Economics of Adventuring

[Nox Equites]

Sorry if these ideas have been brought up before, but just my theories on the subject of economics in the game.

Players Side:
In my opinion the pricing scale of some equipment in Rifts is a bit off when you are an adventurer. If taking down a threat empties a handful of e-clips you aren't going to be able to afford to be a good guy for long. Heavy combat will cripple your finances for years. If your GM is using equipment damage from AOE weapons your non-rune weapons are going to get toasted after a missile exchange. Even at the best merc rate of pay you can't afford a replacement rifle or armor for weeks or months. Your best hope as a paid killer is to have the company replace gear lost on missions but those costs still add up. What do you do as a traditional righter of wrongs?

Solutions for Players:

#1 Be careful: Avoid unnecessary combat. When you do engage in combat eliminate threats quickly. Have long range weapons over short range devastation. You want to engage them before they can engage you. TW Machinegun has a nice range even if it has low damage. That action for them to close to range means a lot in combat. Having a good sniper to cripple threats at the start of an engagement will shift the tides of battle if used wisely.

#2 Be Low Maintenance: Having weapons that can be recharged without facilities reduces some of your costs. (A fine reason for hunting Splugorth slaver groups.) Having some sort of weapons engineer will help dramatically with the inevitable repairs of weapons and armor. If the GM allows it, build an E-clip charger. Even being able to charge just one clip a day will pay long term. Casters and Psychics have renewable power sources and can reload TW weapons. Armor of Ithan or TK Force field can reduce wear and tear quite nicely.

#3 Be Sneaky: Prowl skill, stealth magic, and tricksy psychic powers allow you to end fights quickly or prevent battles in the first place. Catch them unawares and weak. Most opponents are not suicidal so getting close enough to prove you can kill them will make many enemies back down. A judicious use of a Horror spell could seriously disrupt an enemy group as combat starts. Not all opponents have the means to spot an invisible enemy. Exploit this if you can.

#4 Be a Scrounger: This is pretty much required in a small to medium group of players. After every battle find what you can and can't salvage from the field. Some weapons are worth tens of thousands of credits if undamaged. If a bot or power armor has been destroyed through reduction of main body MDC only, you have parts that are worth millions of credits to the right people. If your characters are in a dry spell, loot the nearest Pre-Rifts ruins for copper. Recycling pays when you consider that a two bedroom house has 40-60 lbs of copper at 20 credits an ounce. There are going to be buildings that weren't looted in any large town and copper won't deteriorate at the same rate as steel. Old industrial cities in dry climates like Mexico have the potential of industrial equipment that some small kingdoms might pay good money for in addition to the coins and other valuables that have decent precious metal value. This does require having large non-combat vehicles but if you have the crew to do salvage it can payoff. Create Steel turns scrap metal into immediately useable assets to be sold.

GM Side: You don't necessarily want to give characters all the neat toys without having earned them. But the in game economics are skewed towards a Gold Rush Economy. Giving the players a reason to be good guys can be rough with the costs incurred. How do you make adventuring pay off without being absurdly lucrative? The following are intended as individual suggestions, not to be applied all together.

#1 Modify Some Costs: One idea is to reduce costs of small arms and some services. I'd suggest that halving the costs of average energy pistol or rifle is not that amiss. Keep support weapons the same cost or even bump up the costs of some of the more powerful crew served weapons. Some repairs mean that replacing the arm or leg of a bot costs more than the original robot. Adjusting the costs downward by 50% or more means that the bot pilots aren't afraid to take their bot to a fire fight when necessary. If the characters have the parts themselves you can reduce repair costs by 75% or more.

#2 Award Good Play: Players that are playing good guys know that not every fight will pay off, but they should still want to be good guys. If the crew has no technicians, but saves a town with an operator, give them a price break on repairs for a few months or even just a free E-clip charge after saving the day. Non-sentient creatures probably won't carry really nice loot, however if the characters can make hunting simple monsters pay a little bit let them. If they know the skills to make armor from the Fury Beetle give them the time to do it if there isn't a follow up encounter planned. Remember to award exp for skill use and good role-playing.

#3 Be the Right Kind of Stingy: Players won't appreciate their characters' wealth if they don't have a challenge getting it. A dozen minor nuisance monsters won't pay as well as destroying a major threat. Again don't just hand them neat toys. The giant demon that has terrorized the area for months might only have items you need to trade in for other goods. If the PCs have a high MA character they use to sell loot give them a price break but not too big a price break. 10-20% is not too bad or negating part of the local cost modifier. Things are more expensive in smaller communities. This applies to what the characters want to buy and sell.

[Alrik Vas]

All good pieces of advice. It's all a balaning act.

[kaid]

This reminds me of an adventure where one of the party really wanted to be an eco wizard so the GM said sure go for it. It was a really long exploration type adventure and at one point half the group was sporting eco wizard armor and weapons because through combat and attrition many had their tech armor go kaput and were really low on ammo for their guns so they saved them for big fights and did lesser stuff with the eco wizard gear.

Some groups pay a lot of attention to this kind of thing and some just pick whatever they perceive as most powerful and those are the ones who usually bump into the whole repair/resupply issues.

