Slap Patch on the Slap Patch?

[Tor]

Regarding the device on page 130. It says it cannot regenerate itself.

If it receives 1-4 MD but is not destroyed (1/5 left) then would it be possible to restore it to full via putting a slap patch on it?

Slap Patches restore MDC to Bio-Tech devices and this is classed under Miscellaneous Bio-Tech Equipment so I figured yes?

In which case, it probably pays to have them in pairs. The low cost certainly allows it.

Do you think there's a limit in whether more than 1 can be active simultaneously? I'd also like to know how big they are to estimate how much space they would cover before there was no room on host armor or mounts of various sizes to fit extra ones.

Like if I have 5K creds and slap on 10 then could you heal 2D6x10 per melee round?

The added speed could have the trade-off (for low-damage stuff) of wasting the possible total damage healed though, I guess.

Like if you reach full health after one round, that is 1-7 more rounds where you don't benefit from the healing, and all because you wanted to stack a bunch of packs to get a bunch fast.

Course if you put them on just before combat then maybe you could heal as you keep getting hurt.

Do you think maybe if you reached full MDC and there were melee rounds of activity remaining that it should just freeze until there is more damage to heal?

[RiftJunkie]

I would probably say you can use a Patch to save a Patch. I might also say that the healed Patch needs a nutrient bath before being able to do it's job again. I wouldn't allow Slap Patches to be put on in advance of injury and I think they need to be removed after healing or they would "burn out". I don't see a problem with using a bunch of them if you have them and you have the time to get them out and put them on without getting killed first. I don't see the Machine taking a break so you can pull a dozen of these things out and stick them to your body. Your actions may be better served to get the "blank" out of Dodge first. But that's just my opinion.

[Tor]

I like the idea of needing a nutrient bath, definitely a useful house rule. Maybe not every single day, but maybe like the Northern Gun power packs in Rifts Mercs where they can regenerate their full payload so many times before needing some repairs from the manufacturer. Or maybe give it a % chance of needing repairs or losing 1 MDC every day it is used.

The inability of using patches to repair patches would also give more incentive to carry extras and to take them back to nutrient baths for repairs. A chance of losing MDC per use would also make them exhaustible while not having it guarantee. Maybe however many MDC you roll to repair is the % chance of it taking 1 MD ?

Agree that it largely requires downtime to be useful, but the same can be said of bio-regen in host armor. Even if you have the best per-melee rate it's not all that useful if you can't get out of combat to rest up.