Somewhat interesting question.

[Rathorc Lemenger]

I was just watching a video on youtube that got me to thinking: Do you think that the various companies (like Northern Gun, Triax and others) had, somehow, had found or kept the schematics for various vehicles and cars from the 20th/21st centuries in hopes that there'd be a market for them?

Signed,
Rathorc Lemenger.

[guardiandashi]

I was just watching a video on youtube that got me to thinking: Do you think that the various companies (like Northern Gun, Triax and others) had, somehow, had found or kept the schematics for various vehicles and cars from the 20th/21st centuries in hopes that there'd be a market for them?

Signed,
Rathorc Lemenger.

keep not so likely
found, or recreated/reverse engineered a lot more likely

with that said as thigs get a lot more digital and bulk storage becomes progressively cheaper more and more people keep more obsolete "junk" and just don't bother to delete it.

[taalismn]

[

with that said as thigs get a lot more digital and bulk storage becomes progressively cheaper more and more people keep more obsolete "junk" and just don't bother to delete it.

This.
Given the advance of less expensive, more durable, and denser data storage media leading to a longer collective electronic 'memory', the more technical stuff, especially if it's no longer cutting edge proprietary information and designs, will be stored, for legal copyright-checking purposes, if nothing else.

Detailed tech-specs of North American's P-51 Mustang, for instance, aren't likely to be zealously copyright-protected, as few of the particulars(North American Aviation for example) involved still exist at the cusp of the Golden Age.

Plus the growth of larger-scale hobbyists with access to larger scale one-off fabrication units(It's easy to imagine a hobbyist group with the credits building a replica Greyhound armored car or Spad biplane using a 3D printer-or bank of them- to fabricate the parts) means more libraries of tech-templates out there.

[SolCannibal]

[

with that said as thigs get a lot more digital and bulk storage becomes progressively cheaper more and more people keep more obsolete "junk" and just don't bother to delete it.

This.
Given the advance of less expensive, more durable, and denser data storage media leading to a longer collective electronic 'memory', the more technical stuff, especially if it's no longer cutting edge proprietary information and designs, will be stored, for legal copyright-checking purposes, if nothing else.

Detailed tech-specs of North American's P-51 Mustang, for instance, aren't likely to be zealously copyright-protected, as few of the particulars(North American Aviation for example) involved still exist at the cusp of the Golden Age.

Plus the growth of larger-scale hobbyists with access to larger scale one-off fabrication units(It's easy to imagine a hobbyist group with the credits building a replica Greyhound armored car or Spad biplane using a 3D printer-or bank of them- to fabricate the parts) means more libraries of tech-templates out there.

Damn, it might be in part from where Golden Age Weaponsmiths acquired its library of model schematics, for a very on the nose example.

[glitterboy2098]

i could see them scanning anything they found (or converting filetypes), less to duplicate and more to use as a source of design elements for creating their own products. that if they need a suspension design for a new vehicle for example, they could sift through their archive and find something close to what they need, rather than designing a new one from scratch. that sort of thing.

[Blue_Lion]

While some big civilized cities would have a market for sdc vehicles the biggest issue is liquid fuel. According to the black market it is some what rare and goes for 50-400 cr a gallon. (PG 136 under gasoline/diesel powered eclip chargers.)

[SolCannibal]

While some big civilized cities would have a market for sdc vehicles the biggest issue is liquid fuel. According to the black market it is some what rare and goes for 50-400 cr a gallon. (PG 136 under gasoline/diesel powered eclip chargers.)

Supposing vehicle models from the 2080s-2090s still used some form of liquid fuel beside water, that is.

[Killer Cyborg]

While some big civilized cities would have a market for sdc vehicles the biggest issue is liquid fuel. According to the black market it is some what rare and goes for 50-400 cr a gallon. (PG 136 under gasoline/diesel powered eclip chargers.)

Supposing vehicle models from the 2080s-2090s still used some form of liquid fuel beside water, that is.