It really depends on what kind of adventure you are on if its centered close enough to major cities for resupply or if you are going into the back of beyond on weeks/months long trip. If the latter your groups magic users/operators and other support type folks really shine.

[SkyeFyre]

Awesome tips.

Yeah, basically my party mostly has to play in my game as if they were playing a game like Arma (Military simulator). They have to perform recon, plan their engagement, set themselves up in optimal positions that will minimize incoming damage, and then execute.

They're dealing with expensive military equipment, they're not going to have it get wrecked. With as much MDC stuff as in the books people often seem to think that they're the norm, when in reality players need to preserve their equipment. In my game S.D.C. gear still has its place.

[Glistam]

Shortly before I stopped playing my 'Borg character I started to write up notes on just how much it "cost" the character to fire any of his weapons or take any M.D.C. damage. I based it on ammo costs, e-clip recharge costs and armor repair costs. I wanted to have him be aware of how much he "spent" by taking damage and firing weapons, compared to how much he was earning in the current adventure, and use that as a gauge for when he needed to change tactics.

[Shorty Lickens]

I think this is another one of those threads we have once a year.


We already agreed that even principled and scrupulous characters need to scrounge. Its basic survival. You cant fight the good fight if you run out of ammo or armor.
Maybe taking personal goods is evil, perhaps even taking money you dont need is a naughty thing. But you gotta survive.

Also, you can take trade instead of cash when someone wants to reward you. Accepting money might be against your beliefs, but not medicine or food. Or armor repair if its appropriate. Or spell casting. Or information. In fact thats perfectly good trade for any alignment on any type of mission.

And crippling before the main combat is always a good idea even if you have infinite resources to repair and rearm. As is using melee weapons or guns with unlimited shots, like TW or or rechargeable packs.

[flatline]

Being self-sufficient makes adventuring far more profitable.

Magic offers great ways to be less reliant on income or the services of others. Super powers are another great way to make characters that don't need to spend all their money on ammo and repairs.

Psionics, not so much. They don't scale well.

--flatline

[Shark_Force]

psionics isn't so bad. as long as you don't mind spamming the same handful of powers all the time.

- some sort of machine: use your personal preference of telemechanics family of powers
- is biological, or equivalent: use bio-manipulation
- has good saving throws that make the above impractical: use either super telekinesis or a psi-sword to smash/stab it until it is no longer a problem.

there you go, you now know most of what you need to know to be effective in combat for a mind melter (note: psi-sword is generally not my preference, but a lot of people do seem to like it... personally, i'd rather use super telekinesis and wield 1 melee weapon/level with it. cheaper, faster to get started, damage scales much better, and i have at least *some* range with it. in any event, you'd better get used to super telekinesis, because you can't have psi-sword at level 1).

outside of combat, the decision-making tree is a bit more complex, but within combat? that pretty much sums up everything you need to know.

[flatline]

psionics isn't so bad. as long as you don't mind spamming the same handful of powers all the time.

- some sort of machine: use your personal preference of telemechanics family of powers
- is biological, or equivalent: use bio-manipulation
- has good saving throws that make the above impractical: use either super telekinesis or a psi-sword to smash/stab it until it is no longer a problem.

there you go, you now know most of what you need to know to be effective in combat for a mind melter (note: psi-sword is generally not my preference, but a lot of people do seem to like it... personally, i'd rather use super telekinesis and wield 1 melee weapon/level with it. cheaper, faster to get started, damage scales much better, and i have at least *some* range with it. in any event, you'd better get used to super telekinesis, because you can't have psi-sword at level 1).

outside of combat, the decision-making tree is a bit more complex, but within combat? that pretty much sums up everything you need to know.

I didn't mean to imply that Psionics aren't effective. Perhaps what I should have said is that ISP doesn't scale well since the amount of ISP that you can regenerate in a day is pretty much fixed. If the pace of the adventure goes from 1 encounter a day to 3 encounters, this isn't generally a problem for Supers as most super powers don't need time to recharge and mages have ways of acquiring PPE from others or from the environment (or squirreling it away in Talismans, scrolls, etc), but with the sole exception of the Mind Bleeder, the psionic user is pretty much out of luck once he's used up his ISP base for the day.

--flatline

[Shorty Lickens]

Psionics could force assistance where previously none was offered. Info, a safehouse, medical services, repairs, maybe whatever cash the person had on them.

It could also be used to incapacitate an opponent without killing them. They'd be easy to loot.

As for direct use of powers, I guess saving your life when the proper medicine inst available is darn helpful.

[taalismn]

Sound advice there. Avoid 'manly' ammo-munching full-autofire barrages and blatant overkill if possible, and 'missile massacre' strikes. Explore alternative means to victory(like driving them off), and loot/pillage/scavenge when you can.

[Shark_Force]

Psionics could force assistance where previously none was offered. Info, a safehouse, medical services, repairs, maybe whatever cash the person had on them.

It could also be used to incapacitate an opponent without killing them. They'd be easy to loot.

As for direct use of powers, I guess saving your life when the proper medicine inst available is darn helpful.

