Paying to recharge E-clips? You poor players...

[flatline]

I've never had to pay to recharge an E-clip. I've always either had GMs that let us recharge off our vehicle reactors or I've used sub-particle acceleration to charge my E-clips. This came up in another thread, so I started to wonder just how much of a burden it is to have to pay book prices to charging clips.

$1500 to charge a normal clip works out to about $75 per shot (assuming 20 shots).
$2000 to charge a long clip works out to about $67 per shot (assuming 30 shots).

YUCK!

That makes the $40 per shot for Naruni plasma weapons look like a huge bargain!

It also make my favorite beater, the L-20 Pulse Rifle, look pretty good since you're only paying $37.5 per shot for a normal clip and $40 per shot for a long clip.

And a $300-$900 shotgun with the Ramjet armor piercing shell is a steal at $20 per shell (for 2D6 damage).

--flatline

[Faceless Dude]

I can't remember ever paying to recharge e-clips either because you are right, there are other means to do it with a little forethought. I play predominantly tech characters, and even in that faction more Operators than anything. So rigging up an e-clip charger to an existing nuclear power source s something every GM I've played under has allowed. And if I don't have the skill, I'll usually pay an npc to rig up an adapter for me, preferring whatever the 1 time expense is to constantly paying to recharge each e-clip as I need it

As a last ditch solution, if I'm a merc contracted to do something, I will generally push to have my employer pay for any munitions expended, including recharging services

[Killer Cyborg]

I've never had to pay to recharge an E-clip. I've always either had GMs that let us recharge off our vehicle reactors or I've used sub-particle acceleration to charge my E-clips. This came up in another thread, so I started to wonder just how much of a burden it is to have to pay book prices to charging clips.

$1500 to charge a normal clip works out to about $75 per shot (assuming 20 shots).
$2000 to charge a long clip works out to about $67 per shot (assuming 30 shots).

YUCK!

That makes the $40 per shot for Naruni plasma weapons look like a huge bargain!

It also make my favorite beater, the L-20 Pulse Rifle, look pretty good since you're only paying $37.5 per shot for a normal clip and $40 per shot for a long clip.

And a $300-$900 shotgun with the Ramjet armor piercing shell is a steal at $20 per shell (for 2D6 damage).

--flatline

Yup.
The economics of the game are a very important part of it, and how you play the economics has a LOT of impact on how you play the game.
When ammo isn't free, I've found that players end up being more careful about what they shoot at.
When armor repair isn't free, I've found that players end up being more careful about who they pick fights with.

And it has ripples throughout the game, many of which you note above. Weapons like shotguns with Ramjet rounds make a lot more sense and become a lot more viable.
Large powers like the Coalition make a lot more sense, because THEY don't have to be anywhere near as careful about ammo expenditure or minor armor repair costs, so they have a huge advantage over smaller powers where budget is more of a factor.

[flatline]

I've never had to pay to recharge an E-clip. I've always either had GMs that let us recharge off our vehicle reactors or I've used sub-particle acceleration to charge my E-clips. This came up in another thread, so I started to wonder just how much of a burden it is to have to pay book prices to charging clips.

$1500 to charge a normal clip works out to about $75 per shot (assuming 20 shots).
$2000 to charge a long clip works out to about $67 per shot (assuming 30 shots).

YUCK!

That makes the $40 per shot for Naruni plasma weapons look like a huge bargain!

It also make my favorite beater, the L-20 Pulse Rifle, look pretty good since you're only paying $37.5 per shot for a normal clip and $40 per shot for a long clip.

And a $300-$900 shotgun with the Ramjet armor piercing shell is a steal at $20 per shell (for 2D6 damage).

--flatline

Yup.
The economics of the game are a very important part of it, and how you play the economics has a LOT of impact on how you play the game.
When ammo isn't free, I've found that players end up being more careful about what they shoot at.
When armor repair isn't free, I've found that players end up being more careful about who they pick fights with.

And it has ripples throughout the game, many of which you note above. Weapons like shotguns with Ramjet rounds make a lot more sense and become a lot more viable.
Large powers like the Coalition make a lot more sense, because THEY don't have to be anywhere near as careful about ammo expenditure or minor armor repair costs, so they have a huge advantage over smaller powers where budget is more of a factor.

I never actually ran the numbers before, but I had an intuitive sense of what they were which is why I always start with sub-particle acceleration and mend the broken.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

I can't remember ever paying to recharge e-clips either because you are right, there are other means to do it with a little forethought.

The thing is, most of those are house-rules.
MercTown or one of the other more recent books came up with an actual E-Clip recharger, and FoM allowed the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell to recharge E-Clips... but other than that, there were never really official methods for what it took to recharge E-Clips.
Sure, there were 2-3 skills over the years that specified that they could be used to recharge E-Clips, which establishes that it's not something that just anybody can casually do, but they weren't that helpful.
Electricity Generation states, "He can even... hook up a means to recharge E-Clips and E-Packs from generators"... but there's no mention of time or materials required.
Armorer/Field Armorer also mentions letting the person recharge E-Clips, but there's no mention of what it takes to do so.
Weapons Engineer is the same way.

People tend to look at the official recharge costs one of two ways:
1. It's stupidly overpriced, because it's something that any Operator can take care of for free.
or
2. The prices are very high, which indicates that it's not something that just any Operator can take care of for free.

I'm in the second camp, of course. Whenever I have the choice between interpreting a rule (or lack of rules) in such a way that the setting doesn't make sense, and in interpreting the rules (or a lack of rules) in such a way that the setting does NOT make sense, I go with the latter.
Because it makes more sense.

In the case of E-Clips, we know that they hold the same amount of energy as 1,000 car batteries. (CB1)
(I'm about to use some very general logic here, which anybody who knows a lot about electricity and batteries and such will probably try to pick apart... but keep in mind, Palladium probably doesn't know much in the electricity department either, and I'm speaking as much about intent for how things should work as I am about how things would actually work)
Which probably means that IF one could recharge them using a standard car battery-charger, it should take about 1,000 times longer. A completely dead car battery can take something like 8 hours, so trying to charge an e-clip that way would take something like 8,000 hours, or 333.333 days.
So even if you have the right skills, depending on how you're trying to recharge the thing, it might not exactly be worth it.

We also know that E-Clips that are overcharged can, at least in some circumstances, explode for 2d6x10 MD to a 10' radius, based on the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell. Furthermore, from that same spell, we know that storage devices/batteries/etc. capable of holding mega-damage levels of energy can explode even if they're not overcharged, but simply if the charging method is not right for the job: using the SPA spell on storage devices other than e-clips means that there's a 15% chance of explosion per casting, in addition to the 100% chance of explosion if you overcharge it.
Now, the fact that these are the effects of the spell does not necessarily mean that e-clips can explode the same way if you're using tech rechargers, but it certainly indicates it, and such indications would go a long way toward explaining the high costs of recharging: in addition to requiring certain skills, it's dangerous. One wrong step, and somebody could get killed. Or a workshop could get trashed.
Sure, somebody might just try to use extra-long cables to attach to the e-clip, but even that's not necessarily as easy as one might initially think.
The radius for the explosion is 10', but that's for the 2d6x10 MD. Logically, that doesn't mean that an unarmored human standing 11' away could just shrug off any effects- it's not like explosions magically stop at a certain point. Going off of the rules for explosives in N&S, I assume that with mega-damage explosions, there's still going to be significant SDC damage that extends quite a ways beyond the radius. If nothing else, there should be concussive force that extends quite a ways.
Think about it: a 2d6x10 MD explosion is roughly 200 times more powerful than a stick of dynamite (and that's erring on the conservative side).
Even if you don't technically sustain damage from the blast if you're standing 11', or 20', or 50' away, you're probably still going to go flying for some distance and take some damage from impact.
And so is any equipment within the affected area.
So you get some 200' cables, and have the recharge take place a long way away from anybody or anything else that might get hurt, right?
Sure. But if that clip blows, you're still out some cable, as well as whatever type of plug or adapter or whatever was required to attach the cables to the E-Clips. So there's still some risk of lost equipment.

Of course, that's mostly for jury-rigged setups, I'd expect.
A proper Operator with proper equipment in an official facility wouldn't have those problems, because he's using fancy equipment that has all kinds of safety features built in.
But that kind of equipment costs money. Which could also easily justify the recharge costs: it takes a while to pay off that kind of equipment.

As of RUE, we have some better (changed) guidelines for what it takes.
RUE 259 mentions, "... an Operator with the proper equipment can do the job for around 800 credits."
This is nice, because it gives us some more info on the actual cost, kind of the wholesale cost, as opposed to the retail cost.
Now, it doesn't say "an operator with the proper skills," but that is (I believe) simply because Operators in RUE all start with one of the proper skills: Weapons Engineer (+15%). For other OCCs, logically they could also perform this kind of recharge for the same cost, IF they had the right skill(s).
So that's something.
But it still doesn't tell us:
1. What the "proper equipment IS"
2. Whether the CR 800 cost is due to components/materials that are used up in the recharging process, or to the Operator's time and skill, or what.
Some insight might be gained by the amount of credits that a level 1 Operator starts with, though, which is 4d4x1000 credits for a city Operator, and 5d6x100 credits (plus 3d4x1000 in black market items) for a wandering Operator.
The average Operator in a city is going to have 4,000-16,000 credits, which would be the equivalent of 5-20 E-Clip recharging costs.
We might assume that a city Operator at first level is only assumed to have had a very little bit of business, or we might assume that at least some of that CR 800 cost goes toward the actual cost to the Operator of recharging.
Again, I think the latter makes more sense. Otherwise any Operator could pretty swiftly gain a fortune simply by charging e-clips.

Merc Ops gives us the most official way for PCs to recharge their own clips, the universal E-Clip Recharger, which is a 12-year nuclear power supply with 8 ports for charging E-Clips. The listed recharge time is 1 hour (for each port: so this thing can recharge 8 e-clips per hour).
This would probably be an example of "proper equipment," so it's safe to assume that an Operator with this device could use his Weapons Engineer skill to recharge E-Clips.
There is no mention of e-clips possibly overcharging with this device, so we can probably assume that it includes safety features that keep it from overcharging (as long as the machine is functioning properly).
Likewise, there is no listed cost for using the machine, no mention of consumed materials, or parts that wear out, or anything else like that. Which could mean that the CR 800 cost in RUE is simply what an Operator considers his time to be worth, or that it is assumed to help recoup the initial investment in the machine, or that the CR 800 is for other methods of recharging that do use some kind of consumable components.
My bet would be more on the second option, that the cost is assumed to be to recoup the cost of the machine, with maybe a bit of pocket money for time, skill, and effort.
Because those things cost CR 790,000, which means that it'd take 9,875 rechargings before the thing is even paid off, if you're going with the "wholesale" price in RUE. With the standard black market prices for recharging a standard e-clip (CR 1200-1500), it would take about 658.333 to 526.666 rechargings to pay off the initial investment.
And that's assuming that the machine is purchased someplace like Ishpeming, Manistique, MercTown, or Arzno, where it's listed as having "fair availability." In other places, the machine can cost you "up to 2-3 times" that cost, making it take even longer to pay off the device.
Which makes the prices make sense IF recharging e-clips is something that requires special skills and equipment, but which does NOT make sense if any Operator can safely, swiftly, and easily do the job using jumper cables and a robot, suit of power armor, or nuclear vehicle.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I can't remember ever paying to recharge e-clips either because you are right, there are other means to do it with a little forethought.