Eh.
In the RMB gasoline and electric seemed to be equally common, with gasoline engines being the apparent default, and also being cheaper than electric. It doesn't make it seem like gas is all that expensive, certainly not approaching the CR 400 range, which would be nearly a week's wages for a Coalition Grunt for a single gallon.
The first encounter in SB1's "The Face of Evil" adventure (and also in SB1r's version) yields loot that includes 30 gallons of gasoline, with nothing indicating that it'd be in the neighborhood of CR 12,000 worth of fuel at that high end later listed.
I think this is a case of Palladium not thinking their prices through in relation to how they actually portray the setting.

I'd work that price range into things by having the high end be in places where gas was barely heard of, and the low end being in places where gasoline was pretty common.
At the low end, that 30 gallons would be worth CR 1500, which is still pretty steep, approaching a month's wages. Which still seems too high for the setting descriptions we've seen when it comes to gasoline engines.

We know that the Coalition has oil wells and such; it's mentioned in various books.
And I think it's pretty safe to say that (in North America at least) the Coalition will have the most access to the most oil, as well as producing the most refined gasoline.
So I'd expect the CR 50 end of things to represent the price in CS territory, and the CR 400 to represent the price far away from such civilization.

This IS the black market cost, though, so the fact that CR 50/gallon seems way too high might as weird as it initially seems; it might be able to be worked into the world somewhat reasonably, if we assume that the black market cost is higher than the regular, legal cost. That's the opposite of how things normally work; the black market is typically created by the legal prices being so much higher that people are willing to risk arrest trading in stolen goods in order to save a significant deal of money buying something they want.
But there are situations in which a higher black market cost would make sense, such as some kind of legal restrictions on who can own or purchase the item.
In the modern US, for example, machine guns are illegal for anybody who doesn't go through a heavy registration process, and I'd expect that anybody who wanted to purchase a machine gun illegally would be willing to pay a significantly higher price for the weapon in order to skip the registration.

IF it was only legal in CS territory to sell gasoline to people with a CS drivers license, that would easily create a black market for gasoline that had higher prices than the legal cost, simply due to the sheer number of people who were unable or unwilling to risk getting Coalition IDs that might be used to by the CS to track them in various ways.
Anybody hunted by the CS--and that's a wide range of people--would probably rather pay extra for gas in CS territory than to go into the CS equivalent of the DMV and hope nobody notices they're effectively Wanted by the authorities.

So the legal market price of gas in CS territory could be well under CR 50/gallon without ignoring the official black market price, and I think it probably should be, considering the commonness of gasoline vehicles in Rifts North America.

Furthermore, that might be the black market cost for 1 gallon of 100% pure gasoline that's not cut with anything, and gas cut by ethanol and other additives might likewise be a bit cheaper.
It could be imagined that typical "gas" sold on the black market is under the listed black market price, but is also highly cut with other substances.

[Dustin Fireblade]

I was just watching a video on youtube that got me to thinking: Do you think that the various companies (like Northern Gun, Triax and others) had, somehow, had found or kept the schematics for various vehicles and cars from the 20th/21st centuries in hopes that there'd be a market for them?

Signed,
Rathorc Lemenger.

Well, in Triax 2, it does point out that Triax does build/sell basic SDC vehicles that are available with either gas, electric or even nuclear systems. I don't recall it saying they are pre-Rifts designs. I'd guess they are likely based off of them though, but Triax has been around a long time selling stuff, so like any other manufacturer that builds/sells vehicles, a new model year is going to be tweaked a little bit.

Might be interesting to do a "Gone in 60 Seconds" type campaign/adventure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_in_6 ... (2000_film)

[glitterboy2098]

While some big civilized cities would have a market for sdc vehicles the biggest issue is liquid fuel. According to the black market it is some what rare and goes for 50-400 cr a gallon. (PG 136 under gasoline/diesel powered eclip chargers.)

Supposing vehicle models from the 2080s-2090s still used some form of liquid fuel beside water, that is.

Eh.
In the RMB gasoline and electric seemed to be equally common, with gasoline engines being the apparent default, and also being cheaper than electric. It doesn't make it seem like gas is all that expensive, certainly not approaching the CR 400 range, which would be nearly a week's wages for a Coalition Grunt for a single gallon.
The first encounter in SB1's "The Face of Evil" adventure (and also in SB1r's version) yields loot that includes 30 gallons of gasoline, with nothing indicating that it'd be in the neighborhood of CR 12,000 worth of fuel at that high end later listed.
I think this is a case of Palladium not thinking their prices through in relation to how they actually portray the setting.