2 of those are not combat situations.

the remaining 1 is exactly what my guide for combat says to do; incapacitate if possible. you only move on to destroying things when incapacitating them has proven ineffective or inefficient.

as i said, out of combat is a bit more versatile. that said, psionics is actually pretty lousy at compelling people to do anything. you can sometimes trick people using the suggestion power, but actually reading people's minds? not terribly effective, i'm afraid. magic is much better at controlling people's minds than psionics.

[flatline]

Avoid 'manly' ammo-munching full-autofire barrages and blatant overkill if possible

Even at book prices, it is typically cheaper to recharge an e-clip than it is to repair even 1d6MDC on your armor, so if you depend on armor that must be repaired, it's cheaper to go ammo-munching full-autofire on your enemy if it means he'll get even one less successful attack against you.

Edit: it's been years since I've actually paid to repair armor so I tried to look in RUE for repair costs...and I totally can't find it anywhere. The closest thing I found was that it costs an Operator $1200 per MDC point repaired when repairing vehicles.

--flatline

[Shorty Lickens]

Rail ammo is dirt cheap too, but heavy if you plan to carry around a lot.

[Glistam]

Avoid 'manly' ammo-munching full-autofire barrages and blatant overkill if possible

Even at book prices, it is typically cheaper to recharge an e-clip than it is to repair even 1d6MDC on your armor, so if you depend on armor that must be repaired, it's cheaper to go ammo-munching full-autofire on your enemy if it means he'll get even one less successful attack against you.

Edit: it's been years since I've actually paid to repair armor so I tried to look in RUE for repair costs...and I totally can't find it anywhere. The closest thing I found was that it costs an Operator $1200 per MDC point repaired when repairing vehicles.

--flatline

You still need Sourcebook 1 for that information.

[Colt47]

The Economics of adventuring mostly comes down to two things: The GM and how much house ruling he is doing. The Palladium System is fairly good on item cost in other settings, but Rifts tends to throw a lot of the conventions out the window.

[Cybermancer]

An operator with an e-clip recharger and enough down time can pretty much bankroll an adventuring group.

[Hotrod]

This is one reason I like South America 1. The wood/chitin body armors that the biomancers can make is self-regenerating (and organic, so it's arguably fine for casters to wear. It's also environmental). Those Armor of Ithan medallions are great, too (though quite expensive), if you have the means to take down or steal from a slave barge. Do millenium tree leaves regenerate?

Beyond that, it's all about the guns that don't need money to recharge/reload.

[Dog_O_War]

Sorry if these ideas have been brought up before, but just my theories on the subject of economics in the game.

Players Side:
In my opinion the pricing scale of some equipment in Rifts is a bit off when you are an adventurer. If taking down a threat empties a handful of e-clips you aren't going to be able to afford to be a good guy for long. Heavy combat will cripple your finances for years. If your GM is using equipment damage from AOE weapons your non-rune weapons are going to get toasted after a missile exchange. Even at the best merc rate of pay you can't afford a replacement rifle or armor for weeks or months. Your best hope as a paid killer is to have the company replace gear lost on missions but those costs still add up. What do you do as a traditional righter of wrongs?

You mean like Batman? He's rich.
Or Tony Stark? He's rich too.
Or perhaps you're talking about being someone similar to Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu. He's a bum. He lives on hand-outs.

Basically, if you're a do-gooder, you have two options; be rich or be a bum. There isn't a third.
Well, actually, there is - you be Robin Hood. Which means you have to steal.

You want real advice? Use all the pieces of the buffalo. Do good for evil men, because then you won't feel bad about stripping an evil man of his wealth afterwards.
Basically, if you choose to be good all the time, then you'd better be Batman/Iron Man or Kwai Chang Caine, because any other person won't be able to be good for very long.

And to put things in perspective - if you GM offers your character a meal for defeating the rampaging fury beetle, tell him to shove it; you can get a meal and a nights rest for a day's labour; is fighting off a rampaging beast the equivalent of a day's labour? No. So don't accept a pittance of a reward for doing something heroic; the heroes of the past didn't survive of such hand-outs - they were rewarded with lands and titles and riches for their good deeds and so should you be.

Rifts Earth is a world of contradictions; there are as many kings and lords in Rifts Earth as there were in the more traditional ages of heroes, so therefore there should be just as many equivalent rewards.

[flatline]

I don't see why a Principled or Scrupulous character can't take the equipment of a downed foe as long as he fought the foe for reasons compatible with his alignment (like self-defense).

--flatline

[eliakon]

I don't see why a Principled or Scrupulous character can't take the equipment of a downed foe as long as he fought the foe for reasons compatible with his alignment (like self-defense).

--flatline

Because the wacky way that the Alignment system is set up in the RAW. Its a fairly common, in fact its probably nigh on universal, house rule to change it, but it needs to be acknowledged that it IS a house rule. That said I for instance often allow 'good' characters to take stuff from the defeated, IF the local laws (or lack their of) would allow it, and if they are not being, in my subjective eyes, 'greedy' or 'selfish'.

[Slight001]

I don't see why a Principled or Scrupulous character can't take the equipment of a downed foe as long as he fought the foe for reasons compatible with his alignment (like self-defense).