The thing is, most of those are house-rules.
MercTown or one of the other more recent books came up with an actual E-Clip recharger, and FoM allowed the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell to recharge E-Clips... but other than that, there were never really official methods for what it took to recharge E-Clips.
Sure, there were 2-3 skills over the years that specified that they could be used to recharge E-Clips, which establishes that it's not something that just anybody can casually do, but they weren't that helpful.
Electricity Generation states, "He can even... hook up a means to recharge E-Clips and E-Packs from generators"... but there's no mention of time or materials required.
Armorer/Field Armorer also mentions letting the person recharge E-Clips, but there's no mention of what it takes to do so.
Weapons Engineer is the same way.

People tend to look at the official recharge costs one of two ways:
1. It's stupidly overpriced, because it's something that any Operator can take care of for free.
or
2. The prices are very high, which indicates that it's not something that just any Operator can take care of for free.

I'm in the second camp, of course. Whenever I have the choice between interpreting a rule (or lack of rules) in such a way that the setting doesn't make sense, and in interpreting the rules (or a lack of rules) in such a way that the setting does NOT make sense, I go with the latter.
Because it makes more sense.

In the case of E-Clips, we know that they hold the same amount of energy as 1,000 car batteries. (CB1)
(I'm about to use some very general logic here, which anybody who knows a lot about electricity and batteries and such will probably try to pick apart... but keep in mind, Palladium probably doesn't know much in the electricity department either, and I'm speaking as much about intent for how things should work as I am about how things would actually work)
Which probably means that IF one could recharge them using a standard car battery-charger, it should take about 1,000 times longer. A completely dead car battery can take something like 8 hours, so trying to charge an e-clip that way would take something like 8,000 hours, or 333.333 days.
So even if you have the right skills, depending on how you're trying to recharge the thing, it might not exactly be worth it.

We also know that E-Clips that are overcharged can, at least in some circumstances, explode for 2d6x10 MD to a 10' radius, based on the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell. Furthermore, from that same spell, we know that storage devices/batteries/etc. capable of holding mega-damage levels of energy can explode even if they're not overcharged, but simply if the charging method is not right for the job: using the SPA spell on storage devices other than e-clips means that there's a 15% chance of explosion per casting, in addition to the 100% chance of explosion if you overcharge it.
Now, the fact that these are the effects of the spell does not necessarily mean that e-clips can explode the same way if you're using tech rechargers, but it certainly indicates it, and such indications would go a long way toward explaining the high costs of recharging: in addition to requiring certain skills, it's dangerous. One wrong step, and somebody could get killed. Or a workshop could get trashed.
Sure, somebody might just try to use extra-long cables to attach to the e-clip, but even that's not necessarily as easy as one might initially think.
The radius for the explosion is 10', but that's for the 2d6x10 MD. Logically, that doesn't mean that an unarmored human standing 11' away could just shrug off any effects- it's not like explosions magically stop at a certain point. Going off of the rules for explosives in N&S, I assume that with mega-damage explosions, there's still going to be significant SDC damage that extends quite a ways beyond the radius. If nothing else, there should be concussive force that extends quite a ways.
Think about it: a 2d6x10 MD explosion is roughly 200 times more powerful than a stick of dynamite (and that's erring on the conservative side).
Even if you don't technically sustain damage from the blast if you're standing 11', or 20', or 50' away, you're probably still going to go flying for some distance and take some damage from impact.
And so is any equipment within the affected area.
So you get some 200' cables, and have the recharge take place a long way away from anybody or anything else that might get hurt, right?
Sure. But if that clip blows, you're still out some cable, as well as whatever type of plug or adapter or whatever was required to attach the cables to the E-Clips. So there's still some risk of lost equipment.

Of course, that's mostly for jury-rigged setups, I'd expect.
A proper Operator with proper equipment in an official facility wouldn't have those problems, because he's using fancy equipment that has all kinds of safety features built in.
But that kind of equipment costs money. Which could also easily justify the recharge costs: it takes a while to pay off that kind of equipment.

As of RUE, we have some better (changed) guidelines for what it takes.
RUE 259 mentions, "... an Operator with the proper equipment can do the job for around 800 credits."
This is nice, because it gives us some more info on the actual cost, kind of the wholesale cost, as opposed to the retail cost.
Now, it doesn't say "an operator with the proper skills," but that is (I believe) simply because Operators in RUE all start with one of the proper skills: Weapons Engineer (+15%). For other OCCs, logically they could also perform this kind of recharge for the same cost, IF they had the right skill(s).
So that's something.
But it still doesn't tell us:
1. What the "proper equipment IS"
2. Whether the CR 800 cost is due to components/materials that are used up in the recharging process, or to the Operator's time and skill, or what.
Some insight might be gained by the amount of credits that a level 1 Operator starts with, though, which is 4d4x1000 credits for a city Operator, and 5d6x100 credits (plus 3d4x1000 in black market items) for a wandering Operator.
The average Operator in a city is going to have 4,000-16,000 credits, which would be the equivalent of 5-20 E-Clip recharging costs.
We might assume that a city Operator at first level is only assumed to have had a very little bit of business, or we might assume that at least some of that CR 800 cost goes toward the actual cost to the Operator of recharging.
Again, I think the latter makes more sense. Otherwise any Operator could pretty swiftly gain a fortune simply by charging e-clips.

Merc Ops gives us the most official way for PCs to recharge their own clips, the universal E-Clip Recharger, which is a 12-year nuclear power supply with 8 ports for charging E-Clips. The listed recharge time is 1 hour (for each port: so this thing can recharge 8 e-clips per hour).
This would probably be an example of "proper equipment," so it's safe to assume that an Operator with this device could use his Weapons Engineer skill to recharge E-Clips.
There is no mention of e-clips possibly overcharging with this device, so we can probably assume that it includes safety features that keep it from overcharging (as long as the machine is functioning properly).
Likewise, there is no listed cost for using the machine, no mention of consumed materials, or parts that wear out, or anything else like that. Which could mean that the CR 800 cost in RUE is simply what an Operator considers his time to be worth, or that it is assumed to help recoup the initial investment in the machine, or that the CR 800 is for other methods of recharging that do use some kind of consumable components.
My bet would be more on the second option, that the cost is assumed to be to recoup the cost of the machine, with maybe a bit of pocket money for time, skill, and effort.
Because those things cost CR 790,000, which means that it'd take 9,875 rechargings before the thing is even paid off, if you're going with the "wholesale" price in RUE. With the standard black market prices for recharging a standard e-clip (CR 1200-1500), it would take about 658.333 to 526.666 rechargings to pay off the initial investment.
And that's assuming that the machine is purchased someplace like Ishpeming, Manistique, MercTown, or Arzno, where it's listed as having "fair availability." In other places, the machine can cost you "up to 2-3 times" that cost, making it take even longer to pay off the device.
Which makes the prices make sense IF recharging e-clips is something that requires special skills and equipment, but which does NOT make sense if any Operator can safely, swiftly, and easily do the job using jumper cables and a robot, suit of power armor, or nuclear vehicle.

And this... is ((part of)) why I say Mages will use that fireblast spell, over a rifle, if they can. lol (( Not trying to pick a fight but yes if you look at it $75 per pull of the trigger is pretty expensive, when compared to naturally recharging magic.

[flatline]

I chalk the ridiculous book prices up to the authors not having a realistic sense of perspective and just making up whatever numbers sounded good to them at the time.

The E-clip is rechargeable, which means it's a secondary cell. We know the efficiency of the cell is close to 100% since you can empty it quickly in a rifle without melting it or the rifle, so the only cost to recharging it would be time and power and the sunk cost of the equipment.

We know very little about the nuclear reactors common in Rifts, but we do know that they provide enough power to operate an energy rifle without any problem which means that if the E-clip technology can take it, the reactor could charge it as fast as the rifle can discharge it. We don't know anything about the E-clip technology involved, but based on what we know of today's secondary cell technology, we would expect to charge the cell to roughly 80% of full capacity in between 2 and 5 times the maximum safe discharge rate and then topping off the remaining 20% at a much slower rate. This is how the CC/CV (constant-current, constant-voltage) charging technique roughly works.

So, to put numbers to that, if an E-clip can be safely discharged in 15 seconds, then assuming you had sufficient power (which a Rifts nuclear reactor does), it would take between 30 and 75 seconds to recharge the first 80% of the clip depending on the properties of the cell (which we don't have) and then some number of minutes to top the cell off with the remaining 20%. I'd suggest the constant-voltage phase would probably last roughly 10 times that (between 5 and 13 minutes) but that's just a wild guess based on what I know of modern chemistries and ultra-capacitors (which, oddly enough, behave more like secondary cells than they do classical capacitors).

Personally, I don't believe any super-science secondary cell chemistry could support the discharge rates of Rifts E-clips without melting, so in my game, E-clips are extremely advanced capacitors. This also explains why there aren't cheap primary cell E-clips floating around.

Just in case this isn't common knowledge, a primary cell is a one-time use cell (like an alkaline or lithium cell) and a secondary cell is rechargeable (like NiCd, NiMh, and Lithium-ion cells). It's common knowledge in the circles I keep, but that doesn't mean much.

--flatline

[kaid]

In my groups if they had an operator I always figured that given a nuke powered mech or vehicle they could rig an e clip charger without to much problems and operate it. If they did not have an operator they had to pay in towns to get their eclips charged. It usually was not a ton but back in the day where you could do the full ammo clip bursts of doom with normal energy weapons it helped cut down on people blowing all their eclips like popcorn. It also improves the viability of the munition based weapons. I also cut operators with weapon smithing type skills a break on munition costs figuring they could buy the makings for them in bulk like people do their shotgun shells today.

Really in the scheme of things the book prices of eclip charging was not to out of wack and is pretty trivial overall upkeep wise and also helps players from getting a bit to slap happy with their burst weapons and gives some reason to use the single shot options.

I chalk the ridiculous book prices up to the authors not having a realistic sense of perspective and just making up whatever numbers sounded good to them at the time.

The E-clip is rechargeable, which means it's a secondary cell. We know the efficiency of the cell is close to 100% since you can empty it quickly in a rifle without melting it or the rifle, so the only cost to recharging it would be time and power and the sunk cost of the equipment.