I'd work that price range into things by having the high end be in places where gas was barely heard of, and the low end being in places where gasoline was pretty common.
At the low end, that 30 gallons would be worth CR 1500, which is still pretty steep, approaching a month's wages. Which still seems too high for the setting descriptions we've seen when it comes to gasoline engines.

We know that the Coalition has oil wells and such; it's mentioned in various books.
And I think it's pretty safe to say that (in North America at least) the Coalition will have the most access to the most oil, as well as producing the most refined gasoline.
So I'd expect the CR 50 end of things to represent the price in CS territory, and the CR 400 to represent the price far away from such civilization.

This IS the black market cost, though, so the fact that CR 50/gallon seems way too high might as weird as it initially seems; it might be able to be worked into the world somewhat reasonably, if we assume that the black market cost is higher than the regular, legal cost. That's the opposite of how things normally work; the black market is typically created by the legal prices being so much higher that people are willing to risk arrest trading in stolen goods in order to save a significant deal of money buying something they want.
But there are situations in which a higher black market cost would make sense, such as some kind of legal restrictions on who can own or purchase the item.
In the modern US, for example, machine guns are illegal for anybody who doesn't go through a heavy registration process, and I'd expect that anybody who wanted to purchase a machine gun illegally would be willing to pay a significantly higher price for the weapon in order to skip the registration.

IF it was only legal in CS territory to sell gasoline to people with a CS drivers license, that would easily create a black market for gasoline that had higher prices than the legal cost, simply due to the sheer number of people who were unable or unwilling to risk getting Coalition IDs that might be used to by the CS to track them in various ways.
Anybody hunted by the CS--and that's a wide range of people--would probably rather pay extra for gas in CS territory than to go into the CS equivalent of the DMV and hope nobody notices they're effectively Wanted by the authorities.

So the legal market price of gas in CS territory could be well under CR 50/gallon without ignoring the official black market price, and I think it probably should be, considering the commonness of gasoline vehicles in Rifts North America.

Furthermore, that might be the black market cost for 1 gallon of 100% pure gasoline that's not cut with anything, and gas cut by ethanol and other additives might likewise be a bit cheaper.
It could be imagined that typical "gas" sold on the black market is under the listed black market price, but is also highly cut with other substances.

i would assume that a lot of the "gasoline" engines in rifts are actually Ethanol fueled, or are Diesels using biodiesel, or run on methanol, hydrogen, LPG, etc. you can pretty much configure an ICE engine to work on all sorts of fuels, you just usually have to do a lot of converting and adjustments. (which is why the "flexfuel" vehicles in Juicer uprising are a big deal.. their engines can do the adjustment with just some setting changes, no need to tear apart the engine and rebuild it)

[SolCannibal]

While some big civilized cities would have a market for sdc vehicles the biggest issue is liquid fuel. According to the black market it is some what rare and goes for 50-400 cr a gallon. (PG 136 under gasoline/diesel powered eclip chargers.)

Supposing vehicle models from the 2080s-2090s still used some form of liquid fuel beside water, that is.

Eh.
In the RMB gasoline and electric seemed to be equally common, with gasoline engines being the apparent default, and also being cheaper than electric. It doesn't make it seem like gas is all that expensive, certainly not approaching the CR 400 range, which would be nearly a week's wages for a Coalition Grunt for a single gallon.
The first encounter in SB1's "The Face of Evil" adventure (and also in SB1r's version) yields loot that includes 30 gallons of gasoline, with nothing indicating that it'd be in the neighborhood of CR 12,000 worth of fuel at that high end later listed.
I think this is a case of Palladium not thinking their prices through in relation to how they actually portray the setting.

I'd work that price range into things by having the high end be in places where gas was barely heard of, and the low end being in places where gasoline was pretty common.
At the low end, that 30 gallons would be worth CR 1500, which is still pretty steep, approaching a month's wages. Which still seems too high for the setting descriptions we've seen when it comes to gasoline engines.

