E-Clip Recharger?

[ZorValachan]

Is there an actual E-Clip charger in one of the books that player can buy? There are at least 2 skills that have something like 'can supervise the charging of E-clips' listed under them.

Sooner or later (sooner) the party will want to buy one and even though making them go to town and use credits to recharge their e-clips can be done for a while, if they don't at least see the end goal of buying their own E-clip charger, they're going end up stealing one, killing bad guys for one, or other such.

[The Galactus Kid]

Its in Merc-ops.

[glitterboy2098]

technically any system that outputs electrical power could recharge an e-clip. the question is how long you want to wait. a short E-clip runs about 100 megajoules of energy. 1 joule per second = 1 watt.

a 1200 watt portable generator, like you can buy for a few hundred bucks today, could recharge a short E-clip in 8334 seconds, or a little over 23 hours. of course, this would require refueling every couple of hours.

a military portable generator, like the 1.5 ton trunk 5 megawatt mounted one the military is getting, could recharge an E-clip in 20 seconds. or recharge 5 short E-clips at a time in 100 seconds.

note that both of the above are internal combustion based. which means you'll have to provide a large amount of gasoline, desiel, or equivelent bio-fuel to use them.

portable nuclear powersupplies, such as the real world Hyperion power generator, provide sufficent power without having to worry about large quantities of inflammable fuel.
the HPG system mentioned above, for example, can put out 25 megawatts. enough to recharge a single short E-clip in 4 seconds. or morelikely (since it is unlikely the clip would survive that experiance), it could be used to recharge up to 25 E-clips at a time in 100 seconds.

rifts nuclear and fusion portable power sources are most likely comparable in output to the above HPG, but far more compact.

[MikelAmroni]

At the cost of a cool 2 mil, there is the Miniature Fusion Plant in Merc Ops (p.113), which can be used to recharge E-clips, but you're going to need GB's mj to watt conversion from his post above. Then there is the Universal E-clip recharger (weighs 15 pounds, 8 ports, charges a standard e-cip in an hour) from the same book (p.118) at a list price of 790,000, but it can go for 2-3 times that depending on availability, and the desperateness of the client.

[glitterboy2098]

can you explain how you arived at 100 megajoules, and why its enuff energy, please Im not that informed about electrical stuff

actually it was whipped4073 who figured out the number of megajoules in an Eclip. he figured it based on the Energy Absorbtion Super power from the Rifts conversion book. a case of them listing how much the character could absorb per level, and then listing how many E-clips that was.


as for why thats enough energy, my own calculations run somewhere between .10 and .25 megajoules per point of M.D. though obviously thats only a tenative figure, since the writers didn't bother to stick to any consistant scale, and it would vary depending on the weapon involved (laser, particle beam, plasma, ect. )

my figures were found by taking the damage from real world weaponry we have in game and comparing that to the mega-damage equivilents. not the most accurate method, but it gives us a ballpark figure. to improve the accuracy, the 100mj value was used and the amount of total MD the weapons could do was figured to get a maximum value.

so 1 M.D. is about 10 kilojoules of energy. for comparison, a 7.62mmx39 rifle round fired at 900m/s is 1400 joules, or about 1.5 kilojoules. palladium gives a damage of 5D6 S.D. for the Ak-47. palladium also holds to a "double the energy, damage increases 50%" mechanics, as mentioned frequently with explosives. the damage listings (mostly) follow this progression if you compare the damage to the amount of energy involved.

[Captain Shiva]

technically any system that outputs electrical power could recharge an e-clip. the question is how long you want to wait. a short E-clip runs about 100 megajoules of energy. 1 joule per second = 1 watt.

a 1200 watt portable generator, like you can buy for a few hundred bucks today, could recharge a short E-clip in 8334 seconds, or a little over 23 hours. of course, this would require refueling every couple of hours.

a military portable generator, like the 1.5 ton trunk 5 megawatt mounted one the military is getting, could recharge an E-clip in 20 seconds. or recharge 5 short E-clips at a time in 100 seconds.
The Hyperion is kind of like the ARC Reactor from Iron Man.
note that both of the above are internal combustion based. which means you'll have to provide a large amount of gasoline, desiel, or equivelent bio-fuel to use them.

portable nuclear powersupplies, such as the real world Hyperion power generator, provide sufficent power without having to worry about large quantities of inflammable fuel.
the HPG system mentioned above, for example, can put out 25 megawatts. enough to recharge a single short E-clip in 4 seconds. or morelikely (since it is unlikely the clip would survive that experiance), it could be used to recharge up to 25 E-clips at a time in 100 seconds.

rifts nuclear and fusion portable power sources are most likely comparable in output to the above HPG, but far more compact.