We know very little about the nuclear reactors common in Rifts, but we do know that they provide enough power to operate an energy rifle without any problem which means that if the E-clip technology can take it, the reactor could charge it as fast as the rifle can discharge it. We don't know anything about the E-clip technology involved, but based on what we know of today's secondary cell technology, we would expect to charge the cell to roughly 80% of full capacity in between 2 and 5 times the maximum safe discharge rate and then topping off the remaining 20% at a much slower rate. This is how the CC/CV (constant-current, constant-voltage) charging technique roughly works.

So, to put numbers to that, if an E-clip can be safely discharged in 15 seconds, then assuming you had sufficient power (which a Rifts nuclear reactor does), it would take between 30 and 75 seconds to recharge the first 80% of the clip depending on the properties of the cell (which we don't have) and then some number of minutes to top the cell off with the remaining 20%. I'd suggest the constant-voltage phase would probably last roughly 10 times that (between 5 and 13 minutes) but that's just a wild guess based on what I know of modern chemistries and ultra-capacitors (which, oddly enough, behave more like secondary cells than they do classical capacitors).

Personally, I don't believe any super-science secondary cell chemistry could support the discharge rates of Rifts E-clips without melting, so in my game, E-clips are extremely advanced capacitors. This also explains why there aren't cheap primary cell E-clips floating around.

Just in case this isn't common knowledge, a primary cell is a one-time use cell (like an alkaline or lithium cell) and a secondary cell is rechargeable (like NiCd, NiMh, and Lithium-ion cells). It's common knowledge in the circles I keep, but that doesn't mean much.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

You know, I wonder why is it that one of the mechanical skills refers to being able to set up E-clip rechargers when E-clip technology isn't mechanical it's electrical. It's something that should be a product of an Electrical Engineer or someone with Basic Electronics. I think the official recharge rate for a recharger was something like 1d6+5 minutes although not certain, there was at least one FAQ related to how long it takes to recharge one as well as costs on a recharger (that seemed overly pricey). This isn't the first time questions regarding e-clips and charging them has come up though.

[Killer Cyborg]

And this... is ((part of)) why I say Mages will use that fireblast spell, over a rifle, if they can. lol (( Not trying to pick a fight but yes if you look at it $75 per pull of the trigger is pretty expensive, when compared to naturally recharging magic.

And you're right... to an extent.
They'll do it if they "can," if it's practical.
Which means IF they're sure they'll have the time later to recover PPE before they have to cast other spells, and IF they're not already drained from casting spells that do things that their rifles can't.
But if you're in a battle that's going to require you to cast more than 10 spells, and you're expecting at least one more battle like that in the day, or some other reason that you might need to cast more spells, then you're better off with the rifle.

Of course, the more important thing to do is generally to cast AoI or some other protective magic first, because armor damage can be even more expensive than e-clip recharging.

[Pepsi Jedi]

I chalk the ridiculous book prices up to the authors not having a realistic sense of perspective and just making up whatever numbers sounded good to them at the time.

The E-clip is rechargeable, which means it's a secondary cell. We know the efficiency of the cell is close to 100% since you can empty it quickly in a rifle without melting it or the rifle, so the only cost to recharging it would be time and power and the sunk cost of the equipment.

We know very little about the nuclear reactors common in Rifts, but we do know that they provide enough power to operate an energy rifle without any problem which means that if the E-clip technology can take it, the reactor could charge it as fast as the rifle can discharge it. We don't know anything about the E-clip technology involved, but based on what we know of today's secondary cell technology, we would expect to charge the cell to roughly 80% of full capacity in between 2 and 5 times the maximum safe discharge rate and then topping off the remaining 20% at a much slower rate. This is how the CC/CV (constant-current, constant-voltage) charging technique roughly works.

So, to put numbers to that, if an E-clip can be safely discharged in 15 seconds, then assuming you had sufficient power (which a Rifts nuclear reactor does), it would take between 30 and 75 seconds to recharge the first 80% of the clip depending on the properties of the cell (which we don't have) and then some number of minutes to top the cell off with the remaining 20%. I'd suggest the constant-voltage phase would probably last roughly 10 times that (between 5 and 13 minutes) but that's just a wild guess based on what I know of modern chemistries and ultra-capacitors (which, oddly enough, behave more like secondary cells than they do classical capacitors).

Personally, I don't believe any super-science secondary cell chemistry could support the discharge rates of Rifts E-clips without melting, so in my game, E-clips are extremely advanced capacitors. This also explains why there aren't cheap primary cell E-clips floating around.

Just in case this isn't common knowledge, a primary cell is a one-time use cell (like an alkaline or lithium cell) and a secondary cell is rechargeable (like NiCd, NiMh, and Lithium-ion cells). It's common knowledge in the circles I keep, but that doesn't mean much.

--flatline

Science fact seldom constricts science fiction.

It costs so much to recharge the Eclips because each shot is like shooting the main gun of a current battle tank. lol
Some people seem to be under the impression that they should be just as cheep as bullets. When you're quite literally putting the strength of an MI Arabrams down range (( if not more)) with each click of the trigger.

I don't "KNOW" but I'd suspect that's at least partially the reason for such expensive recharging.

The second is, to purposefully constrain player groups from just using their MD rifles to level towns and create kingdoms with a simple wilks 1D6MD laser pistol. Makes you think about when/how much you want to pull the trigger if each pull is like $75.

OUR Groups, usually DO buy the recharger ASAP in game. If nothing else it saves having to go to town and get jerked around by people charging to recharge your clips. Nothing worse thand being 100s of miles out in the wilderness and out of ammo, trying to rely on your vibroblades or light sabers (( Which run off eclips too. lol)) Our group spends money on extra clips too. many OOCs will say One rifle and two eclips, or one rifle and 4 eclips.

Our group if they're 'adventurers' getting into fights where you NEED MD weapons, you carry enough ammo to finish the fight. So we'll buy extra Eclips and carry them. Can you imagine a US troop going into battle with just 20 to 60 shots? What are they going to use when they run out? Harsh language?

Yeah the eclip recharger is expensive. Almost prohibitively so, but it's worth it saving up. Looking at it from a logistics standpoint (( not just a cost annalisis)) It's really worth it.

Sadly the problem you run into when you buy one.... is that GMs love to steal the damn things. Two or three times this happens and your players are going to kick you. Our group started leaving 2 people behind with the vehicles and recharger every time to keep the GM from just stealing our crap. Thus 2 people were "out of the adventure" When ever we'd do stuff. Once or twice doing that and we had an OOC talk with the GM. Everyone wanted to play but we didn't want to be screwed over. So there was a 'gentleman's agreement. We wouldn't leave two members of the character party with the gear every time, if the GM agreed not to screw us that particular way.

If you leave your vehicle and echarger parked in the wilderness is there a chance it'd be stolen? yeah. That's why we left people with the gear. lol but it's a game and we're there to have fun, and everyone wanted to have fun, so we made that agreement to prevent the "Fun from dieing".

[Pepsi Jedi]

And this... is ((part of)) why I say Mages will use that fireblast spell, over a rifle, if they can. lol (( Not trying to pick a fight but yes if you look at it $75 per pull of the trigger is pretty expensive, when compared to naturally recharging magic.

And you're right... to an extent.
They'll do it if they "can," if it's practical.
Which means IF they're sure they'll have the time later to recover PPE before they have to cast other spells, and IF they're not already drained from casting spells that do things that their rifles can't.
But if you're in a battle that's going to require you to cast more than 10 spells, and you're expecting at least one more battle like that in the day, or some other reason that you might need to cast more spells, then you're better off with the rifle.

Of course, the more important thing to do is generally to cast AoI or some other protective magic first, because armor damage can be even more expensive than e-clip recharging.

Word!

[Killer Cyborg]

I chalk the ridiculous book prices up to the authors not having a realistic sense of perspective and just making up whatever numbers sounded good to them at the time.

I think it's more that they wanted the economics to work a certain way.

The E-clip is rechargeable, which means it's a secondary cell.

We have no knowledge of how E-Clips store electricity, and there might not be any standard chemical reaction inside it at all.

We know the efficiency of the cell is close to 100% since you can empty it quickly in a rifle without melting it or the rifle, so the only cost to recharging it would be time and power and the sunk cost of the equipment.

Perhaps.

We know very little about the nuclear reactors common in Rifts, but we do know that they provide enough power to operate an energy rifle without any problem which means that if the E-clip technology can take it, the reactor could charge it as fast as the rifle can discharge it.

Yes, though some powerful energy weapons require a recharge time even when hooked to nuclear power, like one of the Boom Gun alternates from MiO.

[Killer Cyborg]

You know, I wonder why is is that one of the mechanical skills refers to being able to set up E-clip rechargers when E-clip technology isn't mechanical it's electrical.

Good point.

[taalismn]

You know, I wonder why is is that one of the mechanical skills refers to being able to set up E-clip rechargers when E-clip technology isn't mechanical it's electrical.

Good point.

Because that spring-mounted toaster/videotape slot for the E-clip requires moving bits and pieces.

[azazel1024]

I'll just throw out my standard argument without covering everything. The cost is frankly way overblown. Between several different writers, rifter articles, etc there is a pretty wide variety of actual energy capacities of an E-clip. None the less it doesn't span that wide a difference between the low end and the high end.

With the price of gasoline and average MODERN generator efficiency (assuming gennies are not more efficient then than now) at the book stated 5-20cr per gallon of gasoline, the actual cost using gasoline to recharge a short eclip is in the range of 25-400 credits depending on the price of gasoline where you are and the exact (joule) energy capacity of the eclip that you figure.

So 2,000 credits is a 5x markup assuming the high end of the cost and energy capacity.

Charging off a nuclear power pack would be even cheaper, making it likely more like a 10-50x markup.

Soooo....there you have it.

I cut the price down to 200cr in major cities and 500cr in the wilderness (afterall, it isn't just fuel price/scarcity, but you might also be using up some guys backyard generator for an entire day to charge up a couple of eclips or a general stores much bigger generator for half the day to charge 3 or 4 eclips).

[flatline]

I'll just throw out my standard argument without covering everything. The cost is frankly way overblown. Between several different writers, rifter articles, etc there is a pretty wide variety of actual energy capacities of an E-clip. None the less it doesn't span that wide a difference between the low end and the high end.

With the price of gasoline and average MODERN generator efficiency (assuming gennies are not more efficient then than now) at the book stated 5-20cr per gallon of gasoline, the actual cost using gasoline to recharge a short eclip is in the range of 25-400 credits depending on the price of gasoline where you are and the exact (joule) energy capacity of the eclip that you figure.

So 2,000 credits is a 5x markup assuming the high end of the cost and energy capacity.

Charging off a nuclear power pack would be even cheaper, making it likely more like a 10-50x markup.

Soooo....there you have it.

I cut the price down to 200cr in major cities and 500cr in the wilderness (afterall, it isn't just fuel price/scarcity, but you might also be using up some guys backyard generator for an entire day to charge up a couple of eclips or a general stores much bigger generator for half the day to charge 3 or 4 eclips).

