This is incorrect... cite me anywhere in the rules which states that a cyberlimb takes stun.
1. The rules state that if a character receives damage from an attack and his armor rating is equal or higher than the damage value, then any damage he suffers (after the resistance test) is stun damage.
2. Nowhere in the rules does it say that this rule doesn't apply to a character with a cyberlimb (or an entire cyberbody). Ergo even a Cyberzombie can suffer stun damage.
3. The stun damage he suffers has nothing to do with the pain. Because even if you cut of the sensory imput from a cyberlimb, it only prevents the modifiers but not the damage (AU p.33). Ergo it is the cyberlimb itself that suffers the stun damage.
If it does take stun... how does it 'heal' it. Remember stun reflects bruising and heals at a rate measured in points per hour once you can rest for an hour.
Cyberlimbs do have limited self-repair capabilities because of the maintenance nanites in the cyberware. I remember that it was described like that in SR3. Even highly augmented runners (with complete cyberbody) heal both stun damage and physical damage, even though most of the damage they received necessarily had to damage the cyberlimbs and not the little remaining flesh. Only if a runner receives a lot of damage at once does a chance exist that the cyberware is critically damaged and has to be repaired manually (rules for critical damage see AU).
You also miss the point... the point of a realistic drone is that people don't know it is a drone. They think it's just a hacker with an embedded commlink or the like. How are they supposed to know they need jamming to trap the AI unless they know it's an AI?
All it takes is a mage (or spirit). Assensing will immediately reveal that it's not a living being.
Even then if you stuff the AI in a commlink instead of inside the drone itself then have it control the drone from the commlink... if the drone gets shot up your commlink ride is still ok and can patiently wait until the jammer goes away. Hell all it takes is a peripheral plugged into a datajack or skinlink to escape. (hide in the smartgun anyone?).
1. If the A.I: hides in any sort of tech inside or near the drone, it can also be destroyed, especially if the drone is attacked by weapons or spells that affects an area.
2. Even if the A.I. somehow survives and escapes, so what? It has just lost hundereds of thousands of Nuyen worth in equipment. A good cyberbody is expensive! So it's rather unlikely that the A.I has a spare body lying around somewhere or that it can buy a new one in the short term.
Ok. and now my reply to your other post:
The handling is always used as an additional dice pool modifier. This same modifier is used for piloting tests, defense tests, attack tests, stealth tests against perception... etc. Pretty much everything that would normally be an agility or reaction linked skill. Think that's a pretty good case that it's a vehicular attribute...
No, not really. You've said it yourself: It's a modifier. A modifier is a modifier and not an attribute. Handling it is nothing more than a simple way to differentiate between different drones with the same basic attributes but different shape and sizes.
The entire reason for this thread is because you want something that can be mistaken for human, but with none of the human frailties. That's why this is so problematic. So you're hellbent on making up house rules addressing an idea which has been brought up at least once a year in multiple SR forums over the years...
You call it problematic. I call it the very essence of the game. Shadowrun is all about playing a character who is capable of doing things regular human beings can't do. As a player of SR you always try to grow your characters abilities and to reduce his weaknesses in order to impove his odds of survival and success. And in most cases you do it by buying additional gear and gadgets and using them in creative ways. And that's exactly what this thread is all about.
You're talking about making up house rules as if it was a bad thing or at least a very strange thing to do, even though the SR rules are made up in a rather loose fashion with many, MANY unregulated areas and unadressed questions that force every gamemaster to make up house rules all the time (whether he writes them down or creates them spontaneously when a player wants to do something that isn't covered by the rules is irrelevant)! There are several instances in the rule books where even the creators of those books suggest to the gamemaster, that he should rely on his gut feeling or common sense if he is confronted with something the rules don't cover. Relying on common sense is just another term for creating house rules.
You claim 150k for a drone is good... when lets put this in chargen terms... one assuming the avail is low enough (look at the mitsuhama realistic cyborgs avail numbers and costs for a fraction of your performance).
The only reason those cyborgs cost so much, even though they aren't quite as good as a cyberbody (or Novocrane's upgraded Orderly drone) is simply because of the CCU (the brain in a jar). Remove the CCU and you would have a drone that, while you're "jumped in", would have the same stats but cost only a fraction of what the complete Mitsuhama cyborg costs (my guess is maybe 10-15k Nuyen).
On the other hand: If you integrate a CCU into a cyberbody, you would end up with a cyborg drone that costs around half a million credits, but which would have the stats of the cyberbody.
Besides: Those Mitsuhama cyborgs don't perform as badly as you insinuated. According to the rules in Augmentation, p.159 , the "Otomo cyborg" for example (if controlled by an A.I. with Aptitude in "Pilot Groundvehicle") would have:
- Body 6
- Agility 10 (Pilot Groundvehicle (Anthroform) 7(9) + Handling 1)
- Reaction up to 11 (depending on the response of the commlink +2 point upgrade)
- Strength 6 (= Body)
An A.I. in such a cyborg body could eventually have "Automatics (Assault Rifle) 16(18)" +2D6 from Smartgun, and "Dodge (Ranged Combat) 17(19)". Add up to 21 personal armor (or 18 vehicle armor +10 smart armor) to it without losing any agility, and you have an A.I. with a very resilient and agile body.
150k is only 30BP of starting resources! Only 30BP... enough for a real character to raise 3 of his 4 physical stats BY ONE POINT. Yet you don't see how this is problematic, being able to buy all your stats with no essence limitations or problems.
1. An A.I. is more vulnerable within a physical body (see my last post).
2. It's not as if it isn't already possible to significantly increase all physical attributes by only investing a couple of BP's. An elven mage with B:1/A:2/R:1/S:1 could for example shapechange into a human with B:7/A:7/R:7/S:7 and then sustain the spell with a sustaining foci. Or he could let himself become posessed by a power 6 spirit, thereby increasing his attributes.
3. As you've described in your post, it is already possible for a Rigger to rig another human by stirrup interface. If he uses a specially grown or trained Type-O clone body (one with all physical stats at 6) instead of a Hobo, and in addition to the stirrup interface implants some standard bioware (like muscle toner) into it, then the rigger is also able of walking around in a body with very good physical attributes, while paying far less BP's for it than it would have cost him to improve his own body's natural physical attributes.
With all that in mind I'm curious why you are so hellbent on fighting the idea of a cyberdrone. After all it only allows the player to do something with rigging and cyberware, which he could already do by other means.