[Killer Cyborg]

technically any system that outputs electrical power could recharge an e-clip. the question is how long you want to wait. a short E-clip runs about 100 megajoules of energy. 1 joule per second = 1 watt.

a 1200 watt portable generator, like you can buy for a few hundred bucks today, could recharge a short E-clip in 8334 seconds, or a little over 23 hours. of course, this would require refueling every couple of hours.

a military portable generator, like the 1.5 ton trunk 5 megawatt mounted one the military is getting, could recharge an E-clip in 20 seconds. or recharge 5 short E-clips at a time in 100 seconds.

note that both of the above are internal combustion based. which means you'll have to provide a large amount of gasoline, desiel, or equivelent bio-fuel to use them.

portable nuclear powersupplies, such as the real world Hyperion power generator, provide sufficent power without having to worry about large quantities of inflammable fuel.
the HPG system mentioned above, for example, can put out 25 megawatts. enough to recharge a single short E-clip in 4 seconds. or morelikely (since it is unlikely the clip would survive that experiance), it could be used to recharge up to 25 E-clips at a time in 100 seconds.

rifts nuclear and fusion portable power sources are most likely comparable in output to the above HPG, but far more compact.

Wouldn't there be other factors, though?

'Cause 1 E-Clip holds the same amount of power as 1,000 car batteries, and it's hard to picture a portable generator that can recharge a thousand car batteries in 23 hours (even if they're all hooked up at once).

[Killer Cyborg]

Car batteries are bad exampe since alot of the energy is wasted in heat when charging them and you are limited to the rate at which it can take a charge without exploding.

Or they're good examples for the same reasons.
Where does it say that E-Clips can take a charge at an unlimited rate without exploding?

E-clips would be far more in line with capacitors than batteries.

Possibly, but quite possibly not.
There's no real way to say, since the workings of E-Clips are never detailed.

[Library Ogre]

Possibly, but quite possibly not.
There's no real way to say, since the workings of E-Clips are never detailed.

The real thing about e-clips is that they are frighteningly expensive to recharge, by canon. I think the whys of that, when power is free to a great many cities (given the assumed capacity of generators that many people have... hooking up multiple weapons systems and force fields to a single power source, without drop in other capacities), why is it so costly to recharge them?

I saw a good theory, years ago, which stated that e-clips, though great power storers, were somewhat fragile. Each time one was used, there was a chance it would burn out, in whole or in part. "Recharging" an e-clip wasn't just providing it with power, but fixing and replacing damaged cells.

They may also be power producers... rather than storing anything, they are small generators, of limited life-span. Once they burn out, you have to replace the power core, which is a tricky business.

[Killer Cyborg]

Possibly, but quite possibly not.
There's no real way to say, since the workings of E-Clips are never detailed.

The real thing about e-clips is that they are frighteningly expensive to recharge, by canon. I think the whys of that, when power is free to a great many cities (given the assumed capacity of generators that many people have... hooking up multiple weapons systems and force fields to a single power source, without drop in other capacities), why is it so costly to recharge them?

I saw a good theory, years ago, which stated that e-clips, though great power storers, were somewhat fragile. Each time one was used, there was a chance it would burn out, in whole or in part. "Recharging" an e-clip wasn't just providing it with power, but fixing and replacing damaged cells.

They may also be power producers... rather than storing anything, they are small generators, of limited life-span. Once they burn out, you have to replace the power core, which is a tricky business.

One of the very few things that we do know about E-Clips is that they "can be recharged hundreds of times before the storage cell burns out."
RUE, 268
(Don't know if that was mentioned before RUE, and I'm too tired right now to look)

[Vrykolas2k]

Well, someone could always play a Mystic Knight... they spend some PPE to recharge e-clips, then steal it back from someone else...

[ZorValachan]

Thanks for all the info. I can use this to work out a means to allow self-charging, without being overly generous

Another questions. Is it stated anywhere on how much rail gun rounds cost?
Specifically Glitter Boy and SAMAS?
Nevermind, I found it in R:UE

But still, thanks a lot for the E-Clip theories. good stuff there.