--flatline

Because the wacky way that the Alignment system is set up in the RAW. Its a fairly common, in fact its probably nigh on universal, house rule to change it, but it needs to be acknowledged that it IS a house rule. That said I for instance often allow 'good' characters to take stuff from the defeated, IF the local laws (or lack their of) would allow it, and if they are not being, in my subjective eyes, 'greedy' or 'selfish'.

Yet another reason I ignore the alignment system and only play aberrant when forced to pick, screw greedy and selfish, I'm trying to survive and dominate. I will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.

[flatline]

I don't see why a Principled or Scrupulous character can't take the equipment of a downed foe as long as he fought the foe for reasons compatible with his alignment (like self-defense).

--flatline

Because the wacky way that the Alignment system is set up in the RAW. Its a fairly common, in fact its probably nigh on universal, house rule to change it, but it needs to be acknowledged that it IS a house rule. That said I for instance often allow 'good' characters to take stuff from the defeated, IF the local laws (or lack their of) would allow it, and if they are not being, in my subjective eyes, 'greedy' or 'selfish'.

Yet another reason I ignore the alignment system and only play aberrant when forced to pick, screw greedy and selfish, I'm trying to survive and dominate. I will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal.

If the group is mostly good, I write "Scrupulous" on my sheet. If the group is greedy or evil, I write "Aberrant" on my sheet. I don't change the way I play and nobody can tell the difference between the two.

"Pragmatic" should totally be an alignment.

--flatline

[Alrik Vas]

When I don't loot the dead, it's for one of the following reasons (and sometimes a combination of them):

1. I'm playing character that doesn't culturally believe in touching dead flesh.
2. The loot is too big/too heavy to make off with.
3. The character I'm playing doesn't know the worth of the items his opponent had.
4. There isn't enough time to loot, the world is falling apart all around me.
5. There isn't enough left to bother with salvage.

Well, the last one would be, "I just don't care enough", but that happens the least.

Pragmatic doesn't need to be an alignment, though. There's enough functionality in a few different alignments to fit the bill.

[Mallak's Place]

I play a Necromancer. She takes everything she can from a fallen opponent, including their body.

[Dog_O_War]

I play a Necromancer. She takes everything she can from a fallen opponent, including their body.

ALL the parts of the buffalo.

[flatline]

I play a Necromancer. She takes everything she can from a fallen opponent, including their body.

No waste at all. Very admirable.

--flatline

[glitterboy2098]

i'd say that with the ultra-good characters, scavenging from the battlefield would depend on how well you can justify it. depending on where you fought them, some items left lying around are major dangers to others. (a pistol left lying in an alley for example) the alignment would drive you to at the very least take those items somewhere that they can be disposed of safely. at the very least, taking their ammo for example ought to be ok, since it helps to negate future danger to others. any money on them couldn't really go to your own use.. but donating it to someone in need would bring some good from it.

and if an enemy survives, but abandons a weapon/supplies, they've effectively given up ownershp of it, so it wouldn't technically be theft. as long as taking the item wouldn't violate some local law or other aspect of your alignment (for example, biowizardry weapons with living fairies in them), there shouldn't be a barrier to taking it.. though from a roleplay perspective a character might find it distasteful.

to steal a saying from D&D.. its lawful good, not lawful stupid.

[Alrik Vas]

When playing a good aligned character, GB, i agree with everything you said.

My own statements above about not looting stand as well, but honestly, I look the crap out of my enemies. Those are just the reasons why I wouldn't, which are rare.

[Shorty Lickens]

Avoid 'manly' ammo-munching full-autofire barrages and blatant overkill if possible

Even at book prices, it is typically cheaper to recharge an e-clip than it is to repair even 1d6MDC on your armor, so if you depend on armor that must be repaired, it's cheaper to go ammo-munching full-autofire on your enemy if it means he'll get even one less successful attack against you.

Edit: it's been years since I've actually paid to repair armor so I tried to look in RUE for repair costs...and I totally can't find it anywhere. The closest thing I found was that it costs an Operator $1200 per MDC point repaired when repairing vehicles.

--flatline

You still need Sourcebook 1 for that information.

Didnt one of the 3 mercenaries books have that as well?

[nilgravity]

My phase world group had a metal man (whatever they are called) and he'd make mad money charging people's eclips. The GM asked KS via his wife and she said that it was a legit move

[flatline]

My phase world group had a metal man (whatever they are called) and he'd make mad money charging people's eclips. The GM asked KS via his wife and she said that it was a legit move

The prices for charging eclips make little sense for Rifts Earth. They make even less sense for the 3 galaxies.

--flatline

[kaid]

My phase world group had a metal man (whatever they are called) and he'd make mad money charging people's eclips. The GM asked KS via his wife and she said that it was a legit move

The prices for charging eclips make little sense for Rifts Earth. They make even less sense for the 3 galaxies.

--flatline

3 galaxies actually is WAY cheaper for eclips. Eclips brand new fully charged cost like 150 credits so they are MUCH less expensive than rifts prices and one has to assume the recharge costs follow a similar reduction in price.


