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So, I was discussing things with a friend of mine, and we both came to the conclusion that AIs should be a playable option in Starfinder, and I'm going to quickly go over how that'd work. Note, I'm writing this on the basic assumption that, since Starfinder will still run on the D20 system and will be 'conversion friendly', the same things that'd work in basic Pathfinder would work in Starfinder for this. I'd like feedback and thoughts on the idea, but I think it works pretty well as-is.
Ability Scores:
For example, in Pathfinder, the standard six-stat loadout is generally used with a 15, 20, or 25 point buy. In this method, you'd be moving forward with 8, 10, or 12, which isn't even enough to get a stat up to 18 without sacrificing something for a dump stat but has decent ability to be spread. Ten would let you get one stat up to 16, while 12 would let you have a 16 and a 12 somewhere, which, if you look at most existent builds outside of heavy duty optimization or SAD classes, is a pair of stats most people are generally going to have, yet nothing stops you in a 12 point buy from dumping one stat (probably charisma; you know you've done it before) for up to an extra four points, in which case you can set one stat to 18, one to 10, and one to 7.
This is about the same level most standard heroes sit at. In the high powered version, you're looking at a standard character generally having a stat array of 16, 16, 12, 12, 10, and 10 if they're a multiple attribute dependent character (such as monks, paladins, fighters, or rogues) or 18, 15, 14, 10, 10, 7 for a single attribute character such as a wizard or sorcerer, which makes this fit the paradigm that's already present. Add in a stat modifier for being a specially built kind of AI (Logical, Observant, Charismatic...) and you fit in with the standard races. Make it a player choice bonus like the human +2 stats so you don't have to write three entries and you're golden.
System Transference:
We'll start with the simplest one; time. Time is a factor in basically everything you can do in the d20 system, whether you like it or not. Action economy is paramount, so I believe making it take 1-5 minutes is reasonable. This means that a player can reasonably, with any level of downtime, interface with just about any system they come across, which is good, as hacking in onsite is a pretty standard science fiction trope, but prevents players from doing it in the heat of combat unless they have a very good team watching their backs. Pretty simple, all told.
A full transference (Moving from one body to another system, such as leaving your robot body to inhabit your party's starship) would likely take hours; 4-8 would be good for downtime stuff, as it means it can be done while the rest of the party is sleeping, and also prevents casual use in a (space-)dungeon. your systems would likely also be vulnerable in this time, so you'd have to make sure your target system isn't fighting you (you could subdue any issues like that through basic interfacing and purging the programs designed to keep your AI character from transferring) and you aren't in any personal danger, as interrupting the transference could corrupt a severe amount of your data - not good for you.
The next bit is the uplink, which can also be handled relatively simply. It's a piece of equipment, as integral to the AI's function as a spellbook is to a wizard, so it can't really be skimped on, but it does mean we can have fun with it. There'd likely be three types of uplinks; Port, Wireless, and Multi. A Port Uplink would require physical connection to the target system in through a port, and would easily be the cheapest. Wireless would be a bit expensive, comparatively, and would be able to interface with any system that has its own wireless uplink, such as most security grids, though unlikely robots. A multi uplink would have both, and would be the most expensive and most worth getting of the three. Higher quality uplinks would guard against corruption from interruptions in transference, have firewalls to prevent attacks from a system you're interfacing with, and contain programs that let you assault other systems more easily. Some might also make it so that interfacing and transference take less time.
The target system would generally be one of four things; a robotic body, a vehicle's computer, a general object with onboard computer, or a security system. The AI character would use the physical statistics of the body they inhabit; hardness, armor, physical attributes, all that good stuff. If there's an existing program - AI or no - inside the target system, then to transfer into it, shut things down, or exert any kind of control, one would have to interface and either subdue, bypass, or destroy them.
The Robot Body - Obtaining
In buying a robotic body, there'd likely be places you can order an off-the-shelf model from. These'd be cheap, replacable, and low quality due to mass production. you could likely order a custom body, but no doubt that'd cost quite a few more credits than a basic off-the-shelf model, none of which are likely to be that great. Relatively low physical stats on these, and while you could mod them up to increase statistics, it'd be costly.
The second way, crafting it yourself, would of course require proper facilities to allow for the building process such as an assembly device or a lab where you can work in peace. All of these bodies would be custom, but would likely cost less than a mass-produced body would due to the fact that you only need to purchase the parts for it and then assemble them properly. Creating your own mods for a body would also bypass some of the unfortunate cost of such a venture. +6 strength hydraulic limbs aren't cheap, you know.
And the third way to get such a body would be what adventurers everywhere already do - stab something in the face and ransack its corpse. Chances are that in the process of taking down a robotic enemy, you'll have destroyed most of its primary systems, but assuming you didn't turn it into giblets it should be reasonable to replace the destroyed parts and rework any programs remaining inside the robot's own systems to your purposes. Cheaper than any of the other two options, but at the whim of the GM. Though there's theoretically nothing stopping you from making off with an inactive body and transfering to it while it's intact at your leisure.