[Noon]

The main idea in the text seems to be that e-clips are expensive to recharge.

It isn't making sense to somehow recharge it for free, it's just another house rule.

[ZorValachan]

Self-charge doesn't mean 'free'. I'm looking at something like this.

You have a state-of-the-art charging center in a major town. An Operator or someone with a high skill is in charge. A standard E-clip can be 'recharged hundred of times'. Ok, let's say 500 times.

The players go and recharge their E-clips there and spend the 1,200 credits per clip to charge. Now that clip can be recharged 499 more times.

Now say they get some portable charger. It's built to recharge E-clips. But the glitterboy pilot who has the 'field armorer' (or another such skill that says it can be used to re-charge e-clips) does it. The player has to roll the skill. If he succeeds, it gets charged but as it is a 'lower' quality charger, it takes 2 'recharges' so that new e-clip with 500 recharges charges, now only has 498. If he fails the roll, he must then roll 1D20. If he gets a 10, it goes down by 20 'recharges' 480, as 2 (not top quality equipment) x 10 (skill failure) = 20.

If he is jury-rigging some power armor, or other energy source, then it is a 3x or higher modifier.

So, if the characters go to town and pay the money, they get efficient and top quality work. If they try to save money this way and do it themselves (without top quality equipment and a top quality operator (or equivalent), they can still do it, but the e-clips burn out faster and they sooner or later have to buy new e-clips at retail price.

[Killer Cyborg]

Self-charge doesn't mean 'free'. I'm looking at something like this.

You have a state-of-the-art charging center in a major town. An Operator or someone with a high skill is in charge. A standard E-clip can be 'recharged hundred of times'. Ok, let's say 500 times.

The players go and recharge their E-clips there and spend the 1,200 credits per clip to charge. Now that clip can be recharged 499 more times.

Now say they get some portable charger. It's built to recharge E-clips. But the glitterboy pilot who has the 'field armorer' (or another such skill that says it can be used to re-charge e-clips) does it. The player has to roll the skill. If he succeeds, it gets charged but as it is a 'lower' quality charger, it takes 2 'recharges' so that new e-clip with 500 recharges charges, now only has 498. If he fails the roll, he must then roll 1D20. If he gets a 10, it goes down by 20 'recharges' 480, as 2 (not top quality equipment) x 10 (skill failure) = 20.

If he is jury-rigging some power armor, or other energy source, then it is a 3x or higher modifier.

So, if the characters go to town and pay the money, they get efficient and top quality work. If they try to save money this way and do it themselves (without top quality equipment and a top quality operator (or equivalent), they can still do it, but the e-clips burn out faster and they sooner or later have to buy new e-clips at retail price.

Not bad!
I'd have it take more recharges, though, if you want that to be the important factor.
5 minimum for a home-job, 1d4x10 for a botched job.
You could also limit the recharging capacity for a home-job, like only 80% of the clip's maximum ammo capacity can be recharged.

And it should take a significant amount of time, with the operator watching things the whole while to make sure nothing goes wrong.

[MikelAmroni]

I like the concept of if you kludge together some system for recharging it takes more recharges off the life of the e-clip, but I'd have to say that if a competant operator (not the OCC, just the guy running the station) recharges the E-clip with a purpose built E-clip recharger (like the one in Merc Ops), then it would be 1 charge, for right equipment, right application. Wiring up something off of your nuclear power source in your power armor or vehicle should be a multiple of 2 (if set up by someone with Electrical Engineer or Electrical Power Generation) or 5 (if set up by someone with the Armorer or Basic Electronics skill). I like the idea of failure taking more charges, but link it more to how spectacularly they failed. If I fail by 1, and I am an electrical engineer using a purpose built system, I should not fail as spectularly as a basic armorer using a custom built cable running off their vehicle's power supply.

Fail by 1-5: multiplier times 5
Fail by 6-10: Multiplier times 10
Fail by 11-20: Multiplier times 15
Fail by 20 or more: Multiplier times 20
natural 100: Double multiplier failure

This means if you have a 98% in Electrical Engineer and are using a E-clip recharger, 99 means it loses 5 charges, 100 loses 10.
If you have Armorer at 60% and a custom built recharge system off of your SAMAS's power source: a roll of 61-65 loses 25 charges, a roll of 66-70 loses 50, etc, and a roll of 100 loses 200(!) charges. Safe to say that if you royally screw up, you could burn out an E-clip in one or two charges.

