What do you do regarding small payouts and large expenses?

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

Back when I used to play, until the tail end we didn't have any 'official' material regarding bounties, merc pay, etc. So we just made it up.

Once books like Mercenaries came out, that changed obviously.

So I look at the books, and it's like 50 credits for a Xiticix warrior, 200 for a brodkil, that kind of thing. Merc pay was pretty low too. And on the flips side of that, a short range missile costs 2k-4500 credits, list price (could be more, probably will be). Railgun ammo isn't free. Repairs to body armor, power armor, and vehicles aren't free. Even if you have someone who can do the repairs, there's still materials to pay for. Maybe you can rig something up to charge magazines for energy weapons from your robot's nuke plant, WITHOUT paying for a charging station (otherwise we're right back to "How are we gonna pay for this?").

Even if the group is salvaging and selling off weapons from their fallen enemies, it's not going to go far once you start trying to repair a borg or robot, or re-arm something that has MRM's or more than a half dozen SRM's.

We just ignored the published rewards/bounties/merc pay, and went with something reasonable, AND generally held out for "Ammo and repairs are included in the pay" when it came to merc work.

So what was everyone else's solution to this? I like to see other options, maybe get my brain thinking in new directions.

[Mack]

Thinking about Economics and Rifts will make you go cross-eyed, permanently. I suggest just not thinking about it.

[Killer Cyborg]

Our solution initially, back when there were only a couple of Rifts books in existence, was to achieve a series of pyrrhic victories until we ran out of armor and/or ammunition, and ultimately died.

Once we got tired of that, we started planning better as players. We picked our battles more carefully. We adjusted our strategies to avoid taking damage unless absolutely necessary. We prioritized capturing enemy gear intact over destroying it in battle. We prized weapons that required little or no ammunition costs. We prized armor (and armor-like spells/abilities) that could repair/replenish/replace itself.

As GMs, we likewise learned to avoid the D&D-style "let's all blast/stab each other until somebody dies, then try to heal up for the next battle" routine, and instead worked with the system and setting we were playing in. Instead of pitting characters against NPCs of roughly equal power in a single battle, and instead played each adventure/campaign as a war of attrition where players who were careless and/or unlucky would be whittled down by a series of weaker enemies.
We used the economics of the game as powerful motivations (PCs were eager to take any job that included armor repair and ammunition replacement as part of the payment) and plot points, instead of avoiding them.

[Shark_Force]

Our solution initially, back when there were only a couple of Rifts books in existence, was to achieve a series of pyrrhic victories until we ran out of armor and/or ammunition, and ultimately died.

Once we got tired of that, we started planning better as players. We picked our battles more carefully. We adjusted our strategies to avoid taking damage unless absolutely necessary. We prioritized capturing enemy gear intact over destroying it in battle. We prized weapons that required little or no ammunition costs. We prized armor (and armor-like spells/abilities) that could repair/replenish/replace itself.

As GMs, we likewise learned to avoid the D&D-style "let's all blast/stab each other until somebody dies, then try to heal up for the next battle" routine, and instead worked with the system and setting we were playing in. Instead of pitting characters against NPCs of roughly equal power in a single battle, and instead played each adventure/campaign as a war of attrition where players who were careless and/or unlucky would be whittled down by a series of weaker enemies.
We used the economics of the game as powerful motivations (PCs were eager to take any job that included armor repair and ammunition replacement as part of the payment) and plot points, instead of avoiding them.

that's a good start, but i do still think it's a bit ridiculous. i mean, who's going to take 50 credits for a job that has even a 1% chance of costing you 10,000 credits in expenses or more?

in order for a bounty to be worthwhile, it cannot be so low that you're almost guaranteed to lose money if you try to collect.

[Incriptus]

Ignore, Avoid, or Embrace

Ignore: Don't use the in book numbers for the pay out, or have a plot point that you work for an outfit where repairs are considered part of your employement

Avoid: Play characters that make use of a renewable resource. Usually magic armor, or natural MD Beings

Embrace: Pretty much what the second guy said.

----

Honestly i've had the most success with Ignore or Avoid

[The Beast]

Back when I used to play, until the tail end we didn't have any 'official' material regarding bounties, merc pay, etc. So we just made it up.

Once books like Mercenaries came out, that changed obviously.

So I look at the books, and it's like 50 credits for a Xiticix warrior, 200 for a brodkil, that kind of thing. Merc pay was pretty low too. And on the flips side of that, a short range missile costs 2k-4500 credits, list price (could be more, probably will be). Railgun ammo isn't free. Repairs to body armor, power armor, and vehicles aren't free. Even if you have someone who can do the repairs, there's still materials to pay for. Maybe you can rig something up to charge magazines for energy weapons from your robot's nuke plant, WITHOUT paying for a charging station (otherwise we're right back to "How are we gonna pay for this?").

