Re: Robot body built as an ally to a brain in a jar questions.
 

I agree with thw others. Built him as a normal cyborg/robot character. That is what he is. That is what he should pay for.

However! You do not have to follow the robot templates from Ultra-tech. Maybe his robotic body is less sophisticated, more frail or simply weaker. (Less dx, dr and st). If he want to have a strong robot body, ofcourse he have to pay for it.

Re: Robot body built as an ally to a brain in a jar questions.
 

If he'll never be rolling against that DX 0 or using his ST 0, they're not actually disadvantages and aren't worth any points.

For the Ally, it has come up before that an Ally with Controls who is really just an extension of the character is a point crock. For example, an Ally built on 50% of a PC's points [2], appearing all the time (x4) and with Special Abilities (+50%) costs just 12 pts for what is, effectively, a 50% point increase in the PC's abilities. To be fair, you should offer all the other players a 12-point "supersuit", or require the player to pay the points for the robot body he expects to inhabit 24/7, and which is his actual character.

Re: Robot body built as an ally to a brain in a jar questions.
 

How about transhuman space's bio-shells?

These are more or less like cyborgs. The "algonaut" template has bladerunner-esque features and abilities; moreover, surely you can adjust them to your liking (for example, removing low pain threshold). The brain in a jar could be a 0 point feature if you are not planning to move to another body, and if you wish to do so... perhaps you could buy possession and so on.

The algonaut template is around 110-150 cp.

By the way, this template is in "Transhuman Space - Deep Beyond".

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Re: Robot body built as an ally to a brain in a jar questions.
 

Going back to the OP. if the problem was that the Ultra-tech robots had a lot of points spent on features that you weren't using, then simply remove those traits and/or add disadvantages such as Maintenence and you can spend some points on skills like you wanted.

Re: Robot body built as an ally to a brain in a jar questions.
 

He has one reason to have Possession, namely that he possesses a robot body. It would have major limitations, such as Accessibility to represent being only able to possess certain kinds of body - Puppets, or Nuisance Effect to represent needing to be physically plugged in with help (presumably skilled help) from others.

Overall, I'd consider it Possession at -80%.

I was going to say he doesn't have ST 0 & DX 0. Or rather, either you have Possession to represent being able to pilot/direct a robot body, or you have ST & DX because the robot body is your body.

However, I think you've handled it fairly.

Unusual Background [300] removes the problem of all the free points from ST/DX 0.

Special Abilities is a valid way of handling the body, accounting for the "free points" from IQ 0. I would have given the body Unusual Background instead, but this works too.

Any other cost from Unusual Background is usually based on the idea that your character has a resource that other people don't have access to and can't prepare themselves against. For example, being a wizard and able to use spells in a world where other people can't use spells against you and are largely unable to develop countermeasures against you.

How far does that apply to Brain In A Jar? If robotics are integrated into the setting's technology, then just cancelling out the ST/DX free points is cost enough for Unusual Background. I wouldn't charge anything extra.

Another thing worth noting is the brain still requires nutrients and oxygen, so a brain-in-jar will probably still require everything an organic being does.

Re: Robot body built as an ally to a brain in a jar questions.
 

-10 ST (mitigator: Robot Body, easily replaceable, sturdy -80%): -20 pts
-10 DX (mitigator: Robot Body, easily replaceable, sturdy -80%): -40 pts
Don’t forget advantages like no vitals, no eyes, and disadvatages like no legs, no arms, mute, all with the same mitigator. And then buy the robot body as signature gear (points).

I’m not fond of this build; I’d suggest just making a robot character with points and saying it has an organic brain (remove reprogrammable, digital mind, et al).