were severe enough to keep people I knew away from them.

That certainly would work but I think you were probably playing on a different level to our group. You are certainly correct about the cost though. For one of the more low-tech and immensly useful bits of 'ware, the costs were extortionate.

I've had a SR3 elven assassin with an obvious cyberarm (backstory being that he's "too poor" to replace it with a synthetic). Of course, it concealed a boatload of weapons, including a pair of cyberdartguns loaded with G-S and cyanide; that alone was worth the Quickness penalty (his strength was average anyway, so the STR 7 of his arm was an improvement). I rebuilt him on the MUD in my signature; he's my favorite character so far.

Most?

I still kinda think that if it's something that most to all people are going to houserule then it should be in the main rules, even as an 'optional sidebar'.

I presume there is still bioware strength boosts? If so, you mean you could get to the point where someone has a strength of 6{8} [natural(bioware)] throughout their body, but if they want to put a cyberarm on then the maximum they can get it to is 6 because their poor ol' meat body can't take a strength above that in a cyberarm.

I'm assuming they are troll arms just starting at strength 3.

[edit] ...But then there's that one picture...

Can anyone explain the capacity of cyberlimbs to me or point me to the page explaining it? Why is it that the capcity of the limbs on page 336 is lower than the capacity of the accessories on 337. I'm not getting that rating at all. I would have assumed that to fit an accessory into the limb you'd need to have capacity in the limb for the accessory? But, if that's the case then none of the limbs can fit any of the accessories.

Also where are the rules for augmenting the limb's base statistics? I didn't see those in the street gear section.

I see... thanks! I didn't notice the enhancements I was so confused by the above table. Errata noted and understood.