The Robot Body - Stats and Level
AIs need a couple of considerations here. First off, while an AI character could easily level up without issue (Optimizing their own programming, for instance) what this would grant them is the abilities of their chosen class, so BAB, saving throw bonuses, special abilities, spellcasting if any, companion characters, all that good stuff. What it would not do is increase HD or HP. I know the separation of HD and BAB is unusual, but there's nothing stopping it from working here.
Your chosen robotic body, no matter how you obtained it, covers three things primarily. First, your physical stats, Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. This actually makes a fair amount of sense, and is the other side of the stats, the reason why you didn't have as much in the way of point buy to begin with; with enough cash, luck, or skill, you can get them as high as you like, assuming you work a little for it.
Second is your HD and HP. This shouldn't really take much explanation, but here I go anyways. Essentially, just how tough your robot is is a fair shake at things like the size, materials used, and general sturdiness of construction. These aren't things that an AI can really contribute to - a robotic body that can take a gravity cannon to the torso and keep coming at you isn't going to change from that when an AI is actually driving it - if anything, the AI will learn how to dodge the blast, but won't be able to directly upgrade just how tanky it is themselves.
Finally, the body determines what it's equipped with. For example, a simple mannequin body bought off the shelf would likely have a pair of standard arms, working eyes, mouth, nose, ears, the works. It would, for most intents and purposes, be a low-grade android body with maybe 2 HD. Meanwhile, a Rhino Class Destroyer comes equipped with four legs under its humanoid torso, a laser cannon in place of a right hand, a large plasma sword in place of the left hand, steel plate construction giving it 15 HD, and a shoulder mounted chaingun, but lacks olfactory and tactile sensors, hands, and is likely to scare the crap out of the local police if you try and bring such a monstrosity into a civilian area. Another option would be an Chrysanthemum Shield Drone, meant to act as a mobile forcefield generator for a team but lacking in strength, constitution, and weapon systems in exchange for a built-in wireless uplink, a hologram emitter, a pair of small hands and, well, a shield generator.
The same AI can run around in any of the three bodies. Say we have three AIs, one a mechanic, one a technomancer, and the other a soldier. The soldier, in the mannequin body, can manipulate weaponry and physical objects the same way a human or android might do so. At level 10, he's really quite skilled with his equipment, capable of wielding most guns well, but the body is fragile, and has a ten in every physical stat, which feels terrible for a big meaty fighter type. He doesn't like it because of this. The shield drone is even worse - low overall HD and HP, and the gimmicks it can do don't play to his strenghts; the weaponry on this thing is minimal, the the shield generator is useful but too defensive for his tastes and he has no idea what he's even supposed to do with the hologram emitter. The Rhino class destroyer though, that's his jam. Let the meatbags open doors and interact with computers - he's too busy firing lasers and chainguns and cutting apart anything that comes too close to his allies. With strong HD and good weaponry, he can make use of all his abilities.
Then we get to the Technomancer. She can store her magical information in her databanks so that it follows her through a transfer. The Rhino has no hands, which is a serious problem for a caster of any sort, and she doesn't have the programming to properly make use of the weaponry, so she can only parrot what she's seen other guns do... and do it poorly, suffering nonproficiency penalties. the mannequin and the shield drone are more her speed, however. The lack in physical abilities isn't as much of an issue due to the fact that she can use her magic to interact with most things. The drone has too many things she doesn't have the proper programming (Feat) to use in it once again, but it at least has hands to let her cast things, and is flying in the air consistently, out of reach of dangerous melee enemies though a sitting duck for those with ranged weaponry.
Finally, we get to the mechanic. Like the technomancer before him, the mechanic AI dislikes the Rhino for its lack of hands, and who needs this many damned weapons? The mannequin is a better fit due to having hands and not so much in the way of armor plating slowing it down, but it's lacking in tools. the shield Drone, however? excellent - that hologram projector can be used to show the biological members of the team the layout of the building he extracted from the local servers, the forcefield projector lets him contribute in a fight where he doesn't have any skill with weaponry, and the very dexterous small hands allow him to manipulate small objects without risk of breaking something or screwing up.
This system would also let the players prioritize; do they splurge on better armor plating to give themselves greater hardness and HD? What kind of weapon attachments are appropriate for your character? All this and more.
Miscellaneous Concerns:
Easy enough, just add in a sleep analogue. I recommend a 4 hour debugging session that they start taking penalties if they don't enact every 24 hours - similar to sleep fatigue. Glitches, runtime errors, and the like account for where the penalties come from.
So bodies cost money? Isn't that prohibitive?