Suddenly the 790,000 for a purpose built recharger ain't sounding so bad!

[Noon]

ZorValachan, I like it, but it's still a house rule that eliminates the original idea - it's just not as free as 'I plug it into my PA - freechargeslololol!'

In terms of your idea, I'd suggest reducing book keeping by making it some kind of roll to see if the clip burns out on each recharge, rather than tracking how many charges the clips been through next to each clip.

[MikelAmroni]

Hmm, that has merit, and it would be less book keeping

on a failed roll, you have a percentile roll to see if you burn out the e-clip

fail by________percentage chance of failure
1-5_____________________1%
6-10____________________2%
11-15___________________3%
16-20___________________4%
25+_____________________5%

If you are using Weapons Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Electrical Generation skills and a dedicated E-Clip recharger, then you do not multiply the failure rates.
If you are using Armorer or Basic Electronics and a dedicated E-clip recharger OR you are using the Weapons Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Electrical Generation skills to jury-rig a recharging solution from a power source, you multiply the failure rate by 5%.
If you are using Armor or Basic Electronics to jury-rig a recharging solution from a power source, you multiply the failure rate by 10%.

So if you are an amateur trying to do what only a pro can do easily, you at worst have a 50/50 chance of shorting out the e-clip. That's pretty harsh, and a good candidate for using a service in a town over trying to kludge it together. but if you've got an operator in the group, or a Coalition Tech Officer, then by all means, kludge away. Seems reasonable to me.

[Killer Cyborg]

ZorValachan, I like it, but it's still a house rule that eliminates the original idea - it's just not as free as 'I plug it into my PA - freechargeslololol!'

Are you saying that was the original idea?

[Noon]

MikelAmroni: Not just on a failed skill check. The clip can burn out just from extended use/a succesful skill check. The failed skill checks should have even higher chances of burning the clip out than a pass.

[Killer Cyborg]

I would not call someone making an external power port on PA to charge e-clips jurry rigging. It would be more inline to adding on additional power equipment on your vehicle or other powered equipment AC or DC powered. If the player char. makes the roll and has access to the proper tools and material that he might need to do the job then why should the e-clip suffer. On the other hand I do understand the (for free) argument. So make the connections for the e-clip slots or other material very expensive or rare or OEM.

Are there any canon examples of power armor that includes a port to recharge E-Clips?

[ZorValachan]

I like the concept of if you kludge together some system for recharging it takes more recharges off the life of the e-clip, but I'd have to say that if a competant operator (not the OCC, just the guy running the station) recharges the E-clip with a purpose built E-clip recharger (like the one in Merc Ops), then it would be 1 charge, for right equipment, right application. Wiring up something off of your nuclear power source in your power armor or vehicle should be a multiple of 2 (if set up by someone with Electrical Engineer or Electrical Power Generation) or 5 (if set up by someone with the Armorer or Basic Electronics skill). I like the idea of failure taking more charges, but link it more to how spectacularly they failed. If I fail by 1, and I am an electrical engineer using a purpose built system, I should not fail as spectularly as a basic armorer using a custom built cable running off their vehicle's power supply.

Fail by 1-5: multiplier times 5
Fail by 6-10: Multiplier times 10
Fail by 11-20: Multiplier times 15
Fail by 20 or more: Multiplier times 20
natural 100: Double multiplier failure

This means if you have a 98% in Electrical Engineer and are using a E-clip recharger, 99 means it loses 5 charges, 100 loses 10.
If you have Armorer at 60% and a custom built recharge system off of your SAMAS's power source: a roll of 61-65 loses 25 charges, a roll of 66-70 loses 50, etc, and a roll of 100 loses 200(!) charges. Safe to say that if you royally screw up, you could burn out an E-clip in one or two charges.

Suddenly the 790,000 for a purpose built recharger ain't sounding so bad!

I really like this. Thanks
In the original post, yes I was looking for a recharger and cost, because that is the 1st thing my group is going to ask. Second thing is asking to jury-rig something together for recharge purposes.