We know that the Coalition has oil wells and such; it's mentioned in various books.
And I think it's pretty safe to say that (in North America at least) the Coalition will have the most access to the most oil, as well as producing the most refined gasoline.
So I'd expect the CR 50 end of things to represent the price in CS territory, and the CR 400 to represent the price far away from such civilization.

This IS the black market cost, though, so the fact that CR 50/gallon seems way too high might as weird as it initially seems; it might be able to be worked into the world somewhat reasonably, if we assume that the black market cost is higher than the regular, legal cost. That's the opposite of how things normally work; the black market is typically created by the legal prices being so much higher that people are willing to risk arrest trading in stolen goods in order to save a significant deal of money buying something they want.
But there are situations in which a higher black market cost would make sense, such as some kind of legal restrictions on who can own or purchase the item.
In the modern US, for example, machine guns are illegal for anybody who doesn't go through a heavy registration process, and I'd expect that anybody who wanted to purchase a machine gun illegally would be willing to pay a significantly higher price for the weapon in order to skip the registration.

IF it was only legal in CS territory to sell gasoline to people with a CS drivers license, that would easily create a black market for gasoline that had higher prices than the legal cost, simply due to the sheer number of people who were unable or unwilling to risk getting Coalition IDs that might be used to by the CS to track them in various ways.
Anybody hunted by the CS--and that's a wide range of people--would probably rather pay extra for gas in CS territory than to go into the CS equivalent of the DMV and hope nobody notices they're effectively Wanted by the authorities.

So the legal market price of gas in CS territory could be well under CR 50/gallon without ignoring the official black market price, and I think it probably should be, considering the commonness of gasoline vehicles in Rifts North America.

Furthermore, that might be the black market cost for 1 gallon of 100% pure gasoline that's not cut with anything, and gas cut by ethanol and other additives might likewise be a bit cheaper.
It could be imagined that typical "gas" sold on the black market is under the listed black market price, but is also highly cut with other substances.

i would assume that a lot of the "gasoline" engines in rifts are actually Ethanol fueled, or are Diesels using biodiesel, or run on methanol, hydrogen, LPG, etc. you can pretty much configure an ICE engine to work on all sorts of fuels, you just usually have to do a lot of converting and adjustments. (which is why the "flexfuel" vehicles in Juicer uprising are a big deal.. their engines can do the adjustment with just some setting changes, no need to tear apart the engine and rebuild it)

Oh, i very much get the idea, a gas-ethanol variant of "flexfuel" has become pretty much the informal standard for civilian engines in Brasil. Outside of this it's mostly diesel for trucks and bigger stuff or taxis adapted for natural gas use. AFAIK. Also first to admit i'm no specialist.

[Blue_Lion]

While some big civilized cities would have a market for sdc vehicles the biggest issue is liquid fuel. According to the black market it is some what rare and goes for 50-400 cr a gallon. (PG 136 under gasoline/diesel powered eclip chargers.)

Supposing vehicle models from the 2080s-2090s still used some form of liquid fuel beside water, that is.

Eh.
In the RMB gasoline and electric seemed to be equally common, with gasoline engines being the apparent default, and also being cheaper than electric. It doesn't make it seem like gas is all that expensive, certainly not approaching the CR 400 range, which would be nearly a week's wages for a Coalition Grunt for a single gallon.
The first encounter in SB1's "The Face of Evil" adventure (and also in SB1r's version) yields loot that includes 30 gallons of gasoline, with nothing indicating that it'd be in the neighborhood of CR 12,000 worth of fuel at that high end later listed.
I think this is a case of Palladium not thinking their prices through in relation to how they actually portray the setting.

I'd work that price range into things by having the high end be in places where gas was barely heard of, and the low end being in places where gasoline was pretty common.
At the low end, that 30 gallons would be worth CR 1500, which is still pretty steep, approaching a month's wages. Which still seems too high for the setting descriptions we've seen when it comes to gasoline engines.

We know that the Coalition has oil wells and such; it's mentioned in various books.
And I think it's pretty safe to say that (in North America at least) the Coalition will have the most access to the most oil, as well as producing the most refined gasoline.
So I'd expect the CR 50 end of things to represent the price in CS territory, and the CR 400 to represent the price far away from such civilization.