That seems reasonable to me.

--flatline

[The Beast]

I can't remember ever paying to recharge e-clips either because you are right, there are other means to do it with a little forethought.

The thing is, most of those are house-rules.
MercTown or one of the other more recent books came up with an actual E-Clip recharger, and FoM allowed the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell to recharge E-Clips... but other than that, there were never really official methods for what it took to recharge E-Clips.
Sure, there were 2-3 skills over the years that specified that they could be used to recharge E-Clips, which establishes that it's not something that just anybody can casually do, but they weren't that helpful.
Electricity Generation states, "He can even... hook up a means to recharge E-Clips and E-Packs from generators"... but there's no mention of time or materials required.
Armorer/Field Armorer also mentions letting the person recharge E-Clips, but there's no mention of what it takes to do so.
Weapons Engineer is the same way.

People tend to look at the official recharge costs one of two ways:
1. It's stupidly overpriced, because it's something that any Operator can take care of for free.
or
2. The prices are very high, which indicates that it's not something that just any Operator can take care of for free.

I'm in the second camp, of course. Whenever I have the choice between interpreting a rule (or lack of rules) in such a way that the setting doesn't make sense, and in interpreting the rules (or a lack of rules) in such a way that the setting does NOT make sense, I go with the latter.
Because it makes more sense.

In the case of E-Clips, we know that they hold the same amount of energy as 1,000 car batteries. (CB1)
(I'm about to use some very general logic here, which anybody who knows a lot about electricity and batteries and such will probably try to pick apart... but keep in mind, Palladium probably doesn't know much in the electricity department either, and I'm speaking as much about intent for how things should work as I am about how things would actually work)
Which probably means that IF one could recharge them using a standard car battery-charger, it should take about 1,000 times longer. A completely dead car battery can take something like 8 hours, so trying to charge an e-clip that way would take something like 8,000 hours, or 333.333 days.
So even if you have the right skills, depending on how you're trying to recharge the thing, it might not exactly be worth it.

We also know that E-Clips that are overcharged can, at least in some circumstances, explode for 2d6x10 MD to a 10' radius, based on the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell. Furthermore, from that same spell, we know that storage devices/batteries/etc. capable of holding mega-damage levels of energy can explode even if they're not overcharged, but simply if the charging method is not right for the job: using the SPA spell on storage devices other than e-clips means that there's a 15% chance of explosion per casting, in addition to the 100% chance of explosion if you overcharge it.
Now, the fact that these are the effects of the spell does not necessarily mean that e-clips can explode the same way if you're using tech rechargers, but it certainly indicates it, and such indications would go a long way toward explaining the high costs of recharging: in addition to requiring certain skills, it's dangerous. One wrong step, and somebody could get killed. Or a workshop could get trashed.
Sure, somebody might just try to use extra-long cables to attach to the e-clip, but even that's not necessarily as easy as one might initially think.
The radius for the explosion is 10', but that's for the 2d6x10 MD. Logically, that doesn't mean that an unarmored human standing 11' away could just shrug off any effects- it's not like explosions magically stop at a certain point. Going off of the rules for explosives in N&S, I assume that with mega-damage explosions, there's still going to be significant SDC damage that extends quite a ways beyond the radius. If nothing else, there should be concussive force that extends quite a ways.
Think about it: a 2d6x10 MD explosion is roughly 200 times more powerful than a stick of dynamite (and that's erring on the conservative side).
Even if you don't technically sustain damage from the blast if you're standing 11', or 20', or 50' away, you're probably still going to go flying for some distance and take some damage from impact.
And so is any equipment within the affected area.
So you get some 200' cables, and have the recharge take place a long way away from anybody or anything else that might get hurt, right?
Sure. But if that clip blows, you're still out some cable, as well as whatever type of plug or adapter or whatever was required to attach the cables to the E-Clips. So there's still some risk of lost equipment.

Of course, that's mostly for jury-rigged setups, I'd expect.
A proper Operator with proper equipment in an official facility wouldn't have those problems, because he's using fancy equipment that has all kinds of safety features built in.
But that kind of equipment costs money. Which could also easily justify the recharge costs: it takes a while to pay off that kind of equipment.

As of RUE, we have some better (changed) guidelines for what it takes.
RUE 259 mentions, "... an Operator with the proper equipment can do the job for around 800 credits."
This is nice, because it gives us some more info on the actual cost, kind of the wholesale cost, as opposed to the retail cost.
Now, it doesn't say "an operator with the proper skills," but that is (I believe) simply because Operators in RUE all start with one of the proper skills: Weapons Engineer (+15%). For other OCCs, logically they could also perform this kind of recharge for the same cost, IF they had the right skill(s).
So that's something.
But it still doesn't tell us:
1. What the "proper equipment IS"
2. Whether the CR 800 cost is due to components/materials that are used up in the recharging process, or to the Operator's time and skill, or what.
Some insight might be gained by the amount of credits that a level 1 Operator starts with, though, which is 4d4x1000 credits for a city Operator, and 5d6x100 credits (plus 3d4x1000 in black market items) for a wandering Operator.
The average Operator in a city is going to have 4,000-16,000 credits, which would be the equivalent of 5-20 E-Clip recharging costs.
We might assume that a city Operator at first level is only assumed to have had a very little bit of business, or we might assume that at least some of that CR 800 cost goes toward the actual cost to the Operator of recharging.
Again, I think the latter makes more sense. Otherwise any Operator could pretty swiftly gain a fortune simply by charging e-clips.

Merc Ops gives us the most official way for PCs to recharge their own clips, the universal E-Clip Recharger, which is a 12-year nuclear power supply with 8 ports for charging E-Clips. The listed recharge time is 1 hour (for each port: so this thing can recharge 8 e-clips per hour).
This would probably be an example of "proper equipment," so it's safe to assume that an Operator with this device could use his Weapons Engineer skill to recharge E-Clips.
There is no mention of e-clips possibly overcharging with this device, so we can probably assume that it includes safety features that keep it from overcharging (as long as the machine is functioning properly).
Likewise, there is no listed cost for using the machine, no mention of consumed materials, or parts that wear out, or anything else like that. Which could mean that the CR 800 cost in RUE is simply what an Operator considers his time to be worth, or that it is assumed to help recoup the initial investment in the machine, or that the CR 800 is for other methods of recharging that do use some kind of consumable components.
My bet would be more on the second option, that the cost is assumed to be to recoup the cost of the machine, with maybe a bit of pocket money for time, skill, and effort.
Because those things cost CR 790,000, which means that it'd take 9,875 rechargings before the thing is even paid off, if you're going with the "wholesale" price in RUE. With the standard black market prices for recharging a standard e-clip (CR 1200-1500), it would take about 658.333 to 526.666 rechargings to pay off the initial investment.
And that's assuming that the machine is purchased someplace like Ishpeming, Manistique, MercTown, or Arzno, where it's listed as having "fair availability." In other places, the machine can cost you "up to 2-3 times" that cost, making it take even longer to pay off the device.
Which makes the prices make sense IF recharging e-clips is something that requires special skills and equipment, but which does NOT make sense if any Operator can safely, swiftly, and easily do the job using jumper cables and a robot, suit of power armor, or nuclear vehicle.

And this... is ((part of)) why I say Mages will use that fireblast spell, over a rifle, if they can. lol (( Not trying to pick a fight but yes if you look at it $75 per pull of the trigger is pretty expensive, when compared to naturally recharging magic.

Yeah, but if you're in a group that doesn't have to pay for e-clip recharges, why would you burn your own PPE on a spell that does about the same thing an energy weapon would?

[Pepsi Jedi]

I can't remember ever paying to recharge e-clips either because you are right, there are other means to do it with a little forethought.

The thing is, most of those are house-rules.
MercTown or one of the other more recent books came up with an actual E-Clip recharger, and FoM allowed the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell to recharge E-Clips... but other than that, there were never really official methods for what it took to recharge E-Clips.
Sure, there were 2-3 skills over the years that specified that they could be used to recharge E-Clips, which establishes that it's not something that just anybody can casually do, but they weren't that helpful.
Electricity Generation states, "He can even... hook up a means to recharge E-Clips and E-Packs from generators"... but there's no mention of time or materials required.
Armorer/Field Armorer also mentions letting the person recharge E-Clips, but there's no mention of what it takes to do so.
Weapons Engineer is the same way.

People tend to look at the official recharge costs one of two ways:
1. It's stupidly overpriced, because it's something that any Operator can take care of for free.
or
2. The prices are very high, which indicates that it's not something that just any Operator can take care of for free.

I'm in the second camp, of course. Whenever I have the choice between interpreting a rule (or lack of rules) in such a way that the setting doesn't make sense, and in interpreting the rules (or a lack of rules) in such a way that the setting does NOT make sense, I go with the latter.
Because it makes more sense.

In the case of E-Clips, we know that they hold the same amount of energy as 1,000 car batteries. (CB1)
(I'm about to use some very general logic here, which anybody who knows a lot about electricity and batteries and such will probably try to pick apart... but keep in mind, Palladium probably doesn't know much in the electricity department either, and I'm speaking as much about intent for how things should work as I am about how things would actually work)
Which probably means that IF one could recharge them using a standard car battery-charger, it should take about 1,000 times longer. A completely dead car battery can take something like 8 hours, so trying to charge an e-clip that way would take something like 8,000 hours, or 333.333 days.
So even if you have the right skills, depending on how you're trying to recharge the thing, it might not exactly be worth it.

We also know that E-Clips that are overcharged can, at least in some circumstances, explode for 2d6x10 MD to a 10' radius, based on the Sub-Particle Acceleration spell. Furthermore, from that same spell, we know that storage devices/batteries/etc. capable of holding mega-damage levels of energy can explode even if they're not overcharged, but simply if the charging method is not right for the job: using the SPA spell on storage devices other than e-clips means that there's a 15% chance of explosion per casting, in addition to the 100% chance of explosion if you overcharge it.
Now, the fact that these are the effects of the spell does not necessarily mean that e-clips can explode the same way if you're using tech rechargers, but it certainly indicates it, and such indications would go a long way toward explaining the high costs of recharging: in addition to requiring certain skills, it's dangerous. One wrong step, and somebody could get killed. Or a workshop could get trashed.
Sure, somebody might just try to use extra-long cables to attach to the e-clip, but even that's not necessarily as easy as one might initially think.
The radius for the explosion is 10', but that's for the 2d6x10 MD. Logically, that doesn't mean that an unarmored human standing 11' away could just shrug off any effects- it's not like explosions magically stop at a certain point. Going off of the rules for explosives in N&S, I assume that with mega-damage explosions, there's still going to be significant SDC damage that extends quite a ways beyond the radius. If nothing else, there should be concussive force that extends quite a ways.
Think about it: a 2d6x10 MD explosion is roughly 200 times more powerful than a stick of dynamite (and that's erring on the conservative side).
Even if you don't technically sustain damage from the blast if you're standing 11', or 20', or 50' away, you're probably still going to go flying for some distance and take some damage from impact.
And so is any equipment within the affected area.
So you get some 200' cables, and have the recharge take place a long way away from anybody or anything else that might get hurt, right?
Sure. But if that clip blows, you're still out some cable, as well as whatever type of plug or adapter or whatever was required to attach the cables to the E-Clips. So there's still some risk of lost equipment.

