Robots as Spaceships: Winches

The whole robots as spaceships line was started by my first attempt at cyberpunk, which learned very much on "cyber" and didn't do much with the "punk". The game had a heavy focus on machine combat in very urban environments. When I was designing different robots, I had this image come to mind of a robot firing a gun through a skyscraper window while suspended from a cable.

The cable and grappling hook are somewhat cinematic, with the most famous user of them being Batman, but robots that go up and down sky-scrapers exist today, primarily to wash windows. They typically are hung on the skyscrapers by some other means and then start moving around. 

This is a spaceship system to do that...

Sticking a cable in a vehicle is a pretty old trick. Winches are common on the most rugged of Automobiles, allowing them to get out of tricky spots. Most modern winches aren't designed to haul their vehicles strait up skyscrapers, but similar principles apply.
It would be an odd robot or spaceship that only had a cable to move around, but a robust one could have it as an option, and some robots are just that odd. Especially ones that hang out in cities composed of towering skyscrapers.

Ultratech gives us the Electromagnetic Autograpnel  (page 96), which has some pretty extreme stats: at TL10 a 5 lb device can lift 800 lbs at 5 yards per turn. That's the ability to lift 1600 times its weight, along with the ability to shoot it out and hook it on. Its probably a touch cinematic, like its comic book and action hero inspirations, but it gives me some confidence is assigning fairly aggressive stats for our robot cable. 

The Winch and Cable System for Spaceships:

Cost: Equal to that of a Tracked Drive Train or Fuel Cell (base cost 5)
Move: 5 yards per turn when going up. Can increase or decrease downward speed safely by 5 yards per second.  Can decrease downward speed by more by making a HT roll at -1 per 2 extra yards per second. On a failure, the Winch or cable suffers a failure and the system breaks.
Power: This system requires 1 power point.
Cable Length: The basic system starts out up to 100 yards of cable. Each additional 1% of chassis weight in cable adds 50 yards of cable (which means a cargo system full of cable adds 250 yards). The default cable is steel: materials upgrades in your setting may allow for longer cables for a given amount of weight.

How to Use Winches in Play

Cables give vehicles the ability to climb. In the game that inspired this, robots used cables to descend down buildings to their target locations and even to maneuver on them. This system could also be useful for a robot seeking to navigate extremely rough terrain or climb around indoors.

I hope you start dangling robots and spaceships from things!