This IS the black market cost, though, so the fact that CR 50/gallon seems way too high might as weird as it initially seems; it might be able to be worked into the world somewhat reasonably, if we assume that the black market cost is higher than the regular, legal cost. That's the opposite of how things normally work; the black market is typically created by the legal prices being so much higher that people are willing to risk arrest trading in stolen goods in order to save a significant deal of money buying something they want.
But there are situations in which a higher black market cost would make sense, such as some kind of legal restrictions on who can own or purchase the item.
In the modern US, for example, machine guns are illegal for anybody who doesn't go through a heavy registration process, and I'd expect that anybody who wanted to purchase a machine gun illegally would be willing to pay a significantly higher price for the weapon in order to skip the registration.

IF it was only legal in CS territory to sell gasoline to people with a CS drivers license, that would easily create a black market for gasoline that had higher prices than the legal cost, simply due to the sheer number of people who were unable or unwilling to risk getting Coalition IDs that might be used to by the CS to track them in various ways.
Anybody hunted by the CS--and that's a wide range of people--would probably rather pay extra for gas in CS territory than to go into the CS equivalent of the DMV and hope nobody notices they're effectively Wanted by the authorities.

So the legal market price of gas in CS territory could be well under CR 50/gallon without ignoring the official black market price, and I think it probably should be, considering the commonness of gasoline vehicles in Rifts North America.

Furthermore, that might be the black market cost for 1 gallon of 100% pure gasoline that's not cut with anything, and gas cut by ethanol and other additives might likewise be a bit cheaper.
It could be imagined that typical "gas" sold on the black market is under the listed black market price, but is also highly cut with other substances.

It would put vehicles in a not every day category. Remember while PC have stuff does not mean it is common for every one. - It could very well be that it is rare as the black market book indicates.

Trying to find it where but I seem to remember the cost to recharge a vehicle battery being listed some where. Thought it was source book 1 with the repairs but no luck. (if i recall right the cost was close to the cost to charge a eclip so would be inline with the black market fuel cost.)

[Killer Cyborg]

Every Vagabond begins with a car/truck/motorcycle in their starting equipment, and while they're PCs they were originally depicted also as an Everyman, as "ordinary people who get swept up in the flow of events or decide that it is time they make a change in their life."

In the Rifts Adventure Guide's rules for creating towns & cities, section E (p. 116) is "Vehicles & Fuel."
The lowest level, 1, is of course nothing: "They don't even have a skate board."
Level 2 is "Heard of a One Horse Town? Well, you've found it. A horse or two, maybe a camel or a mule, and that's all. No machine driven vehicles as of yet, no fuel other than some heating and lamp oil."
That kind of oil is often petroleum based, and petroleum seems more likely than whale oil oil at least away from the coasts. But perhaps there's some kind of easy-to-make vegetable oil or something for lamps?
Not much to go on there.
Level 3 is "Very basic" and includes a decent number of riding/work animals, and "a few beat up utility vehicles. Fuel (presumably gasoline) is "difficult to come by and expensive."
I'd assume this would be around the CR400/Gallon level of scarcity, with the previous two levels having gasoline effectively unavailable.
Level 4 is listed as "Average," which is wonderfully useful for us because we're trying to figure out what the average might be!
"The community has a fair number of utilitarian motor vehicles in reasonably good condition (a couple might even be MDC vehicles)" along with work and riding animals, bicycles, and some other stuff.
Also, there will be one "beat up MDC cargo hauling truck or four-wheel drive vehicle like a Big Boss or Mountaineer."
Fuel is "difficult to come by and expensive," and the community "usually has a 1d4 month supply on hand; rarely runs out completely."
If near water, the community will have various boats, including "a few motorboats" and "a few motor powered cargo barges."
Level 5 is "Good." The community has a fleet of vehicles, including bicycles, several motorcycles, a few heavy construction vehicles (tractors, bulldozers, backhoe, etc.), a variety of small to medium-sized trucks, a selection of modified or souped up vehicles, and an number of automobiles, hover vehicles, fast-moving hover-cycles, and 1d4x10% are even MDC vechiles (no military)."
As far as fuel goes, "Fuel can be hard to come by, with prices varying from reasonable to high, but the town is usually careful to keep a 1d4+2 month supply on hand."
Level 6 is "excellent," and this apparently means 1 in 10 citizens have his own SDC motorcyucle, jeep, pickup truck, or automobile. There are garages and vehicle repair shops with skilled mechanics, maybe even a used car dealer.
At this level, fuel "can be hard to come by" still, with prices ranging from "reasonable" to "exorbitant," but the town has a 2d4+4 month supply on hand, and at this level the town might even have its own "fuel supply/oil fields."
Level 7 is "Superior." Includes everything in level 6, but 50-65% of the vehicles are mega-damage, and there might even be power armor or robots, and a small airfield. 1 in 5 citizens have a SDC motor vehicle, and 1 in 20 of these are MDC.
No mention of fuel costs, but presumably it's on the lower end of things.