Of course, that's mostly for jury-rigged setups, I'd expect.
A proper Operator with proper equipment in an official facility wouldn't have those problems, because he's using fancy equipment that has all kinds of safety features built in.
But that kind of equipment costs money. Which could also easily justify the recharge costs: it takes a while to pay off that kind of equipment.

As of RUE, we have some better (changed) guidelines for what it takes.
RUE 259 mentions, "... an Operator with the proper equipment can do the job for around 800 credits."
This is nice, because it gives us some more info on the actual cost, kind of the wholesale cost, as opposed to the retail cost.
Now, it doesn't say "an operator with the proper skills," but that is (I believe) simply because Operators in RUE all start with one of the proper skills: Weapons Engineer (+15%). For other OCCs, logically they could also perform this kind of recharge for the same cost, IF they had the right skill(s).
So that's something.
But it still doesn't tell us:
1. What the "proper equipment IS"
2. Whether the CR 800 cost is due to components/materials that are used up in the recharging process, or to the Operator's time and skill, or what.
Some insight might be gained by the amount of credits that a level 1 Operator starts with, though, which is 4d4x1000 credits for a city Operator, and 5d6x100 credits (plus 3d4x1000 in black market items) for a wandering Operator.
The average Operator in a city is going to have 4,000-16,000 credits, which would be the equivalent of 5-20 E-Clip recharging costs.
We might assume that a city Operator at first level is only assumed to have had a very little bit of business, or we might assume that at least some of that CR 800 cost goes toward the actual cost to the Operator of recharging.
Again, I think the latter makes more sense. Otherwise any Operator could pretty swiftly gain a fortune simply by charging e-clips.

Merc Ops gives us the most official way for PCs to recharge their own clips, the universal E-Clip Recharger, which is a 12-year nuclear power supply with 8 ports for charging E-Clips. The listed recharge time is 1 hour (for each port: so this thing can recharge 8 e-clips per hour).
This would probably be an example of "proper equipment," so it's safe to assume that an Operator with this device could use his Weapons Engineer skill to recharge E-Clips.
There is no mention of e-clips possibly overcharging with this device, so we can probably assume that it includes safety features that keep it from overcharging (as long as the machine is functioning properly).
Likewise, there is no listed cost for using the machine, no mention of consumed materials, or parts that wear out, or anything else like that. Which could mean that the CR 800 cost in RUE is simply what an Operator considers his time to be worth, or that it is assumed to help recoup the initial investment in the machine, or that the CR 800 is for other methods of recharging that do use some kind of consumable components.
My bet would be more on the second option, that the cost is assumed to be to recoup the cost of the machine, with maybe a bit of pocket money for time, skill, and effort.
Because those things cost CR 790,000, which means that it'd take 9,875 rechargings before the thing is even paid off, if you're going with the "wholesale" price in RUE. With the standard black market prices for recharging a standard e-clip (CR 1200-1500), it would take about 658.333 to 526.666 rechargings to pay off the initial investment.
And that's assuming that the machine is purchased someplace like Ishpeming, Manistique, MercTown, or Arzno, where it's listed as having "fair availability." In other places, the machine can cost you "up to 2-3 times" that cost, making it take even longer to pay off the device.
Which makes the prices make sense IF recharging e-clips is something that requires special skills and equipment, but which does NOT make sense if any Operator can safely, swiftly, and easily do the job using jumper cables and a robot, suit of power armor, or nuclear vehicle.

And this... is ((part of)) why I say Mages will use that fireblast spell, over a rifle, if they can. lol (( Not trying to pick a fight but yes if you look at it $75 per pull of the trigger is pretty expensive, when compared to naturally recharging magic.

Yeah, but if you're in a group that doesn't have to pay for e-clip recharges, why would you burn your own PPE on a spell that does about the same thing an energy weapon would?

If you mean me personally? I generally don't play mages. I made one up recently because someone here dared me to. It went fine. But they're not my prefered class.

Most groups will not have the eclip rechargers. They're very expensive. Our group tends to make them a priority to avoid alot of IC hassle.

To be 100% honest, before I got with my current group, I noticed that 95% of GM's just hand waved the recharging and repair fees. Or they'd just charge you a flat rate when you hit a town. It'd be to the tune of "Ok. We're coming into town, first thing I find a shop to repair my armor and recharge my Eclips" and the GM goes "Ok.... 1,000 credits per 10% of armor damage and 1000 to redo your clips" And poof it's done and you continue along with the game/adventure.

People seldom want to micromanage that stuff. Look up costs, contemplate it, shop around. Find someone. Make sure they're not ripped off, barter, ect. Some do. But for the most part, people house rule it and hand wave it.

Thing is in this thread it's addressing book rules. Not the house rules. (( Which LOTS of people seem to have))

Our current group just gets the dang recharger ASAP. But we usually play a bit more military type special forces units than just hodge podge adventurers. (( Not that they're alll military OOCs, just the 'feel' of our groups is more hard core unit types))

[flatline]

I would like to restate Mystic knight Energy weapons powered, e-clips recharged and Immune to energy and a buttload of other things.

Mystic knights do have a sweet deal. I love having one in the party as long as he's trustworthy.

But this thread is addressing people who don't have other means of recharging (no mystic knights, no casters with sub-particle acceleration, etc).

--flatline

[Razzinold]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

[flatline]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

no, don't you know that friendly Mystic Knights, Operators, and E-Clip Recharging People are behind every tree and totally willing to replenish your ammo with no questions asked??

[Mech-Viper Prime]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

nope i recharge off vechiles or at the base, sometimes it pays to play loyal coalition soldiers, free ammo, free armor and desire to kill all non-humans but they are all evil in my games , and not the tolkeen stupid evil , but real evil

[Nightmask]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

no, don't you know that friendly Mystic Knights, Operators, and E-Clip Recharging People are behind every tree and totally willing to replenish your ammo with no questions asked??

Well you'd just about expect that for a PC group at least to bring their own somehow.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

no, don't you know that friendly Mystic Knights, Operators, and E-Clip Recharging People are behind every tree and totally willing to replenish your ammo with no questions asked??

Well you'd just about expect that for a PC group at least to bring their own somehow.

would you? seems like it would only be fun for the GM

[Nightmask]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

no, don't you know that friendly Mystic Knights, Operators, and E-Clip Recharging People are behind every tree and totally willing to replenish your ammo with no questions asked??

Well you'd just about expect that for a PC group at least to bring their own somehow.

would you? seems like it would only be fun for the GM

I'd certainly prefer a PC class capable of recharging its e-clips if the rest of the group didn't make such plans for things, unless I had a character that didn't need them at all. Otherwise I'd want to ensure protection from running out in the lurch, like having a Gizmoteer or Techno-Wizard with ISP/PPE run gear.

[RoadWarriorFWaNK]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

no, don't you know that friendly Mystic Knights, Operators, and E-Clip Recharging People are behind every tree and totally willing to replenish your ammo with no questions asked??

Well you'd just about expect that for a PC group at least to bring their own somehow.

would you? seems like it would only be fun for the GM

I'd certainly prefer a PC class capable of recharging its e-clips if the rest of the group didn't make such plans for things, unless I had a character that didn't need them at all. Otherwise I'd want to ensure protection from running out in the lurch, like having a Gizmoteer or Techno-Wizard with ISP/PPE run gear.

that's cool. it's never been a big deal in any game i've played in. There's always enough ammo to go around, and then the campaign abruptly ends.
I just thought it was funny everyone has the same answer.

[Braden Campbell]

I chalk the ridiculous book prices up to the authors not having a realistic sense of perspective...

Sorry, but this makes me laugh when placed amidst a role playing game filled with wizards, monsters, and giant robots. "Realistic perspective"... Good one, Flatline.

[Damian Magecraft]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

Yes.
And I charge book prices for armor repair as well.

[Nightmask]

I'd certainly prefer a PC class capable of recharging its e-clips if the rest of the group didn't make such plans for things, unless I had a character that didn't need them at all. Otherwise I'd want to ensure protection from running out in the lurch, like having a Gizmoteer or Techno-Wizard with ISP/PPE run gear.

that's cool. it's never been a big deal in any game i've played in. There's always enough ammo to go around, and then the campaign abruptly ends.
I just thought it was funny everyone has the same answer.

I always like to plan for the worst, being as self-contained as possible. Some GM make things so difficult the less external stuff to depend on the better. So a more tech-oriented character I'd want to ensure recharging capability on the E-clips.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

[Damian Magecraft]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

part of the abuses come from the players blackmailing the GM with "if we cant do this then you are an evil anti-player gm; and we will give you a bad reputation as one."
personally when they try this with me i always say "try it and every gm in a 300 mile radius will know how whiney and munchkin you idiots are; and none of them allow you within 25 miles of their campaigns."

[Nightmask]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

part of the abuses come from the players blackmailing the GM with "if we cant do this then you are an evil anti-player gm; and we will give you a bad reputation as one."
personally when they try this with me i always say "try it and every gm in a 300 mile radius will know how whiney and munchkin you idiots are; and none of them allow you within 25 miles of their campaigns."

So no one's allowed to complain about how you GM without risking being denied any gaming just about anywhere in the state, because you and the others are just so perfect no one could have a valid criticism of how you run things? Sounds like a group of bad GM if that's the response to complaints.

EDIT: This wasn't meant to be interpreted as harshly as it apparently was, just felt that it doesn't sound particularly appropriate to complaints to blackball someone because one disagreed with their assessment of how you run things. People shouldn't be afraid to voice problems because if they do they might find themselves unfairly prevented from finding any games as a result. If GM are going to talk about the players they players should be free to talk about them without fear of reprisals.

Warning: Despite the subsequent apology this post did address the poster rather than the post. Violation for flaming/harassment/trolling.

[Damian Magecraft]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

part of the abuses come from the players blackmailing the GM with "if we cant do this then you are an evil anti-player gm; and we will give you a bad reputation as one."
personally when they try this with me i always say "try it and every gm in a 300 mile radius will know how whiney and munchkin you idiots are; and none of them allow you within 25 miles of their campaigns."

So no one's allowed to complain about how you GM without risking being denied any gaming just about anywhere in the state, because you and the others are just so perfect no one could have a valid criticism of how you run things? Sounds like a group of bad GM if that's the response to complaints.