I don't mind bookkeeping at all. I give GM numbers to all 'special' items and keep tallies on things that have a finite amount of uses. I see this as 'fair'. It doesn't allow the players to do all they want without sacrifice, but it doesn't place me as the GM saying "No, because I say so". My group is all about reasonable compromises and risk vs. reward. Others can do more or less for their group.

I do see adding a recharge station to power armor as a jury rig. My mom went to Italy and her hair curler fried because of voltage differences between there and here. And that was with an adapter. You might have a good power source with PA, and even if you have the e-clip port, making the connection and tweaking it to give the right juice over the right amount of time at least calls for a skill roll.
Also, my group doesn't have a competent operator. They got a Cyber-Knight and a Glitterboy Pilot that have the field armorer skill.


But that is my Opinion and thanks to all for helping me with it

[MikelAmroni]

MikelAmroni: Not just on a failed skill check. The clip can burn out just from extended use/a succesful skill check. The failed skill checks should have even higher chances of burning the clip out than a pass.

That seems unnecessarily restrictive. If they have an Operator then the chances of him failing the roll are slim and none, and he DOES know what he is doing. And yes, they should wear out, but to be honest, if you're players go through 500 recharges (using it because its a good round number) in a normal game without replacing them, they are doing a lot more shooting than I ever did. If an operator is using an eclip recharger or better, MAKES ONE, then he should not be penalized for doing what comes natural to his class, nor should his work be any less effective than the joe operator in the nearest town who also built an e-clip recharger and whose work you wouldn't dream of penalizing. And to be fair, at no point should this be no cost. It should cost the operator at least 30% (of 790,000) in parts alone, including some sort of power source, prolly about 70,000 if he has an existing power source he can purpose for the eclip recharger.

As for the Armorer using the recharger, he shouldn't be penalized either, since most recharging stations will be run by a guy with the armorer skill, not an electrical engineer. Now the guy with armorer who manages to kludge something together from a power source, he doesn't need penalties on his successes, because they are going to be hard won. I'd assign at least a -15% penalty to his armorer check every time he charges an e-clip unless he beat his basic electronics check by 30% or more. Quite simply, he has to connect it to the right leads each time.

Now for the OP, (who doesn't mind the idea of bookkeeping it seems, yay for him), the charges taken off for failure seems to work okay. I think for those of us who hate bookkeeping, I think something similar to the percentage failure for failed recharge rolls will work fine, but that's just my opinion, and as I came up with both ideas, I am more than likely biased.

[MikelAmroni]

I would not call someone making an external power port on PA to charge e-clips jurry rigging. It would be more inline to adding on additional power equipment on your vehicle or other powered equipment AC or DC powered. If the player char. makes the roll and has access to the proper tools and material that he might need to do the job then why should the e-clip suffer. On the other hand I do understand the (for free) argument. So make the connections for the e-clip slots or other material very expensive or rare or OEM.

If he has the proper tools, and the proper materials, then yes he should be able to make a purpose built e-clip recharger, but that's not what we're talkign about. We're talking about running a power lead off the main power unit, and attaching it to the leads on the e-clip, with some sort of regulating mechanism (a simple diode would do it, if you knew the right voltage/amperage/resistance). If he builds a E-clip recharging port onto it, he has made a purpose built system, and while it may produce other problems (power leaks on the power armor, shorts that crop up in the radar, but only at bad times, etc), the e-clip recharger will work fine, as long as the suit isn't in use. I'd daresay it could even be made to charge a standard e-clip in an hour, just like the one in the book.

[ZorValachan]

Yes, and really, thanks for both the # and the % systems. I love choices and with these someone else might use them too.

Yes, Bookkeeping...yummmm. When the Weapons and Armor Compendium came out and all the weapons had durability, my group added that to our Palladium Fantasy game. 1 point was taken off the durability for each successful parry (not attack that was parried, just defense parry), if the weapon was not indestructible.

And actually, one reason I do things like this is not because my group runs through e-clips and weapons so fast, but it makes them think a tiny bit more before they go into a needless battle. They might damage a good weapon, might need to buy another e-clip, etc. For selfish characters this can work better than moral justification lolol

[Killer Cyborg]

No not that I know of. But that being said any operator worth his salt should be able to find out what kind of charge and for how long(amp rating ect.) the e-clip should need. Every powered device PA, pre rifts equipment, generators, heavy or not has a power distribution unit(fuse box). Tapping into something like this should not be a problem giving your operator is good enough figure all of this out. (multiple dice rolls) He, she should be able to tell what kind of amperage the device or vehicle produces and consumes.