One weird type adventure economics wise is a lemurian one. I have only done one where the bulk of the group was lemurian but it was kinda funny. Your character is more likely to die than their armor is because to fully destroy bio armor you have to keep hitting it after its MDC is depleted. Their weapons being magic items are all very very durable and repairable if you have a bio mancer with you. It wound up being one of the more oddly alturistic campaigns because the party really did not need anything. They didn't need to buy ammo, their armor healed itself over time, their mounts healed up fast and were also armored via barding. They thought tech items had cooties so even if they got some loot none of them wanted anything to do with most of what they got.

Most of the lemurian OCC's start with so much gear a player playing a biomancer asked a question I had never heard before in decades of roleplaying and that was do I actually need all this stuff and wound up just banking most of their starting equipment at their home city in case somehow they wound up needing it to replace combat losses over time.

I think in the campaign the total causalties were like two of the big warmounts which made the group sad but both of the people who lost them had 2 or 3 as starting equipment so when they went back to town they had their funeral and then bonded with one of their other allotted mounts.

[green.nova343]

Not sure why people are surprised at the recharging costs. You're talking about devices (E-clips) that hold a lot of energy: 1 "standard" (short) E-clip holds as much energy as 1,000 car batteries (per CB1), which puts it at anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 kWH/3.6-7.2 GJ of electrical energy (car batteries hold between 2-8+ MJ apiece; since 1 kWH = 3.6 MJ, I'm making the assumption the low end would be 3.6 MJ/1 kWH & the high end would be 7.2 MJ/2 kWH per E-clip). Depending on the low- or high-end estimate, that means that a single E-Clip will cover my regular electric bills for at least 11 weeks, possibly as many as 23 weeks. Or, to put it into perspective....a single E-Clip will provide enough juice to power at least 500,000 (possibly double that) iPhone 5S's simultaneously...or allow you to recharge a single iPhone 5S about 500,000-1 million times before the E-Clip itself needs recharging. Alternately, that's enough power to run the average laptop for 10,000-20,000 hours continuously before needing to recharge. How much would you pay in real life for a 2 pound/1kg box that could provide that kind of energy needs for your home & electronic devices?

Now, don't know how much the rest of you pay for your electricity. For me, the cost of buying the equivalent energy from AEP tops out at about $200 USD. Is that a lot less than the 1,200-1,500 credits listed in RUE? Sure...but Rifts Earth is not the real world:

• there is no "regional" utility company that has infrastructure strung across multiple states, with multiple power plants to generate the electricity in a "bulk" format to save on costs, & has hundreds to thousands of repair crews to take care of repairing & installing said infrastructure;
• That also means you're not going to be able to just find a spare electrical socket to plug into...& even if you did, the sheer amount of power stored in those E-clips means it'll use up resources for the locals to recharge your E-clip
• There's probably a bit of markup involved in the prices, to reflect the fact that the merchants are going to need to make a profit off of the work. But if you want to make it a bit more random, just roll 1D100+40, & treat it as the percent of the base cost, & that's the cost that applies this time (i.e. Bargain Bob's Rifle Shop charged you (23+40)=63%, or 756 credits, last time to recharge the E-clip, but this time it costs (75+40)=115%, or 1,380 credits, to recharge).
• some wilderness areas will be lucky for people to even have individual generators for their homes, let alone a local high-level generator to meet the needs of the town...assuming they can find the right fuel for it. So they may not even want you to suck their power away from them...& if they do decide to let you, just be glad if they only charge you the base price.
• and if all else fails, any halfway-decent Operator can set up a hookup to your power armor/vehicle's nuclear power system so that it can recharge E-clips. Aside from the initial materials cost, that means you're only using the recharge facilities in town when you don't have access to your recharger.

[flatline]

CB1 states "1 gigawatt", which, of course, is nonsense since that's a measure of power, not energy, but they probably meant "1 gigajoule" since that's a reasonable approximation for the amount of energy in 10,000 car batteries from the 80s.

I think it is a mistake to look at CB1 (which was published 21 years ago) and use stats for modern car batteries in your calculations.

When this type of calculation comes up, I normally use the gigajoule as the capacity of an e-clip. Even then, I think that's probably two orders of magnitude too high for the integrity of the setting.

--flatline

[green.nova343]

CB1 states "1 gigawatt", which, of course, is nonsense since that's a measure of power, not energy, but they probably meant "1 gigajoule" since that's a reasonable approximation for the amount of energy in 10,000 car batteries from the 80s.

I think it is a mistake to look at CB1 (which was published 21 years ago) and use stats for modern car batteries in your calculations.

When this type of calculation comes up, I normally use the gigajoule as the capacity of an e-clip. Even then, I think that's probably two orders of magnitude too high for the integrity of the setting.

--flatline

It depends on whether you think car batteries have truly changed that much in energy storage. I highly doubt, for example, that the battery in my 2002 Malibu (or even my 2010 Cobalt) stores that much more energy than the battery I had in my 1985 Aries. Kind of like how, aside from having longer shelf lives, a AA battery I buy in the store has the same energy as a AA battery that my dad would have bought when I was a baby.