All right I have had enough of this bull**** from you.
IF we cant call you on your munchkin horse **** then you cant make accusations of a poster being a bad GM; either.
You dont get to have it both ways.
That is a prime example of holding the GM hostage right there...
"your a bad GM cause you wont let me have my way so I am gonna make it so you get a bad rep and cant have any players"
GOD FORBID a GM stand up to BAD PLAYERS!
We cant have that can we?

Warning: Violation for flaming/harassment/trolling and profanity

[flatline]

I guess I tend not to worry about losing stuff. If you survive long enough, every piece of equipment eventually gets lost or damaged. If you're lucky, you can easily replace it. If you're not, then you do without for a while.

Ammunition just happens to be more annoying to be without since without it, your nice pricey weapon is a paperweight.

--flatline

[Killer Cyborg]

So does anyone actually pay book prices to recharge their E-clips?

--flatline

Yup.
Unless our characters are working for somebody who includes recharging as part of the payment for services, like a good-sized nation/kingdom.

Or unless I'm playing a techno-wizard. Really, the best thing about technowizards originally was their ability to convert weapons to run off of PPE/ISP.

[Damian Magecraft]

part of the abuses come from the players blackmailing the GM with "if we cant do this then you are an evil anti-player gm; and we will give you a bad reputation as one."
personally when they try this with me i always say "try it and every gm in a 300 mile radius will know how whiney and munchkin you idiots are; and none of them allow you within 25 miles of their campaigns."

So no one's allowed to complain about how you GM without risking being denied any gaming just about anywhere in the state, because you and the others are just so perfect no one could have a valid criticism of how you run things? Sounds like a group of bad GM if that's the response to complaints.

EDIT: This wasn't meant to be interpreted as harshly as it apparently was, just felt that it doesn't sound particularly appropriate to complaints to blackball someone because one disagreed with their assessment of how you run things. People shouldn't be afraid to voice problems because if they do they might find themselves unfairly prevented from finding any games as a result. If GM are going to talk about the players they players should be free to talk about them without fear of reprisals.

This is what happens when you jump to conclusions...
My response to the players is in response to their ultimatum...
Give them an equally if not more disastrous ultimatum...
ending things in a Mexican Stand Off...
try and ruin my rep and I will ensure you end up in a worse position. (I will not have my game held hostage by anyone).
You disagree with how I run my games you are always free to find another...
Bad mouth me and expect the same in kind. (And be aware players that the GM network is stronger than the Player Network; even other players recognize a whiney munchy game breaking bad player when they hear one).

[Nether]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

To me this depends on alot of things.

Players naturally want a better life and to move up in the world vs just surviving or getting by.

This is also affected by what kind of game the GM wants to run and if the players are on the same page.
I also find how so many here throw around the term munchkin silly as it just seems they have no clue how to use it.

Your eg of the healing spring, well is it so wrong for the players to try and make good an opportunity? If anything the GM should have made it more complicated to sell the water, or limit how much they could feasibly get out of the spring in a day ext.

Now if you are playing a gritty game, then ya the players will need to pay to recharge eclips and armor, let alone nothing will last forever let alone very long in the game. The impression i have is majority of posters on this forum tend to like the gritty style game better.

As for myself, we tend to play high adventure so players can obtain wealth, influence and resources. As for eclips, it is a pretty standard thing in our games to have at least one vehicle or PA with a nuke supply that the players can always recharge off of.

I think the game itself contradicts itself in this regard. eclips cost so very much, then the recharges cost alot as well, but yet they make nuclear power supplies so common, and at least 4 different skills to make use of that so i am not sure why the costs are so high when it is easy to restock ammo.

Now for armor, that you plainly have to get repaired and i know most of my players value things like force fields of any type and put high priority to getting them. They treat thier armor as last line of defense as my games also being high adv have lots of badguys with lots of stuff shooting at them.

[Razzinold]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

How does looting the corpses of enemies I kill equal to "screwing over/abusing the GM" ?
They were trying to kill us, we killed them first and took their stuff, "to the victor goes the spoils".
I don't know too many players who would kill a bunch on enemies and then say "hey lets just walk away and leave all these bodies here with their armour, weapons and assorted gear for someone else to have. If we take their stuff that would be stealing and that's wrong". (but I guess killing them wasn't?) IMO that is not very good survival instincts for Rifts Earth especially when some of the equipment is supposed to be rare (well depending on the GM I guess).

Just to be clear it's fine for the GM to have guns explode in our hands with no warning just because we took it off a dead guy or have a group of slavers magically (possibly literally I suppose ) track us and that's not considered abuse. But when a player outsmarts a GM that's considered being whiny and manipulative ? That seems to be a little one sided in favour of GMs. They can act with impunity but if we outsmart them we should be punished instead of rewarded ? I've seen many posts on here of that mindset, the GMs don't reward creative play, they are "out to get" their players.

Man I'm glad we had the GM we did, he could admit when he screwed up and not act like a spoiled brat and punish us in ways that don't even make sense when he did. He left me a loophole in that game and I exploited it, any smart player would. He learned from his mistake and moved on. He never gave us magic healing water bottling plant facilities, we earned those weapons by killing their previous owners. As for the guns I took from the armoury it wasn't played with OOC knowledge, my character knew he was quitting and didn't want to leave empty handed, simple as that. As for me being clever or not, well that's your opinion.
By no means was our GM as push over or a Monty Haul style GM, he was fair. I remember during one fight a player said he dropped his empty rifle, pulled his pistol and kept firing. After the fight we left, we ended up in another fight and the player said he pulls out his rifle and the GM said to him "you never said that you picked it up after the fight so you left your rifle behind". The player was pissed but the rest of us sided with the GM. You were shooting, dropped it, kept moving and shooting, got on the vehicle and we drove away, no where in that sequence did you mention you went back for the gun.
He made a mistake and paid a fair price. Same should go for a GM, you get outsmarted by your players you smile and move on you don't throw a tantrum. I find too many people are too pro player/anti-gm or they're too pro GM/anti-player. I think everyone would have more fun if they didn't take the gaming too serious/personal. It's supposed to be fun with your friends, not a us against them situation.

[Damian Magecraft]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

How does looting the corpses of enemies I kill equal to "screwing over/abusing the GM" ?
They were trying to kill us, we killed them first and took their stuff, "to the victor goes the spoils".
I don't know too many players who would kill a bunch on enemies and then say "hey lets just walk away and leave all these bodies here with their armour, weapons and assorted gear for someone else to have. If we take their stuff that would be stealing and that's wrong". (but I guess killing them wasn't?) IMO that is not very good survival instincts for Rifts Earth especially when some of the equipment is supposed to be rare (well depending on the GM I guess).

Just to be clear it's fine for the GM to have guns explode in our hands with no warning just because we took it off a dead guy or have a group of slavers magically (possibly literally I suppose ) track us and that's not considered abuse. But when a player outsmarts a GM that's considered being whiny and manipulative ? That seems to be a little one sided in favour of GMs. They can act with impunity but if we outsmart them we should be punished instead of rewarded ? I've seen many posts on here of that mindset, the GMs don't reward creative play, they are "out to get" their players.

Man I'm glad we had the GM we did, he could admit when he screwed up and not act like a spoiled brat and punish us in ways that don't even make sense when he did. He left me a loophole in that game and I exploited it, any smart player would. He learned from his mistake and moved on. He never gave us magic healing water bottling plant facilities, we earned those weapons by killing their previous owners. As for the guns I took from the armoury it wasn't played with OOC knowledge, my character knew he was quitting and didn't want to leave empty handed, simple as that. As for me being clever or not, well that's your opinion.
By no means was our GM as push over or a Monty Haul style GM, he was fair. I remember during one fight a player said he dropped his empty rifle, pulled his pistol and kept firing. After the fight we left, we ended up in another fight and the player said he pulls out his rifle and the GM said to him "you never said that you picked it up after the fight so you left your rifle behind". The player was pissed but the rest of us sided with the GM. You were shooting, dropped it, kept moving and shooting, got on the vehicle and we drove away, no where in that sequence did you mention you went back for the gun.
He made a mistake and paid a fair price. Same should go for a GM, you get outsmarted by your players you smile and move on you don't throw a tantrum. I find too many people are too pro player/anti-gm or they're too pro GM/anti-player. I think everyone would have more fun if they didn't take the gaming too serious/personal. It's supposed to be fun with your friends, not a us against them situation.

I think you might be missing the point...
The GM can be high handed and pull those stunts you describe (and would get just what he deserves when the Players leave his group).
I dont agree with short changing the PCs because they loot defeated enemies.
We are talking about the GMs that are not allowed to correct those loophole abuses through in game manipulation through the players holding the GMs rep hostage.
The Healing water bottling plant being an example of this. A response I would have had would have been to have Nature itself rise up and battle the players for their abuses of nature (most likely in the form of a water elemental). Regardless of how the conflict resolves the well spring would no longer be there. (now does that make me a bad GM because I corrected an error that could break my game?)

[Pepsi Jedi]

The cost of recharging e-clips is pretty steep, luckily I as well have never had to pay these costs. I've never had mages resupply me or had my own elcip charger, it's more of being careful with my shots. Yes I would miss (everyone does) but I would mix it up when I fight to gain advantage and to not waste resources. I would shoot at them, using the environment to my advantage when I could, get in close and use a vibro-knife. One thing that saved me as well is not being too proud to scavenge off dead people. I would scavenge in the middle of a fire fight, yes it's dangerous but it pays off. I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons.
So we'd sell off what we didn't want and keep the rest (obviously, lol)
Another trick I would use (which the GM also put a stop to after awhile) is I would always make sure I'm well supplied before starting out in the game (but done through the story not when creating the character), here's an example of what I mean. One game I can think of is the GM told me that my character was second in command/head of security/personal body guard to some maffia head but he on longer wanted anything to do with the organization and I was quitting. So basically nobody could question my authority except the old man, so instead of this just being story he made the mistake of letting me roleplay me quitting. I say mistake because he realized his as soon as I asked him if there was an armoury (we had been playing Rifts together for years at this point so he knew me pretty well, lol ).
He answers yes (and facepalms himself) and my character immediately walks over to the armoury, swipes his card, loads up two large duffle bags, one with rifles and pistols, the other with eclips.
Was I being a bit of a poke with this play ? Yes I was. I did make up for it though, it was a Skraypers game and I was quitting and going to join the resistance, so when I met up with them I donated the weapons to their cause, only keeping a rifle and pistol for myself and a mess of eclips, once again never needing to recharge. Oh and I guess it didn't hurt to have super powers in that particular game I could use as well instead of guns

Yeah but lots of this is using OOC knowledge of your GM and how he plays against him. It's not that you're amazingly clever. You're just smarter than your GM who's letting you get away with it. If you're constantly unrelentlingly scavaging the foes in battle for all their gear and stealing it, all your GM had to do was put some self destruct mods on the stuff. Or hide it inside a few of the items. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it. Have the items damaged beyond easy repair in battle. Ect ect ect. Have some of the enemie's own troops scavenge those very expensive weapons before withdrawing. The fist time you go to shoot it, it's rigged to blow up and you're damaged from it.