Yet if it were that simple, then virtually every vehicle and suit of power armor would likely have e-clip recharge ports built in.
But they don't.
NONE of them do.
So it's obviously not that simple.

[Killer Cyborg]

No not that I know of. But that being said any operator worth his salt should be able to find out what kind of charge and for how long(amp rating ect.) the e-clip should need. Every powered device PA, pre rifts equipment, generators, heavy or not has a power distribution unit(fuse box). Tapping into something like this should not be a problem giving your operator is good enough figure all of this out. (multiple dice rolls) He, she should be able to tell what kind of amperage the device or vehicle produces and consumes.

Yet if it were that simple, then virtually every vehicle and suit of power armor would likely have e-clip recharge ports built in.
But they don't.
NONE of them do.
So it's obviously not that simple.

The problem with this thinking is that KS doesn't know jack on the subject and didn't think about it.

That's not the problem; that's the necessary information.
Because Kev isn't an electrical engineer, what he writes for the game is the effect that he wants to see IN the game, not necessarily the most realistic result.
Which is good, because realistic results physics-wise wouldn't give us ANY of the high-tech gear in Rifts.

And in the case of E-Clips, the result he wanted was for them to be difficult and expensive to recharge. This is pretty clear by the cost of recharging them, and the lack of recharging ports on any vehicles (especially military vehicles).
If Kevin had wanted them to be easy to recharge, he would have had the cost be lower, and he would have had recharging ports wherever he darn-well pleased, physics be damned.
But he didn't, so they're not.

Of course, anybody can play however they want, but recharging e-clips from random nuclear power supplies (or other power sources) is not canon.

If the GM wants to create ongoing costs for the players, there are better ways to do it than e-clip charging. Vehicles break a lot, especially high performance vehicles and aircraft.

This is where I disagree; MDC vehicles don't really break.
Wear and tear is SDC damage.

Armor should have problems as well.

Again, I disagree.
Nothing in the books indicates that armor would have any problems.

Charging batteries, no matter how high tech they are, just isn't that complex.

I think the mistake you may be making is equating E-Clips with batteries.

If one wants to go after the e-clips, it can be decided that they frequently need an overhaul on the energy exchange (from stored energy to electric current) system or are good for a smaller number of charges or lose capacity with each recharge. Them being difficult to recharge is just not going to be the biggest problem.

I don't want to "go after" e-clips.
All I'm doing is pointing out that according to the rules and physics of the game, they're not supposed to be easy to recharge.
If they were supposed to be easy, then they would be easy.

It costs CR 1200-1500 to recharge an e-clip.
To put this in perspective, a "good" salary for a mercenary is (Mercenaries, 18) 400 credits a week for line soldiers, 500-550 credits a week for noncommissioned officers, 600-700 for medium-grade officers, and 800-1500 for higher grade officers and special operatives.
A "good" salary for a special ops soldier means that he can purchase about 1 e-clip charge per week out of his own pocket.
Yes, if he's with a good company he won't have to; they'll have a recharging station. The point here is just to show the relative cost.
1 recharge = 3 to 4 weeks pay for the average merc, if he had to buy it on his own.

[Killer Cyborg]

So I had a thought that I think I'm going to go ahead and use in my game to see if it works. I'm going to make the equipment to jury rig a e-clip recharger pretty easy to get but I'm going to make them make either a Electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, weapons engineer, or armourer roll to hook up a cable to connect it. The equipment for the cable is going to cost 2000 credits, and a failed roll will fry the cable. Once they succeed in that they will have to make a roll to charge the clip. I'm thinking that a failed roll ruins the cable and a 95-100 ruins the e-clip.

Successful rolls charge an e-clip after one hour for a short clip and 1.5 hours for a long one, and they are unable to do canisters.

This makes it worth while to go to town and pay for the charging as it could cost more with bad rolls but also will allow people to charge there own equipment.

Not bad!


I'd make sure that I only allowed it for skills that specify e-clip recharging capabilities, though.
And in some cases, other electronic skills as well.

[Severite]

Well, one idea is that a "prduced" item probably regulates exactly how much energy an eclip can take, and automatically turns off when the charge has completed.

