Any character can get a steambot ally. They can have no more than one such ally. In order to control the steambot ally, they need to spend at least 10 character points on the Steambot Sympathy advantage (which is the most that can be spent at character creation time, but can be improved with CP expenditures during gameplay).

CREATION

A steambot is an Ally and uses standard Ally rules. Start by taking the percentage of your character points allocated to the bot (25%: 1 pt, 50%: 2 pts, 75%: 3 pts, 100% 5 pts) and multiply it by the bot’s frequency of appearance (the important value is x4 for always available, if you go below that for infrequent appearances, roll during each “scene”, failure means a malfunction of some kind).

Example: an always-available helperbot is 4 points and starts with 37 character points of stuff (since you’re a 150 point character at start).

Every bot has the following attributes:

Base: IQ: 0, DX: 10, ST: 10, HT: 10
Modifiers [cost]:
+10 Perception [50]
Compartamentalized Mind (controls) [25]
Damage Resistance 3 [15]
Doesn’t Sleep [20]
Resistant, [Metabolic Hazards] [30]
Injury Tolerance (no blood, unliving) [25]
Unkillable 1 [50]
Unhealing (total) [-30]

That brings the total point cost of the Steambot Ally Template to -15 points. Therefore the 25% value helperbot would have 37 regular points and 15 disadvantage points to spend, for a total of 52 points at character creation.

These points can be spent on things like advantages (flight for a flybot) or increasing stats other than IQ. Damage resistance can be increased to a maximum of ST + HT / 4 at the start of the game; major alchemical upgrades to the armor could improve the DR.

All steambots will function for 8 hours between refueling (see the Machine Template, basic p 263 for details), and require a Universal Steamcharge to recharge. The Universal Steamcharge requires 1 FP expenditures from a fire and a water adept. 

Steambots accumulate character points along with the player, albeit at a reduced rate (depending on the base cost of the ally), and can also be upgraded by the player spending a bunch of character points to take it from a 25% to a 50% bot. In both cases, however, the steambot will require a number of days of labor from a steamsmith and possibly a runesmith equal to the number of points being added in the upgrade.

Example Flybot:
Steambot template, plus Flight (winged) [30] and Lifting ST 7 [21] (total: 51 points). That gives the flybot a base lift of 58, meaning up to 58 pounds of character can be easily carried (at speed 10) by the winged flybot, and 174 lbs of character and gear could be carried at speed 6.

Improved Flybot: 
As above, but remove winged modifier from Flight [+10], increase lifting ST to 10 [+9] and add flame cannon (innate attack projectile, 1/2D 10, Max 100, Acc 3, RoF 1, dam 2d (burn)) [10]. Total: 80 points, can be bought as a 50% ally

Killbot:
Steambot template, Size Modifier +1, ST 16 (no fine manipulators) [30], DR 5 [10], No Fine Manipulators [-30]. Long Talons x2 [22], Extra Attack [25], Ambidexterity [5] (total: 62 can be bought as a 50% ally with room to spare). Killbot has swords for arms, can attack twice per round (once with each swordarm) at no penalty, each swordarm does 1d+2 impaling or 3d cutting damage. Attack / defend with brawling, karate, or appropriate sword skill.
USE

When directing the steambot, your thoughts help drive it- they have no independent will, but function as an extension of your own actions. Giving it an active direction, like “attack that guy” or “bring me a wrench” takes a concentrate action to initiate, but not sustain - so the bot would keep attacking the guy until you took a concentration check to stop.

The steambot uses your skills for all skill rolls, but derives its net skill for DX and ST skills from its own attributes (so if your DX is less than the steambots’, it has a higher skill than you). However, you take a penalty of -1 to all skill use for each yard between you and your steambot. Because you’re subconsciously directing the steambot, being unable to see from its perspective makes you a bit clumsy.

Each level (10 points per level on the character) in Steambot Sympathy gives the player a +1 bonus on all skill rolls made by the steambot.

Steambots do not heal their wounds naturally, but must be repaired by a steamsmith, who needs to spend one hour of work repairing each point of damage (modified by skill- good steamsmiths are much faster)

INTERESTING STUFF
If the steambot has reduced consumption (2 points per level, up to level 4) it does not need to be charged as often.  Level 1: charged every 12 hours. Level 2: charged every 24 hours. Level 3, charged every week. Level 4: charged every month.

With Doesn’t Eat or Drink (10 points) the steambot is somehow self-sustaining (and very interesting to potential industrial espionage agents).

Telecommunication - Telesend - video: 52 points. Expensive, but lets the steambot send a “video” feed of what it senses back to its owner. This is one case where the steambot can go out of line of site from its owner (but note that the steambot in this case requires constant concentration to control, so the controller cannot take any actions whilst driving the steambot in this fashion). A steambot with other sensory upgrades could also share those upgrades (infravision, scanning sense, etc).

Regeneration, to some extent lets the steambot heal itself. This shouldn’t be abused, but could be covered in some kind of “it’s quicksilver!” sort of way.