[Nightmask]

Not sure why people are surprised at the recharging costs. You're talking about devices (E-clips) that hold a lot of energy: 1 "standard" (short) E-clip holds as much energy as 1,000 car batteries (per CB1), which puts it at anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 kWH/3.6-7.2 GJ of electrical energy (car batteries hold between 2-8+ MJ apiece; since 1 kWH = 3.6 MJ, I'm making the assumption the low end would be 3.6 MJ/1 kWH & the high end would be 7.2 MJ/2 kWH per E-clip). Depending on the low- or high-end estimate, that means that a single E-Clip will cover my regular electric bills for at least 11 weeks, possibly as many as 23 weeks. Or, to put it into perspective....a single E-Clip will provide enough juice to power at least 500,000 (possibly double that) iPhone 5S's simultaneously...or allow you to recharge a single iPhone 5S about 500,000-1 million times before the E-Clip itself needs recharging. Alternately, that's enough power to run the average laptop for 10,000-20,000 hours continuously before needing to recharge. How much would you pay in real life for a 2 pound/1kg box that could provide that kind of energy needs for your home & electronic devices?

Now, don't know how much the rest of you pay for your electricity. For me, the cost of buying the equivalent energy from AEP tops out at about $200 USD. Is that a lot less than the 1,200-1,500 credits listed in RUE? Sure...but Rifts Earth is not the real world:

• there is no "regional" utility company that has infrastructure strung across multiple states, with multiple power plants to generate the electricity in a "bulk" format to save on costs, & has hundreds to thousands of repair crews to take care of repairing & installing said infrastructure;
• That also means you're not going to be able to just find a spare electrical socket to plug into...& even if you did, the sheer amount of power stored in those E-clips means it'll use up resources for the locals to recharge your E-clip
• There's probably a bit of markup involved in the prices, to reflect the fact that the merchants are going to need to make a profit off of the work. But if you want to make it a bit more random, just roll 1D100+40, & treat it as the percent of the base cost, & that's the cost that applies this time (i.e. Bargain Bob's Rifle Shop charged you (23+40)=63%, or 756 credits, last time to recharge the E-clip, but this time it costs (75+40)=115%, or 1,380 credits, to recharge).
• some wilderness areas will be lucky for people to even have individual generators for their homes, let alone a local high-level generator to meet the needs of the town...assuming they can find the right fuel for it. So they may not even want you to suck their power away from them...& if they do decide to let you, just be glad if they only charge you the base price.
• and if all else fails, any halfway-decent Operator can set up a hookup to your power armor/vehicle's nuclear power system so that it can recharge E-clips. Aside from the initial materials cost, that means you're only using the recharge facilities in town when you don't have access to your recharger.

People have problems with the excessive cost for e-clip recharging because the means to generate the energy to recharge them is also fairly common. Do remember that by the time of the Golden Age and carried over into Rifts they've managed to reduce the size of nuclear power sources to the point that they can be installed into power armor and portable carry units and there are MILLIONS of these things scattered around and they're all capable of powering energy weapons in lieu of an e-clip (the Skelebots even have a laser rifle that's modded to be powered via hand-adapter plug-in through the handle off their power supply rather than the standard e-clip). Rifts Earth is set far enough after the end that civilization is well on its way to being back and no longer an Apocalyptic setting where you'd be lucky to find a car alternator that worked to jury rig a generator to power some lights and a water pump for a mill.

The average high-tech party for example has 3-6 nuclear powered vehicles that those generators are producing power whether it's being used or not that can be more than enough to recharge an e-clip, and likely a few power armor as well. In a fight with anyone who has high-tech equipment that has a nuclear power source there should be said sources available to salvage and repurpose for recharging party e-clips and other energy storage cells, since those things are supposed to be built to handle lots of punishment and few fights should ever hammer a target to where it would damage or destroy the nuclear power core.

So the only thing that explains that extremely high price for recharging e-clips is massive price gouging since there aren't any kind of government oversight boards to prevent such. The electricity itself is fairly easy to come by.

[Tor]

I don't see why a Principled or Scrupulous character can't take the equipment of a downed foe as long as he fought the foe for reasons compatible with his alignment (like self-defense).

Or if the enemy was guilty of any conceivable offense, like jaywalking, since only -innocents- are safe, and Principled characters get to be the judge of who is guilty.

I play a Necromancer. She takes everything she can from a fallen opponent, including their body.

ALL the parts of the buffalo.

NO EXCEPTIONS, ALL

[Damian Magecraft]

wow not even 40 posts in and its the "e-clips/costs are wrong" dance all over again...
(Same participants as the last 6 times too)
has it been 3 months already?

[flatline]

wow not even 40 posts in and its the "e-clips/costs are wrong" dance all over again...
(Same participants as the last 6 times too)
has it been 3 months already?

It's been a while. We're due.

--flatline

[Shark_Force]

honestly, i was expecting the thread to *start* with a discussion of how high the costs of e-clip recharges and armour repairs are.

it's about the economics of adventuring. this isn't even a tangent, it's directly related to the thread topic

[Cybermancer]

Quick question.

Am I the only who's ever had a character purchase a Chipwell Assault Suit only to strip it down and sell most of it off for scrap, keeping only the 5 year nuclear power supply as a cheap dedicated e-clip recharger? 250,000cr for a nuclear power source is a steal.

[Kelorin]

Sorry if these ideas have been brought up before, but just my theories on the subject of economics in the game.