That way, you could "kludge" a systems together, but Im sure an electrical engineer could put something like that together without worries, whereas a field mechanic is going to be more jury rigged, and need much more attention so that he doesn't burn out the eclip.

Another thought is that you would have to crack the armored sealing in order to make an external port for the eclip to plug into, making a lot of trouble if someone decided to shoot lightning into it.

[MikelAmroni]

So I had a thought that I think I'm going to go ahead and use in my game to see if it works. I'm going to make the equipment to jury rig a e-clip recharger pretty easy to get but I'm going to make them make either a Electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, weapons engineer, or armourer roll to hook up a cable to connect it. The equipment for the cable is going to cost 2000 credits, and a failed roll will fry the cable. Once they succeed in that they will have to make a roll to charge the clip. I'm thinking that a failed roll ruins the cable and a 95-100 ruins the e-clip.

Successful rolls charge an e-clip after one hour for a short clip and 1.5 hours for a long one, and they are unable to do canisters.

This makes it worth while to go to town and pay for the charging as it could cost more with bad rolls but also will allow people to charge there own equipment.

Not Mechanical Engineering - use Basic Electronics for another low end skill. Being able to fabricate metal that will stand up to just about anything, or being able to build the mechanical components of an engine from scratch doesn't help you when you are trying to figure out current and polarity, not to mention how to regulate the amperage and voltage so it doesn't burn out your power source or what you're trying to charge. It might be helpful if you had to bypass the anti-shock shielding, however, or to fabricate some sort of quick connect. Helpful, but not necessary.

I would suggest doubling the cost for someone with the basic electronics skill (they have to buy the power regulating equipment, instead of making it), and possibly for the armorer. A weapons engineer or electrical engineer should be sufficient to actually build a full recharger, so it stands to reason they could jury rig something from basic parts. Take a look at the table below.

Failed roll on charging an e-clip from a jury-rigged recharging station.
Fail by 10 or less: Burned out some connectors or a specific wire or diode; Costs 1d6x100 credits to fix.
Fail by 11 - 15: Burned out the charging element; must replace entirely
Fail by 16-50: Burned out the E-clip and the charging element; both must be replaced entirely
Fail by 51 or more: Burned out the power supply, the E-clip and the recharging element - all must be replaced.

That should encourage anyone with basic electronics to just let a professional do the work, while not removing it from their grasp.

[Prince Artemis]

There is one but sub-particle acceleration is cheaper

[MikelAmroni]

I don't see the problem in using mechanical engineer. It requires basic electronics and can be used to change or modify machines including advanced power supplies. as for your chart I don't think it should be that easy to burn out all of the components. I see the failure at being in charging the e-clip instead of overloading it. Saying that most electrical problems are going to fry a small wire long before destroying a capacitor.

As my boss and friend, an electrical engineer, put it: "Mechanical Engineers work with whole atoms, we just work with electrons - BIG difference". A mechanical engineer can design the wire and make one heck of a cabinet for a e-clip recharger, but knowledge of the more estoric useage of electricity is strictly beyond and outside the discipline. This isn't to say an mechanical engineer couldn't ALSO be an electrical engineer, or even a weapons engineer, but Mechanical Engineering is strictly dealing with substance, not electrons.

I don't see failing by 51+ being an "easy" failure, but YMMV. The only extension I could see is 11-25 burn out the charging element, 26-50 burn out the charging element and the e-clip. I work in broadcast TV, and whenever we manage to fry something, we ALWAYS check the connectors and wires first. They are usually where it blows, not power supplies and such. Now when you get a spectacularlly massive failure, you fry power supplies too. But usually its something relatively simple to replace - not always simple to diagnose or get to, but simple to replace. *looks towards Master Control* Shush, all of you, pay no attention.

Also, as the mechanical engineer requires basic electronics, he would be using that, not mechanical engineering. His knowledge of electronics is basic, and as such he is no better than the guy who knows pretty well how electricity works in a general sense, and can manage to wire up a garage without burning it down, most of the time (anyone with basic electronics).

[Library Ogre]

I think I'd make it an extended action, with 10% recharged per success, and with a couple hours per check.

[MikelAmroni]

I think I'd make it an extended action, with 10% recharged per success, and with a couple hours per check.

I'd agree, if there wasn't ready made equipment in the book that was faster - unless you're talking about a "homemade" system, in which case I agree completely.