Not really. Using Pathfinder gold for the moment (as I don't know what monetary system Starfinder will use yet) a basic crappy mannequin body would likely cost you around 50 gold - completely mediocre if not bad stats, no armor plating, likely even only has 1 HD. Basically, the same position a standard human is in right from the get-go, but with less customizable stats. Later on the AI makes up for the fact that it didn't get to customize its physical statistics by running around in a custom robot that it did have the opportunity to customize the stats of. Money becomes the balancing factor here; armor costs money, mods cost money, size increase, more HD, better stats, all of it costs money. But if you've ever built a two-weapon fighter in Pathfinder, you'll know that that's not as much of an issue as you might think; parties look out for one another and the communal pool being devoted to a snazzy new body for your AI helps the entire team out as it'll let you do your job better, and the monetary price should be around the same cost as a suit of normal armor before you start getting into mods and weapon systems, which of course will have a standard price compared to their nonrobotic counterparts. If there's an issue with this, I'm not seeing it.
Wouldn't this take quite a bit of development time?
It might, if it was being developed in a vacuum. Instead, we already have AI rules in Pathfinder, and confirmation that AIs are going to be front and center in Starfinder; the Mechanic class gets one as a companion, to say nothing for enemies. A PC AI would just have more sense of self than the majority of them and be capable of making their own decisions, having grown beyond their original programing through self-edits or emergent intelligence situations.
What's stopping an AI from spending everything on an awesome body and crushing the campaign, or stealing an awesome one?
What's stopping the fighter from spending everything on an awesome sword? The GM, primarily. If it's gotten to the point where the robot's body is causing issues for party balance, chances are the GM would have caused such an imbalance by granting the players too much money in the first place; a well trained human with a set of artifact equipment is just as dangerous, if not more, as an AI with the same. As for the theft of a superior body, I have no doubt that a more expensive set up body is going to have anti-tampering features, such as electrocution, lockdown procedures, and self-destruction for whomever is cheeky enough to try hacking the thing. These sorts of countermeasures might be overcome with a few proper skill checks, and if the GM is smart they'll make the players work pretty hard to get the body, which eliminates most of the issue.
What about the Mechanic's robot companion? Couldn't an AI just inhabit that body?
Is there a problem with that? It's a class feature and he'd be actively sacrificing action economy by only having a single body on the field. It's an actively weaker choice than getting his own body and letting the robot companion do its own thing, and in exchange the Mechanic gets more money to spend on things that aren't a body. I'd say that's a decently balanced choice, as anybody who's played high level Pathfinder will tell you that Action Economy is king.
Isn't magic an act of will? How would an AI be able to use magic?
The same way an android might, I think. At some point, the AI has moved beyond its original parameters, and become not just a smart program, but sapient. This is what separates the Player Character AI from standard robots; it's capable of creativity, of learning, and modding itself to be better. At some point, it may have even gained a soul.
How would AIs interact with mind-affecting effects?
Well, I'm willing to bet the old "same as Androids" idea applies here. The trick is that it isn't just a set of programs running routines; it's made of code, but it's a true mind at this point, thus making it vulnerable to illusions, phantasms, patterns, and all that snazzy stuff unless it has specific abilities or items that block those out.
What about other immunities, like poison and disease?
It's true, a robot would be immune to these perrenially underused hazards. It's also be immune to the vacuum of space or hostile atmospheres (which would probably fall under poison, now that I think of it) but their setup also results in a variety of vulnerabilities. ever seen the "Anti-tech field" spell in Pathfinder? How about Heat Metal? Rusting Grasp? And robotics are more vulnerable to electricity than other creatures types as well. They can avoid some general hazards but have to deal with others more than biological characters as well.
I'm really enjoying the idea, however, I suspect having both the necessity to buy a body and reduced point buy might be a bit too many drawbacks.
A potentially neater way to go about this might be to accept that AI's will generally have higher mental stats right off the bat, but, on the other hand of the deal, give them inconveniences when interacting with the physical world: artificial bodies are frail (due to lack of scaling) unless you invest so many resources into them that your mental advantage isn't decisive anymore, directly participating in combat is generally difficult unless, again, you spend significant resources, etc.
This way it's still possible to build a brutish melee AI character simply by investing a fairly significant portion of your WBL into a good body with jetpacks and chainaxes, while, I believe, it would feel more natural than a point buy tax, as well as allowing for consistency in the form of purely mental beings having, surprise, high mental stats.
As for casters, I don't think this would unbalance them either - getting an 18 in a single stat is trivial even in pathfinder, and casters tend to be SAD, while having to shell out significant money for durability will actually hurt them quite a bit.
I'm fairly certain at least one new deity is an AI.
I have always wanted to try using the leveling intelligent magic items rules from Malhavoc Press "Book of Eldritch Might" as an intelligent magic item PC. Might be an interesting ideas for building an AI character.