Players Side:
In my opinion the pricing scale of some equipment in Rifts is a bit off when you are an adventurer. If taking down a threat empties a handful of e-clips you aren't going to be able to afford to be a good guy for long. Heavy combat will cripple your finances for years. If your GM is using equipment damage from AOE weapons your non-rune weapons are going to get toasted after a missile exchange. Even at the best merc rate of pay you can't afford a replacement rifle or armor for weeks or months. Your best hope as a paid killer is to have the company replace gear lost on missions but those costs still add up. What do you do as a traditional righter of wrongs?

You mean like Batman? He's rich.
Or Tony Stark? He's rich too.
Or perhaps you're talking about being someone similar to Kwai Chang Caine from Kung Fu. He's a bum. He lives on hand-outs.

Basically, if you're a do-gooder, you have two options; be rich or be a bum. There isn't a third.
Well, actually, there is - you be Robin Hood. Which means you have to steal.

You want real advice? Use all the pieces of the buffalo. Do good for evil men, because then you won't feel bad about stripping an evil man of his wealth afterwards.
Basically, if you choose to be good all the time, then you'd better be Batman/Iron Man or Kwai Chang Caine, because any other person won't be able to be good for very long.

And to put things in perspective - if you GM offers your character a meal for defeating the rampaging fury beetle, tell him to shove it; you can get a meal and a nights rest for a day's labour; is fighting off a rampaging beast the equivalent of a day's labour? No. So don't accept a pittance of a reward for doing something heroic; the heroes of the past didn't survive of such hand-outs - they were rewarded with lands and titles and riches for their good deeds and so should you be.

Rifts Earth is a world of contradictions; there are as many kings and lords in Rifts Earth as there were in the more traditional ages of heroes, so therefore there should be just as many equivalent rewards.

There is a third option. Join the army or work for a patron. On modern day Earth, you don't see tank and fighter pilots pulling out calculators every time they fire off an APDS round or launch a Sidewinder missile and they are also piloting vehicles that cost millions of dollars.

This even ties into how I would run tactics for different type of foes. Independent enemy mercs and adventurers are going to be just as concerned about costs for recharges, ammo refills and repairs as the PC's and that can dictate use of consumable ammo (particularly expensive missiles) and also means that their armor and gear will likely be more banged up. In comparison, fighting troops belonging to large well-funded faction like the CS or NGR means the state is picking up the tab, so those troops are going to be fine with using all the grenades, missiles and ammo at their disposal.

For PC's there are similar options to join up with a city state like Lazlo or Kingsdale, a known Merc outfit like Larsen's Brigade, travelling show or working with the Black Market. Upside, you don't worry about adventuring costs as much. Downside, you lose independence and may have to limit adventuring to specific areas and goals.

[Svartalf]

Quick question.

Am I the only who's ever had a character purchase a Chipwell Assault Suit only to strip it down and sell most of it off for scrap, keeping only the 5 year nuclear power supply as a cheap dedicated e-clip recharger? 250,000cr for a nuclear power source is a steal.

Never did that, but I keep the idea...

[Alrik Vas]

I've found that, if you have a TW in a group with Sub-particle Acceleration and Mend the Broken, then hang out near ley lines often enough, you can make repairs and recharge e-clips for time, rather than funds. It's great when you have the opportunity and your party member is so inclined.

[flatline]

Let's assume that an e-clip stores 100MJ. (if you prefer another number, scale my results appropriately)

If I walk out of my neighborhood hardware store with the Honda EU2000i, fill it up with gas (1.1gallons), and hook it up to a 1000w load, in 9.5 hours it will have provided me with about 34MJ. That's 1/3 of of an e-clip and it cost me about 10 hours of my time, a $1000 generator, and 1.1 gallons in gasoline.

If I hook it up to a 2000w load, in 4 hours it will have provided me with almost 29MJ. That's about 1/4th of an e-clip and it cost me 4 hours of my time, a $1000 generator, and 1.1 gallons of gasoline.

This assumes near 100% energy conversion while charging the e-clip, but that's not too far from reality if we're talking about a capacitor based technology. Even lithium ion secondary cells are near 100% conversion for the first 70-80% of their charging cycle.

And that's a pretty puny generator. Larger generators will, of course, reduce the time required and will probably make more efficient use of their fuel. But I went with puny generator because its output is within the realm of what you could do with a water wheel or small portable wind turbine.

Now consider what the power output of a hovercycle or other common vehicle must be.

That is why I wonder why it costs so much to charge an e-clip.

--flatline

[guardiandashi]

Let's assume that an e-clip stores 100MJ. (if you prefer another number, scale my results appropriately)

If I walk out of my neighborhood hardware store with the Honda EU2000i, fill it up with gas (1.1gallons), and hook it up to a 1000w load, in 9.5 hours it will have provided me with about 34MJ. That's 1/3 of of an e-clip and it cost me about 10 hours of my time, a $1000 generator, and 1.1 gallons in gasoline.

If I hook it up to a 2000w load, in 4 hours it will have provided me with almost 29MJ. That's about 1/4th of an e-clip and it cost me 4 hours of my time, a $1000 generator, and 1.1 gallons of gasoline.

