Forums of the Megaverse®

Aberrant Mechanoids get a lot of mileage in my worlds, but I was wondering....Can AbMs(old style body frames) such as the Brain or Runner upgrade themselves with additional cybernetics/bionics, such as tentacle appendages or add-on weapons/tools, or are they so balanced in terms of bionics/organics that such additions would cut into their innate psionic abilities(forcing mechanical enhancements to take the form of plugging into a larger vehicle, rather than adding to their own bodies)?

I would say they can upgrade their cyborg bodies. They would not add cybernetics to their flesh and blod bodies thou.

it would probably be a good idea to upgrade or swap out parts to hide what they are as well.

i have had the ones in mine rebuild bots native to rifts earth as new bodies as the bodies they have now just prompted massive gunfights right off.

Heres a wierd thought for you. What if the AbMech took on a humanoid body with a cyborg center to gain the trust of the Human Resistance.

had that thought awhile back, one problem though, the abm in question would be limited to the smaller variety, as the organic body of many of the mechanoids is rather large - the brain abm you can clearly see the organic body and its rather large-.
unless they were to some how make the organic body smaller, but if they could already do that why weren't they that small to begin with?
-unless the abms were able to somehow develop this process and keep it secret from the others-

I would not only say that ABMs could get new bodies (they are essentially cyborgs) but that they absolutely would. They need to disguise themselves from the regular mechanoids. Not to mention that they do not want to be mistaken for mechanoids. If they wanted to spy on the other mechanoids they could try to get one of the new bodies, but I'm guessing the mechanoids have been mostly successful in rooting out the ABMs. Upgraded weaponry couldn't hurt either, actually I went through and made a list of changes I wanted to make a long time ago (when the rifts mechanoids book came out). On their own they were fine but I felt some changes to all the ABMs were necessary when placing them into rifts earth (Since I did not think the normal mechanoids would change their design without permission from an overlord, especially after the ABM problems). Remeber that the mechanoids basically took over the universe so they have to think their designs are pretty much superior to everything else.

Could a ABM Mechanoid transfer itself to a new mechanoid body styling?

Yes if it was the same kind, e.g. Abm Brain using the new Brain robot body...

It seems to me that any Mechanoid can upgrade and become some sort of ubermechanoid. The technology the Mechanoids use indicates that they are capable of far more, and it's the job of the GM to justify why they don't. If not, it's up to the GM to create the "new wave" of Mechanoids, or forget the book stats and make up a new batch altogether.

Everyone has their own strategy and approach. I've justified the book stats by principles of economy, it's just easier for the mechanoids to build billions of "cheap" bodies than it is to build a few million expensive warbots. This doesn't mean that they can't, it's just that they usually don't since the need rarely arises.

Mechanoids have the technology to build Motherships the size of Jupiter, and the somehow defy physics enough that it doesn't collapse upon itself due to the whole mass/gravity thing. If they really put their minds into it, they can build whatever they want.

As for the aberrants. They are a numerical minority that get by on whatever they can scavenge. It makes sense that aberrants would tinker more with non-standard bodies, yet there may be psychological issues of why they don't. Maybe Mechanoids view body tinkering like people view plastic surgery? Sure it "improves" you, yet there's something "false" about it. It doesn't make much sense considering the artificial bionics, yet mental perceptions are rarely sensible.