TW Robot vehicles

[greydin25]

Can Techno-Wizards play around with and add things to Robot vehicles?

[taalismn]

Oh yeah.....There's, of course, Dwoemer's Automatons(but they're more like piloted golems), but there's also a TW-enhanced Glitterboy in Rifts Black Market.
Rifts South America has at least one TW robot(built by one of the Atlantean tribes).
Pantheons of the Megaverse? The fake Zeus cult has a TW 'bot.
There's Angrar Robotics, which sells demon-possessed robots and power armor, to name a few.

And I imagine any TWizard worth their salt who comes into possession of a robot vehicle will consider at least one modification to it.

So...go to town.

[ShadowLogan]

I think the FoM's Automatons are closer to Golems than TW (though BoM does classify them as such), we see similar platforms in SA1 (Atlantean/Amazon City-State has a 'bot and a PA).

Angrar Robotics I think is less TW and might be closer to Bio-Wizardry/Rune.

Atlantis does create TW Power Armor suits in WB2/7/21 typically for the Kydians (sp). World Book 7 also has TW Power Armor form the Naut'yll

New West has the TW Robot Horse (Glittermount).

Tolkeen has created a variety of TW Robots (Iron Juggernauts) scattered across the 6x book SoT series (also in the BoM, not all SoT books have them).

MercOps introduces a trio of TW Power Armor

Of course there is also the Robot RCC from SB1o/r that establishes you can make robots with TW power source.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Arzno book also has a lot of TW-enhanced stuff. Light armor, power armor, vehicles, etc.

As an aside: one thing I've never understood about TW power armor: a magic user will never/rarely have power armor piloting skill, and regular people or Robot Pilot OCCs don't have PPE, so who's expected to use the TW features? The ISP costs are prohibitive; while a Psi-Tech could use them, it wouldn't be very practical.

[ShadowLogan]

Arzno book also has a lot of TW-enhanced stuff. Light armor, power armor, vehicles, etc.

As an aside: one thing I've never understood about TW power armor: a magic user will never/rarely have power armor piloting skill, and regular people or Robot Pilot OCCs don't have PPE, so who's expected to use the TW features? The ISP costs are prohibitive; while a Psi-Tech could use them, it wouldn't be very practical.

Re: aside
I agree it is unlikely that a mage would have Pilots R&PA, but regular people DO have PPE (technically). As to how those regular people are expected to use the features, I think its going to vary, but I think its going to come down to an internal PPE "battery" of some kind for the PA/Bot/vehicle to draw from as it doesn't have to draw from the crew. It might also be possible some of the features could be built to use the HP/SDC converts to PPE spell (Life Drain?) to circumvent the PPE issue (though I don't know of any off hand).

Recall though that there are the TW Bionics from Canada that are powered by ISP, so if a psychic partial reconstruction borg can power TW weapons it might not be much of a stretch for a psychic pilot to do the same feat in a PA/bot.

[Grazzik]

Arzno book also has a lot of TW-enhanced stuff. Light armor, power armor, vehicles, etc.

As an aside: one thing I've never understood about TW power armor: a magic user will never/rarely have power armor piloting skill, and regular people or Robot Pilot OCCs don't have PPE, so who's expected to use the TW features? The ISP costs are prohibitive; while a Psi-Tech could use them, it wouldn't be very practical.

Re: aside
I agree it is unlikely that a mage would have Pilots R&PA, but regular people DO have PPE (technically). As to how those regular people are expected to use the features, I think its going to vary, but I think its going to come down to an internal PPE "battery" of some kind for the PA/Bot/vehicle to draw from as it doesn't have to draw from the crew. It might also be possible some of the features could be built to use the HP/SDC converts to PPE spell (Life Drain?) to circumvent the PPE issue (though I don't know of any off hand).

Recall though that there are the TW Bionics from Canada that are powered by ISP, so if a psychic partial reconstruction borg can power TW weapons it might not be much of a stretch for a psychic pilot to do the same feat in a PA/bot.

Baseline rule:

No cyborg, partial or full, can operate Techno-Wizardry devices

For Momano Headhunters that are partial cyborgs:

to use TW Bionics, they must expend an extra 30% in P.P.E. or I.S.P. points, plus the range and duration of said mystical effect is half!

Note WB20 is Pre-RUE. Bionics SB does not speak to the issue. So, I'd say that psychic 'Borgs would be unable to use such armor under RUE rules.

[MyDumpStatIsMA]

Re: aside
I agree it is unlikely that a mage would have Pilots R&PA, but regular people DO have PPE (technically). As to how those regular people are expected to use the features, I think its going to vary, but I think its going to come down to an internal PPE "battery" of some kind for the PA/Bot/vehicle to draw from as it doesn't have to draw from the crew.

Correct about the battery, but a PPE battery is (seemingly, to me) kind of a high-end feature that not all TW stuff has automatically.

Also, some magic OCCs can't even take power armor piloting at all. Mystic and Shifter can't even try to learn PA piloting. Ley Line Walker, Lord Magus, etc, can. But unless you have it in mind from the start, most players probably won't bother to choose PA piloting skills for their mages.

[ShadowLogan]

Note WB20 is Pre-RUE. Bionics SB does not speak to the issue. So, I'd say that psychic 'Borgs would be unable to use such armor under RUE rules.

Still we have case examples in the Mamano and the Deamonix (SoT6 pg87-96) that go againt the RAW in RUE (because they predate RUE), they might be the exceptions to the rules of course, but it still establishes a method(s) that could be used by a non-mage to power a TW device on a given mecha that doesn't rely on a PPE "battery" is what I am getting at.

A psychic pilot of any mecha AFAIK doesn't suffer the same penalties to powered TW devices in their mecha as a Mamano does for their TW Devices, aside from the ISP to PPE conversion rate. But given a TW device construction rules the casting cost (even for a psychic) could still be made cheap if one doesn't want a PPE battery (and can handle the extra cost/gems requirement)

[sabrina]

Yes, indeed! Their ability to manipulate technology allows for extensive customization. You can enhance weapons, armor, speed, and intelligence, or even give robots unique abilities.