This assumes near 100% energy conversion while charging the e-clip, but that's not too far from reality if we're talking about a capacitor based technology. Even lithium ion secondary cells are near 100% conversion for the first 70-80% of their charging cycle.

And that's a pretty puny generator. Larger generators will, of course, reduce the time required and will probably make more efficient use of their fuel. But I went with puny generator because its output is within the realm of what you could do with a water wheel or small portable wind turbine.

Now consider what the power output of a hovercycle or other common vehicle must be.

That is why I wonder why it costs so much to charge an e-clip.

--flatline

even if you up the charge capacity of the clip to 1 giga joule instead of 100Mj (multiplying it by 10)
the cost of the generator is a 1x expense so fine lets finance it over 10 chargings, and its looking like about 3-4 gallons of fuel to run your small generator, you are basically looking at about (for me ~3.70 /gal, for gas) or about $12-16 worth of fuel to charge the 100mj clips. or $120-160ish to charge the larger "size" clip. my electricity is heavy hydro so its cheap, about 9cents /kw/h from the grid. when I ran the numbers on the 1gw eclip I think I came up with it costing around $40-50 maybe a bit over $100 to charge a clip

[flatline]

Let's assume that an e-clip stores 100MJ. (if you prefer another number, scale my results appropriately)

If I walk out of my neighborhood hardware store with the Honda EU2000i, fill it up with gas (1.1gallons), and hook it up to a 1000w load, in 9.5 hours it will have provided me with about 34MJ. That's 1/3 of of an e-clip and it cost me about 10 hours of my time, a $1000 generator, and 1.1 gallons in gasoline.

If I hook it up to a 2000w load, in 4 hours it will have provided me with almost 29MJ. That's about 1/4th of an e-clip and it cost me 4 hours of my time, a $1000 generator, and 1.1 gallons of gasoline.

This assumes near 100% energy conversion while charging the e-clip, but that's not too far from reality if we're talking about a capacitor based technology. Even lithium ion secondary cells are near 100% conversion for the first 70-80% of their charging cycle.

And that's a pretty puny generator. Larger generators will, of course, reduce the time required and will probably make more efficient use of their fuel. But I went with puny generator because its output is within the realm of what you could do with a water wheel or small portable wind turbine.

Now consider what the power output of a hovercycle or other common vehicle must be.

That is why I wonder why it costs so much to charge an e-clip.

--flatline

even if you up the charge capacity of the clip to 1 giga joule instead of 100Mj (multiplying it by 10)
the cost of the generator is a 1x expense so fine lets finance it over 10 chargings, and its looking like about 3-4 gallons of fuel to run your small generator, you are basically looking at about (for me ~3.70 /gal, for gas) or about $12-16 worth of fuel to charge the 100mj clips. or $120-160ish to charge the larger "size" clip. my electricity is heavy hydro so its cheap, about 9cents /kw/h from the grid. when I ran the numbers on the 1gw eclip I think I came up with it costing around $40-50 maybe a bit over $100 to charge a clip

Ah, man, I forgot to point out that 2kW is equivalent to about 2.7 horse power...I expect that to be an eye-opener for some readers when they ponder these numbers.

--flatline

[kaid]

Quick question.

Am I the only who's ever had a character purchase a Chipwell Assault Suit only to strip it down and sell most of it off for scrap, keeping only the 5 year nuclear power supply as a cheap dedicated e-clip recharger? 250,000cr for a nuclear power source is a steal.

I have. I was in a campaign where everybody started with about the bottom basement gear for whatever they did so our RPA got a chipwell suit. While not amazing it worked well enough until it was damaged enough my operator salvaged all the good bits and the power supply and we used that as a recharging station and eventually I upgraded some vehicle to run off it as well.

I have to really question the rad shielding their power plants use given they are SO much less expensive than just about any other option haha giger counter not included.

[Nightmask]

Quick question.

Am I the only who's ever had a character purchase a Chipwell Assault Suit only to strip it down and sell most of it off for scrap, keeping only the 5 year nuclear power supply as a cheap dedicated e-clip recharger? 250,000cr for a nuclear power source is a steal.

I have. I was in a campaign where everybody started with about the bottom basement gear for whatever they did so our RPA got a chipwell suit. While not amazing it worked well enough until it was damaged enough my operator salvaged all the good bits and the power supply and we used that as a recharging station and eventually I upgraded some vehicle to run off it as well.

I have to really question the rad shielding their power plants use given they are SO much less expensive than just about any other option haha giger counter not included.

Well given we aren't given any warnings regarding the nuclear power supplies for Chipwell armor we can only conclude that they're just as safe and reliable as any other, remember the suits are cheap and unlike the 'deathtrap' opinion given regarding Chipwell when you look at the actual armors they aren't particularly sub-standard. If anything what we normally see is top end stuff and Chipwell is the 'consumer market' level bulk production stuff not normally seen in Rifts, so it's the cheap but actually reliable car not the lemon we're supposed to think of it as. If it were that low quality we'd have notes regarding how readily they break down, perhaps with percentage tables and the like but we don't so they're clearly reliable and aren't running on that level of substandard parts as is implied.