Ect ect ect.

I'm not saying you have to play AGAINST your players if you're a GM, but if your players are taking advantage of you as a GM, Remember, you always have a bigger stick. Even if that bigger stick is "You wake up with the muzzle of a rail gun pointed at your head with some sort of demonic monster with way too many teeth going 'You stole our buddy's stuff.... so we're stealing yours.. and selling you into slavery. Blink once if you want to come along quietly.. .if not... I'll just pull the trigger"

Is it high handed? YES. Does it teach your players to quit trying to screw the GM? Yeah... might get a new GM then, but that one's done being jerked around. lol

I really have to wonder about some other groups games, where the players 'get away' with some of the stuff people on these boards list off.

A few weeks ago some guy said they found a spring of healing water, so instead of healing their group and maybe filling a few canteens, they manipulated the GM into letting them keep the 'infinitely refreshing' spring of healing water and set up a botteling plant over it and made TRILLIONS and TRILLIONS of dollars selling healing water at market cost from the book.

All the GM had to do was say "No when you wake up in the morning the spring is dry" But instead he was bent over by the group that took one nice jesture in a game to make TRILLIONS of credits worth of money.

How does looting the corpses of enemies I kill equal to "screwing over/abusing the GM" ?

Statements like this one here.

"I remember one time that after a fight he intentionally didn't leave us anytime to loot (because the GM knew we would loot every time) he had a convenient back up unit close by (even though we were pretty isolated). I knew he wasn't going to make us fight them, just enough to move us along so we couldn't loot, so I told every person in the group to not waste time checking their belts, packs, etc. for supplies just to quickly grab the rifle and sidearm from every dead person and run. Sure the ones in the rifles weren't full, but the sidearms were, so we just scored 4-6 more eclips and the same amount of half spent ones, plus the weapons."

Out of character you know that the GM purposefully wasn't giving you time to loot, and he had a unit close by to move you along, and you also knew he didn't want to play out the fight, so using that Out of character knowledge, (( both that he didn't want you to loot, had someone there to force the issue but didn't really want to use them)) You schemed to change your character's behavior to take advantage of the Out Of Character knowledge. In short, you knew as a player what was coming and cheated to make sure your CHARACTER got stuff you wanted them to get.

They were trying to kill us, we killed them first and took their stuff, "to the victor goes the spoils".

If it was just black and white, sure, but you posted that you KNEW the GM was trying to prevent that, and you used that OOC knowledge to get what you wanted.

I don't know too many players who would kill a bunch on enemies and then say "hey lets just walk away and leave all these bodies here with their armour, weapons and assorted gear for someone else to have. If we take their stuff that would be stealing and that's wrong". (but I guess killing them wasn't?) IMO that is not very good survival instincts for Rifts Earth especially when some of the equipment is supposed to be rare (well depending on the GM I guess).

That's dependant on alot of things. Alignment. Moral codes. Laws. Chance of the enemies friends lighting you up when you're seen next (( I love CS gear as much as the next guy but it's a walking target and death warrant if you use it.))

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about knowing the GM is tired of your looting and you knowing out of character, he's trying to stop it so you cheat to get it anyway.
"I knew he was going to move us along and not give us a chance to loot after the fight, so I paused mid fight to loot, knowing after I looted we could finish the fight and I'd still get my lootz!" type thing.

Just to be clear it's fine for the GM to have guns explode in our hands with no warning just because we took it off a dead guy or have a group of slavers magically (possibly literally I suppose ) track us and that's not considered abuse. But when a player outsmarts a GM that's considered being whiny and manipulative ?

If you, as a player, know the GM is setting things up in a certain way to not allow you to just rob everyone blind. Trying to limit your resources to add that to the game, and you use that knowledge, as a PLAYER, to change your CHARACTER's actions to 'out smart the GM'. Then yes you're being manipulative and 'cheating'. It's just a game. One we all agree to play. I have 50+ Rifts books but when I play, I agree to play only the knowledge my character has at his disposal.

If I happen to see a note on the GM's notebook with stats for fire dragons.. I don't have my character automatically buy flame retardant clothing, if he wouldn't already get it. If I know my GM just got Lemuria, and my char is in Texas, I don't cough and ask if I can Just so happen, to pick up a scuba tank in town.... And that's pretty much what you're saying you're doing. You knew where the gm was going, so you blocked him and got what you wanted anyway.

That seems to be a little one sided in favour of GMs. They can act with impunity but if we outsmart them we should be punished instead of rewarded ?

But you're not outsmarting them. lol You're "Reading ahead in the book". You're taking the game, looking ahead in the adventure, seeing how things are going to go, and planning for them in advance. It's like picking up a mystery novel and reading the last chapter, then going to the beginning of thhe book. Have you "Figured out the mystery?" through your own smarts? or have you just read it and know what happens?

I've seen many posts on here of that mindset, the GMs don't reward creative play, they are "out to get" their players.

Some are. The people I play with don't, but conversely, you're admitting to basicly looking at the adventure before hand and planning for the happenings in the adventure. 1) you knew he was trying to limit resources, so you plotted a way around that, and 2) You knew his 'Hammer" in that situation was a back up unit, you knew he didin't want to use, so it was no threat to you.

*Shrugs* It's real easy to "outsmart" your GM when you already know what's going to happen.

Man I'm glad we had the GM we did, he could admit when he screwed up and not act like a spoiled brat and punish us in ways that don't even make sense when he did.

Is your action, of knowing what he was going to do, previous, and plotting against him, the act of a spoiled brat? I'm not accusing you. I'm asking you. How would you define that? It's not clever. You didn't outsmart anyone. How would you define what you said you did?

He left me a loophole in that game and I exploited it, any smart player would.

You just admitted to finding a 'Loophole' in a game with your friends, and admitted to purposefully exploiting it. That's pretty telling. Why are you exploiting loopholes with your GM? You're all (( Assuming)) Friends. Why the need to search out loopholes and then exploit them in the friendly game. Are you going to "win"?

He learned from his mistake and moved on.

And here, you point out it was a mistake, and above you pointed out you exploited it. Yet you're calling others spoiled brats if they don't let you do such things?

He never gave us magic healing water bottling plant facilities, we earned those weapons by killing their previous owners. As for the guns I took from the armoury it wasn't played with OOC knowledge, my character knew he was quitting and didn't want to leave empty handed, simple as that. As for me being clever or not, well that's your opinion.

That's the thing. It's not clever to have your character act, based on what you know out of character. In my book that's just flat out cheating.

By no means was our GM as push over or a Monty Haul style GM, he was fair. I remember during one fight a player said he dropped his empty rifle, pulled his pistol and kept firing. After the fight we left, we ended up in another fight and the player said he pulls out his rifle and the GM said to him "you never said that you picked it up after the fight so you left your rifle behind". The player was pissed but the rest of us sided with the GM. You were shooting, dropped it, kept moving and shooting, got on the vehicle and we drove away, no where in that sequence did you mention you went back for the gun.
He made a mistake and paid a fair price. Same should go for a GM, you get outsmarted by your players you smile and move on you don't throw a tantrum. I find too many people are too pro player/anti-gm or they're too pro GM/anti-player. I think everyone would have more fun if they didn't take the gaming too serious/personal. It's supposed to be fun with your friends, not a us against them situation.

It is supposed to be fun, and I guess that's my overall point. You're posting about outsmarting your GM. You didn't though. You knew what he was trying to do and blocked him using that OOC information. Your saying if you "out smart him" he should just smile and move on, but it's 'Wrong' for him to outsmart you an do it back?

You as a player have admitted to using that OOC information, finding a loop hole your gm had and exploiting it.

But some how it's wrong for your GM to use OOC information of your chars and thheir actions, find that loop hole and exploit it to teach YOU a lesson?


You're describing a very confrontational game where you're 'competing' the GM vs the players and the players vs the GM. That's not a healthy game, for JUST THAT REASON. Players will seek out loop holes, manipulate, and exploit them, which WILL cause the GM to retaliate against the players.

The GM does play the antagonists in the game but it's an RPG. You can't "WIN THE GAME" so there's no point in cheating. You're just cheating yourself in the end.

[Blue_Lion]

I chalk the ridiculous book prices up to the authors not having a realistic sense of perspective...

Sorry, but this makes me laugh when placed amidst a role playing game filled with wizards, monsters, and giant robots. "Realistic perspective"... Good one, Flatline.

Makes me laugh when you think that a E-clip is about a gigawatt of power. How much do you pay for electricity. If you are running off of public utilties that much power in a small town can be a major part of the output.

Now are portable power systems more comon? yes they are but does not mean that the people that maintain public power and power servises do not have tons of expense maintianing them.

From a player expearnce it might seam overcharrged, but what about the people that maintain the servises that they need.

The real question is how common are oportors, and techies in the field? It seams that they are supose to be some what uncommon as oportors are in high demand in the small towns.

[Nether]

I think you might be missing the point...
The GM can be high handed and pull those stunts you describe (and would get just what he deserves when the Players leave his group).
I dont agree with short changing the PCs because they loot defeated enemies.
We are talking about the GMs that are not allowed to correct those loophole abuses through in game manipulation through the players holding the GMs rep hostage.
The Healing water bottling plant being an example of this. A response I would have had would have been to have Nature itself rise up and battle the players for their abuses of nature (most likely in the form of a water elemental). Regardless of how the conflict resolves the well spring would no longer be there. (now does that make me a bad GM because I corrected an error that could break my game?)

Imo yes it does, for these reasons,

In the well spring eg the players made good use of what they had. So the gm realizes that they are turning it into more than he planned for, so he gets upset at the players for being to clever and does what say you suggest to take it away. The players in this case didnt OOC knowledge to cheat, they actually earned it in game fairly. The players dont see this as one upping the gm, but yet the gm wants to punish them for thier ingenuity for some unknown reason. Thats a gm blindside.

but..

The gm realizes he made a mistake and it allows the players possibly to much resources for his game, so how does the gm resolve this without being unfair?

Simple, limit how much healing water can be be produced per day/week/month and maybe the heal effect has a shelf life or buyers/shipping difficulties ext, But you let the player get some reward for thier ingenuity, even if it is only a little profit or just the fact they have a place they can always stock up on healing potions for free.

Everyone wins this way vs the gm unfairly punishes.

[Armorlord]

In answer to the original post, yes we do use the recharge pricing.
And yes, plasma cartridges are a good deal.. if you can keep up your supply. Both in terms of finding a supplier and storing them.
E-Clips can be charged anywhere someone wants to dedicate a nuclear reactor to a recharging station and charge a fee. Which is, effectively, any town of note.

As Killer Cyborg notes in his first response, those prices, along with repair costs, play a major factor in the economy of the game. Also, as Pepsi Jedi touches on, an important part of why magic-based groups can afford to fight tech juggernauts, the cost of battle can be hugely different between the two.

