How many E-Clips do you carry

[Blue_Lion]

My issue would be that the lining of the power armor is likely to be relatively form fitting along with possibly being thrown around. To me having a clip in a tac-rig jamming me in the ribs as a demon slams my Samas through a tree does not sound like my idea of fun.

If you have things in pockets, on a tac vest, etc it is going to create 'sharp' protuberances that are going to poke you, jam you, and concentrate force when you get knocked around instead of having the lining really spread the impact over your body. This is assuming that the lining is not so tight fitting/conforming that you couldn't actually fit inside with a tac vest on with things in it.

Its a question of how you wear the suit. Is it a form fitting lining that is custom sized to the wearer? A range of sizes (S/M/L/XL/XXL/XXXL type deal)? Is it something that custom conforms when the user gets in to it? Or are you basically strapped in to a harness and rig inside of the suit itself and aren't in contact with the inner lining of the PA.

I personally view power armor as exactly like wearing EBA/body armor. You can wear clothes under it, and probably even slip some small things in a pocket, but most power armor is too form fitting to wear body armor under it or put anything big/bulky in pockets (IE an Eclip is probably going to be too bulky. Your keys or a swiss army knife might not be. A pistol is deffinitely too big). It would depend on the power armor though.
-Matt

And if it were SAMAS Armor, or something like it, you'd have more credence to your statement, but the armor he's using is specifically big enough that he can wear normal armor in it, which means its more in line with the Ultimax or Glitter Boy in terms of pilot roominess.

What Jedi does for his game (which I've adopted to varying degrees) is have smaller power armors (like the SAMAS or APA-15 Semper Fi) allow only an undersuit of armor. The larger suits (like GB's, the Gunbuster, etc) allow you to wear armor under them (though still not the heavier EBAs, only light and medium). My GB ran around in a suit of what would become huntsman armor, with a full chest and waist kit (load bearing harness). I only lacked the hip pouches, since that would specifically get in the way of how the GB interacts with the pilot. So yeah, I can see wearing a tac vest, especially a lightly loaded one, in a roomy PA. Now my definition of Roomy PA and RB's definition of Roomy PA may differ (I dunno, never really asked about it before ), but the concept is still the same.

The suits in question are designed to interact with a specific type of light environmental armor. It has built in tolerances for a pistol and a laser sub machine gun as well as several extra e-clips and a survival pack worn at several specific places on the body held in place by a specific harness. There is no issue with the weapons rubbing up against the wearer because the weapons are between the padding of the armor and the power armor.

Bad read on my part. I missed the bit about Glitterboy/specifically designed armor to accomodate wearing of equipment in it. Something like a glitterboy or Ultimax I'd imagine would have the space to wear light armor and even sidearms/etc in them. Something like a Samas, predator or especially Sampson/Terrian Hopper, etc I imagine would be about as form fitting as regular body armor leaving almost no room within it, except the pilot and his/her clothing (or not, operating power armor commando!).
-Matt

The Sampson is ten feet tall, its hardly a form fitting power armor.

It is if the pilot is 11 feet tall.

[Dog_O_War]

Having universal E-clip sizes simplfies game play but proprietary ones are probably more plausible (think sales).

I don't know an IBM Compatable system of E-clips probably improves sells.

here is the thing some O.C.C say they come with x eclips for each weapon instead of just X.

Actually, those OCCs (like the headhunter), get e-clips, and then get additional reloads/e-clips for each WP they possess. This is because weapons can take more than e-clips. A missile rifle (WI-23) for example has no need for e-clips, but puts to use a 6-round missile-clip. Or the C-29 plasma ejector; this weapon would find regular e-clips rather useless given that it requires e-cans to fire off 8 whole shots (e-cans storing a magnitude more energy than an e-clip).

Basically the games' e-clips are universal in size, as the only time it mentions a problem with them is when you attempt to use regular e-clips in a weapon that takes FSEs (forward-sliding e-clips). There is an adapter for that, but otherwise no mention of manufacturer-specific sized clips.

manufacuters might make it so all there products use the same E-clip but might make it so that there competors E-clips are useless like the user interface of consols even if they have the same numbers of buttons you cant use a Ps3 controler for the 360. (and yes i know they do not have same number of buttons)

There's a certain fault to this logic; other companies still make PS and X-box controllers, despite being third-party. In Rifts, it is by no stretch of the imagination to believe that if Northern Gun could produce CS e-clips (they can) for cheaper than the CS could, then NG would be the prime supplier of CS e-clips. This goes for all companies for the simple fact that people will always go where the cheapest products are.

And to further reinforce the point, Naruni weapons can be made to accept a North American e-clip, lending weight to the fact that e-clips are universal by region. Euro-weapons take the FSE, NA weapons take the standard e-clip.

[Grafsburg]

My guy's got a PS of like 35, so he's sort of the official pack mule of the party when we go away from our EPC. So he carries about three dozen or more e-clips in a haversack and in his normal backpack, with about six of those actually out and on his person, and one in the gun.