Also would have economical fallout.
However, letting robots learn skills, I think should just keep to giving them skillsofts only, and preventing them from doing any precise work. Robots are clunky things, and would probably not be able to do things such as clean guns, make chems, fix vehicles, etc etc.
Though I think there could be some interesting possibilities for things like robot drivers, robot medics, etc. Though I know some people won't be into those.
Also they aren't very good at surveillance at all with the current parts that are in the game.
They're intended to fulfill many different functions to a high level, it just never really quite got there so mostly now they're cats.
I don't know if it ever got to the point of development past 'skill UE make robot stronk' but the basic concept was laid down at one point for the robot to be an extension of the operator themselves to some degree.
As for learning "additional skills", not really. Rigging is less implemented than decking at this point. Adding more "this would be cool" to it doesn't help when nearly 70% of what it is now is non-functional, broken, or not even present.
This was dead wrong the first time it was ever raised to push back on robots having useful functions, and it's dead wrong now, it's a fault idea borne out of lack of experience and a misunderstanding of the relative economics, because players get stuck permanently in the mindset of playing a combat character all doughed up and bashing each other with sticks and can''t imagine a different risk calculus.
Why would anyone, or even a rigger themselves, give even the slightest fuck about their 50,000c sleeve when they're putting their 750,000c warbot into the world? When your character's essential value is in their pistol skill, your gear is protecting your value. When your character's essential value is their high-end bots, your sleeve is protecting your robots not the other way around.
A fully outfitted warbot with maximum gear on them is like a million plus chyen, what solo is out there risking that much and saying it's without fear of consequences?
There is zero second hand sources for robot parts. The only place where a civilian can buy any parts is Sebastian's on Gold. Unfortunately because the store is stocked wall to wall with everything that doesn't work (like jet thrusters for aerial chassis that don't exist) the store is inevitably missing vitals parts for building. So you won't be able to find a cat head, behavioral matrix, or something necessary. And because restocking will never happen because nobody is going to free up space by buying the products that have no function, the needed parts never appear on the shelves.
Thus you inevitably have to track down one of the licensed riggers to even just buy you a part that costs like 800c, and if you're having a rigger buy you parts, you might as well just pay them to build it for you. It'll be immensely cheaper than the roughly 30k-75k just to source the tools needed to start building.
A medibot where you slot in a medkit, it is capable of patching up very basic injuries. A HandyBot (Home) or (Auto) version that is capable of installing/uninstalling things if you give it the proper tools. A haulbot that isn't capable of anything, or combat, but has hilariously high strength that is capable of picking things up and dropping them off, like a mobile forklift robot. Imagine WCS-Branded 'Bodysnatchers' covered in bulletholes patrolling around Red, occasionally accidently bumping into homeless people they thought were corpses, and their purpose to go, 'Beep beep, corpse detected. Lift corpse. Go to location. Drop corpse. Return to patrol.' Maybe some enterprising gangers could beat the shit out of this robot and fuck it up to get parts for their own robots, and Sanitation needs to make sure their Bodybuddies aren't all banged up or they gotta go grab the bodies themselves again, old-school style. Maybe high-end Sanitation can pop into the office and take control of them.
Janitor robots and roombas should be puttering around corporate office buildings all the time. Really skilled hackers should be able to take control of them and use them as spybots maybe, or maybe cause them to break down, and now the janitors have to come in and clean up the messes themselves again.
Reward the operator's skill, or set it into auto-mode to allow it basic function for less-skilled operators to have a way to deal with very basic problems.
I think a Bronze is a fine enough skillpoint for (automatic mode) where it doesn't allow any true proficiency but ensures it is capable of the basics. Perhaps higher skill in Rigging specifically could allow it to operate at a higher 'automatic' mode, up to silver, but should NEVER ever be as good as what someone can actually and realistically accomplish. Robots have a certain limit to how good they can really be, as skillsofts still need a human input to actually be capable no matter how expensive the soft.
Of course this is all just me shooting off random ideas.
Even if humanoid robots could utilize 100% of operator skills at full effectiveness they'd still, in my experience, be too clunky in their operation and vastly too expensive to ever remotely (haaah) substitute for a player characters so I don't really see any threat of replacement like some players do, but admittedly I am not sure if player skills = robot skills is a better paradigm than rigging skill = robot power, or if a mix of both is ideal.
If you're a master medic but your rigging skill is only at mediocre, you're a mediocre medic while doing it through a robot?
You know it occurs to me that robots have thematically (and to some extent already mechanically) behavioural matrices that determine their functionality and operation to some degree, and you could really have both options covered through a system like this so that one parts set up could be built around converting rigging skill into general robotic abilities and power, another could slot skillsofts to give the bot abilities none of the operators might have, and then another might instead translate many elements of player skill into the same robotic abilities. Call the latter the ZMI Da Vinci specialist Behavioral Matrix or something like that.
That way you could have, in theory with unlimited dev time, robotics allowing specialized functions to specialized players, but also avoid having to make riggers also be full solos with a UE robot operator tax on top of it.