Now, this covers Towns (described by Palladium in SB1 (p. 13) as necessarily engaging in Industry, Services, Trade, Administration, Research, and Development), and Cities ("more or less big towns").
They list the population of Towns as being "as little as a few hundred or several thousand," and the population of cities as being "30,000 or more."
There is a mention on p. 16 that places such as Chi-Town and Free Quebec are "giant high-tech megalopolises," and I'd assume that "megalopolis" is another higher category than just "city," where things might be presumed to be even more common.

Now, back to RAG's town/city construction rules.
P. 121 starts section P, which covers Power/Energy for the community. It has the following as part of its description:
"Power may be generated from many different sources--fire, steam, methane gas, solar cells, a hydroelectric generator, rare geothermic power plant (pre-Rifts), fossil fuel generators, batteries that require a recharging generator, e-clips, etc."
The lowest level, Level 1 predictably has nothing other than fire, maybe steam.
Level 2, which is described as "low" includes "crude gas, coal, wood and/or petroleum powered generators, and furnaces provide about several hours of lighting at night and the energy to run light to medium machines."
There is mention "having sufficient fuel is always a problem."
With Level 3, "Good," "solar energy panels and the use of fuel-powered generators and machiens are the main source of power."
From there things get more advanced with Level 4 having hydro power, Level 5 having windmills, solar, manure-based methane, etc., Level 6 having some high-tech nuclear power packs and generators, and a small to medium power plant.

To me, this makes it look like is that fuel itself isn't all that common, but not all that uncommon either. The Average town/city "usually has a 1d4 month supply on hand; rarely runs out completely," which means that most decent-sized places will have access to gasoline, but that it's not necessarily a guarantee if hard times hit. The price seems like it would be high enough that people wouldn't waste fuel driving around just for fun, at least not often, BUT it would be low enough that a "fair number" of people in the town have "motor vehicles."

Where that fits in with the listed price of gasoline most likely gets messy from there, as Palladium tends to be pretty inconsistent with their prices/economics.
We have to guess what is or is not affordable on average based on a variety of most-likely-not-coordinated numbers.

[Blue_Lion]

Well that does kind of explain the 50-400, that the black market lists.

You might want to edit your quote, makes it look like I said what you posted originally.

Ethanol fuel requires care when storing it because it can pull in water. Production of ethanol fuel requires a surplus of crops to convert.

going by that it does appears typically it would take a town 4 months to get a new shipment in.

No need to assume on Megalopolises it has a known definition. Basically a super city or a very large heavily populated urban complex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/megalopolis

[Killer Cyborg]

Well that does kind of explain the 50-400, that the black market lists.

It kinda does!
I still think fuel should be cheaper in CS territory and especially the megalopolises, but overall it actually kinda fits.

You might want to edit your quote, makes it look like I said what you posted originally.

Done!

No need to assume on Megalopolises it has a known definition. Basically a super city or a very large heavily populated urban complex.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalopolis
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/megalopolis

Indeed!

[Blue_Lion]

I do not think they have private vehicles in the fortified super cites like chi town, if they do they probably go with electric engines. Burbs may have gas powered vehicles but it is more the slums.

CS probably cuts few with ethanol to bring down the cost as they control lots of farm lands. Also the way the books are written prices can be lower or higher than the listed the listed are just the average of what most people pay.