[Nether]

blah blah blah be cool, stay in character

Surprisingly i agree with everything you said here.

One of the worst in game situations for me was an assassin was wating in a great spot to kill me and i knew i was going to walk right into it because the gm described the scenario to another player who was right there seeing it. Unfortunately the player just stayed hidden and watched as he knew i was omw to meet him.

So ya i still walked into it dreading what was about to befall me, and i stayed in charavter. not using OOC info.

Luvky for me i survived due to rifts diff to one shot, but i was messed up and barely escaped with my life and the dick player just watched. Ive never done this player or character wrong but ya.

[Damian Magecraft]

I think you might be missing the point...
The GM can be high handed and pull those stunts you describe (and would get just what he deserves when the Players leave his group).
I dont agree with short changing the PCs because they loot defeated enemies.
We are talking about the GMs that are not allowed to correct those loophole abuses through in game manipulation through the players holding the GMs rep hostage.
The Healing water bottling plant being an example of this. A response I would have had would have been to have Nature itself rise up and battle the players for their abuses of nature (most likely in the form of a water elemental). Regardless of how the conflict resolves the well spring would no longer be there. (now does that make me a bad GM because I corrected an error that could break my game?)

Imo yes it does, for these reasons,

In the well spring eg the players made good use of what they had. So the gm realizes that they are turning it into more than he planned for, so he gets upset at the players for being to clever and does what say you suggest to take it away. The players in this case didnt OOC knowledge to cheat, they actually earned it in game fairly. The players dont see this as one upping the gm, but yet the gm wants to punish them for thier ingenuity for some unknown reason. Thats a gm blindside.

but..

The gm realizes he made a mistake and it allows the players possibly to much resources for his game, so how does the gm resolve this without being unfair?

Simple, limit how much healing water can be be produced per day/week/month and maybe the heal effect has a shelf life or buyers/shipping difficulties ext, But you let the player get some reward for thier ingenuity, even if it is only a little profit or just the fact they have a place they can always stock up on healing potions for free.

Everyone wins this way vs the gm unfairly punishes.

so what was to be a one shot GM being nice to the players MUST become a permanent (game breaking) part of the PCs resources in order for it to be fair? Yeah I dont see it.
The players and GM agreed to play the game in a specific tone; the players chose to break that covenant by knowingly and intentionally twisting the nice gesture of the GM. How is that fair? Rewarding them for doing it only encourages the behavior to continue.
I am reminded of the time I was told I was bad GM because I tossed an guy from my games for saying (and I quote) "It is my job as a player to **** up the Game world and the GMs job to stop me."
Sorry but any attempt to break the game needs to be met with a concentrated effort to demonstrate that it will not be tolerated. This attitude that the GMs fun is secondary to the players is wrong. His fun is just as important has the players.

[Nether]

I think you might be missing the point...
The GM can be high handed and pull those stunts you describe (and would get just what he deserves when the Players leave his group).
I dont agree with short changing the PCs because they loot defeated enemies.
We are talking about the GMs that are not allowed to correct those loophole abuses through in game manipulation through the players holding the GMs rep hostage.
The Healing water bottling plant being an example of this. A response I would have had would have been to have Nature itself rise up and battle the players for their abuses of nature (most likely in the form of a water elemental). Regardless of how the conflict resolves the well spring would no longer be there. (now does that make me a bad GM because I corrected an error that could break my game?)

Imo yes it does, for these reasons,

In the well spring eg the players made good use of what they had. So the gm realizes that they are turning it into more than he planned for, so he gets upset at the players for being to clever and does what say you suggest to take it away. The players in this case didnt OOC knowledge to cheat, they actually earned it in game fairly. The players dont see this as one upping the gm, but yet the gm wants to punish them for thier ingenuity for some unknown reason. Thats a gm blindside.

but..

The gm realizes he made a mistake and it allows the players possibly to much resources for his game, so how does the gm resolve this without being unfair?

Simple, limit how much healing water can be be produced per day/week/month and maybe the heal effect has a shelf life or buyers/shipping difficulties ext, But you let the player get some reward for thier ingenuity, even if it is only a little profit or just the fact they have a place they can always stock up on healing potions for free.

Everyone wins this way vs the gm unfairly punishes.

so what was to be a one shot GM being nice to the players MUST become a permanent (game breaking) part of the PCs resources in order for it to be fair? Yeah I dont see it.
The players and GM agreed to play the game in a specific tone; the players chose to break that covenant by knowingly and intentionally twisting the nice gesture of the GM. How is that fair? Rewarding them for doing it only encourages the behavior to continue.
I am reminded of the time I was told I was bad GM because I tossed an guy from my games for saying (and I quote) "It is my job as a player to **** up the Game world and the GMs job to stop me."
Sorry but any attempt to break the game needs to be met with a concentrated effort to demonstrate that it will not be tolerated. This attitude that the GMs fun is secondary to the players is wrong. His fun is just as important has the players.

I completely agree with you to what you just said, as that is just immature on the players part.

But in the healing spring, i didnt see anything about how the players "knew" OOC info that they exploited to make a business venture. So what i am saying is to punish the players for making the best of the situation and some clever ideas without 'cheating' (OOC info) they are within thier right to reap some reward. But if the gm finds that it could be to much, well it is His mistake and not the players, but he can also remedy it by reducing how effective it is instead of using some hand wave gesture tactic to take it away. Also the odd time i have overstepped as a gm, (which would be a house rule that was a little to loose), i just talk to the players and say hey, you guys mind if i sinch this up a bit as i am not liking it quit so open and i would rather not have to also use the rule against you guys. Everytime so far they have had no problems with that.

So i agree with you that cheating is bad and ruins the game, but if they didnt 'cheat' they shouldnt be punished for being clever. To many GMs i have played with that ONLY respect the combat brute, and even then they play favorites.

[Damian Magecraft]

I think you might be missing the point...
The GM can be high handed and pull those stunts you describe (and would get just what he deserves when the Players leave his group).
I dont agree with short changing the PCs because they loot defeated enemies.
We are talking about the GMs that are not allowed to correct those loophole abuses through in game manipulation through the players holding the GMs rep hostage.
The Healing water bottling plant being an example of this. A response I would have had would have been to have Nature itself rise up and battle the players for their abuses of nature (most likely in the form of a water elemental). Regardless of how the conflict resolves the well spring would no longer be there. (now does that make me a bad GM because I corrected an error that could break my game?)

Imo yes it does, for these reasons,

In the well spring eg the players made good use of what they had. So the gm realizes that they are turning it into more than he planned for, so he gets upset at the players for being to clever and does what say you suggest to take it away. The players in this case didnt OOC knowledge to cheat, they actually earned it in game fairly. The players dont see this as one upping the gm, but yet the gm wants to punish them for thier ingenuity for some unknown reason. Thats a gm blindside.

but..

The gm realizes he made a mistake and it allows the players possibly to much resources for his game, so how does the gm resolve this without being unfair?

Simple, limit how much healing water can be be produced per day/week/month and maybe the heal effect has a shelf life or buyers/shipping difficulties ext, But you let the player get some reward for thier ingenuity, even if it is only a little profit or just the fact they have a place they can always stock up on healing potions for free.

Everyone wins this way vs the gm unfairly punishes.

so what was to be a one shot GM being nice to the players MUST become a permanent (game breaking) part of the PCs resources in order for it to be fair? Yeah I dont see it.
The players and GM agreed to play the game in a specific tone; the players chose to break that covenant by knowingly and intentionally twisting the nice gesture of the GM. How is that fair? Rewarding them for doing it only encourages the behavior to continue.
I am reminded of the time I was told I was bad GM because I tossed an guy from my games for saying (and I quote) "It is my job as a player to **** up the Game world and the GMs job to stop me."
Sorry but any attempt to break the game needs to be met with a concentrated effort to demonstrate that it will not be tolerated. This attitude that the GMs fun is secondary to the players is wrong. His fun is just as important has the players.

I completely agree with you to what you just said, as that is just immature on the players part.

But in the healing spring, i didnt see anything about how the players "knew" OOC info that they exploited to make a business venture. So what i am saying is to punish the players for making the best of the situation and some clever ideas without 'cheating' (OOC info) they are within thier right to reap some reward. But if the gm finds that it could be to much, well it is His mistake and not the players, but he can also remedy it by reducing how effective it is instead of using some hand wave gesture tactic to take it away. Also the odd time i have overstepped as a gm, (which would be a house rule that was a little to loose), i just talk to the players and say hey, you guys mind if i sinch this up a bit as i am not liking it quit so open and i would rather not have to also use the rule against you guys. Everytime so far they have had no problems with that.

So i agree with you that cheating is bad and ruins the game, but if they didnt 'cheat' they shouldnt be punished for being clever. To many GMs i have played with that ONLY respect the combat brute, and even then they play favorites.

It was obvious from what little info we were given that the GM placed the well spring there to aid the characters as a one time use. And the players acting to create a bottling plant was beyond what the GM had in mind for the campaign (and the players knew this) but because the GM was (in all likely hood) new and afraid that the players would punish him outside of the game he allowed this to happen. Resulting in the players breaking the set parameters of the game they had agreed
upon prior to tossing the first die.
Now my solution does reward the players while punishing them for over reaching as well.
1: they get exp for the attempting the bottling plant idea in the first place.
2: They get exp for resolving the conflict with the Elemental (how much they get depends on how the resolve it)
3: They will get to keep any healing water they have managed to already bottle (not likely an excessive amount)
But primarily it does teach them that GM RULE 2 is still decidedly in effect.
It also reminds them that GM RULE 5 is in danger of being violated.

[Nightmask]

I completely agree with you to what you just said, as that is just immature on the players part.

But in the healing spring, i didnt see anything about how the players "knew" OOC info that they exploited to make a business venture. So what i am saying is to punish the players for making the best of the situation and some clever ideas without 'cheating' (OOC info) they are within thier right to reap some reward. But if the gm finds that it could be to much, well it is His mistake and not the players, but he can also remedy it by reducing how effective it is instead of using some hand wave gesture tactic to take it away. Also the odd time i have overstepped as a gm, (which would be a house rule that was a little to loose), i just talk to the players and say hey, you guys mind if i sinch this up a bit as i am not liking it quit so open and i would rather not have to also use the rule against you guys. Everytime so far they have had no problems with that.

So i agree with you that cheating is bad and ruins the game, but if they didnt 'cheat' they shouldnt be punished for being clever. To many GMs i have played with that ONLY respect the combat brute, and even then they play favorites.

Unfortunately too often a GM will punish the players for his mistakes, rather than simply chalk something up to his just not realizing how much someone could exploit something if they were clever enough. Far easier to fault the players and take it out on them than see the fault in himself. End result is a lot of unhappy people as the players rightfully feel abused and punished for having done nothing wrong on their part.