Even if the group is salvaging and selling off weapons from their fallen enemies, it's not going to go far once you start trying to repair a borg or robot, or re-arm something that has MRM's or more than a half dozen SRM's.

We just ignored the published rewards/bounties/merc pay, and went with something reasonable, AND generally held out for "Ammo and repairs are included in the pay" when it came to merc work.

So what was everyone else's solution to this? I like to see other options, maybe get my brain thinking in new directions.

I always felt that those prices were if you were just starting out as part of a larger merc company, and they'd be paying for room & board, food, repairs, and resupply.

[Killer Cyborg]

Our solution initially, back when there were only a couple of Rifts books in existence, was to achieve a series of pyrrhic victories until we ran out of armor and/or ammunition, and ultimately died.

Once we got tired of that, we started planning better as players. We picked our battles more carefully. We adjusted our strategies to avoid taking damage unless absolutely necessary. We prioritized capturing enemy gear intact over destroying it in battle. We prized weapons that required little or no ammunition costs. We prized armor (and armor-like spells/abilities) that could repair/replenish/replace itself.

As GMs, we likewise learned to avoid the D&D-style "let's all blast/stab each other until somebody dies, then try to heal up for the next battle" routine, and instead worked with the system and setting we were playing in. Instead of pitting characters against NPCs of roughly equal power in a single battle, and instead played each adventure/campaign as a war of attrition where players who were careless and/or unlucky would be whittled down by a series of weaker enemies.
We used the economics of the game as powerful motivations (PCs were eager to take any job that included armor repair and ammunition replacement as part of the payment) and plot points, instead of avoiding them.

that's a good start, but i do still think it's a bit ridiculous. i mean, who's going to take 50 credits for a job that has even a 1% chance of costing you 10,000 credits in expenses or more?

Desperate and/or over-confident people.

in order for a bounty to be worthwhile, it cannot be so low that you're almost guaranteed to lose money if you try to collect.

I agree that some of the bounties are a bit low. That usually relegates them to after-thoughts when I've played, if we use by-the-book bounties; you don't stop the bad guy for the bounty, you stop him for other reasons, and the bounty is a bonus.
The main financial treasure has always been in the form of loot when I've played, as a rule.

The exception is any time when you've got additional backing. If you're part of a merc company that supplies your armor and weapons, for example, it might be worth risking somebody else's money for low amounts of personal profit.

[Shark_Force]

Our solution initially, back when there were only a couple of Rifts books in existence, was to achieve a series of pyrrhic victories until we ran out of armor and/or ammunition, and ultimately died.

Once we got tired of that, we started planning better as players. We picked our battles more carefully. We adjusted our strategies to avoid taking damage unless absolutely necessary. We prioritized capturing enemy gear intact over destroying it in battle. We prized weapons that required little or no ammunition costs. We prized armor (and armor-like spells/abilities) that could repair/replenish/replace itself.

As GMs, we likewise learned to avoid the D&D-style "let's all blast/stab each other until somebody dies, then try to heal up for the next battle" routine, and instead worked with the system and setting we were playing in. Instead of pitting characters against NPCs of roughly equal power in a single battle, and instead played each adventure/campaign as a war of attrition where players who were careless and/or unlucky would be whittled down by a series of weaker enemies.
We used the economics of the game as powerful motivations (PCs were eager to take any job that included armor repair and ammunition replacement as part of the payment) and plot points, instead of avoiding them.

that's a good start, but i do still think it's a bit ridiculous. i mean, who's going to take 50 credits for a job that has even a 1% chance of costing you 10,000 credits in expenses or more?

Desperate and/or over-confident people.

in order for a bounty to be worthwhile, it cannot be so low that you're almost guaranteed to lose money if you try to collect.

I agree that some of the bounties are a bit low. That usually relegates them to after-thoughts when I've played, if we use by-the-book bounties; you don't stop the bad guy for the bounty, you stop him for other reasons, and the bounty is a bonus.
The main financial treasure has always been in the form of loot when I've played, as a rule.

The exception is any time when you've got additional backing. If you're part of a merc company that supplies your armor and weapons, for example, it might be worth risking somebody else's money for low amounts of personal profit.

the problem with treating bounties as an afterthought is that irl they're specifically intended to incentivize certain behaviours; if the government puts out a bounty on, say, an invasive breed of raccoon or something, they're not just thining "hey, wouldn't it be great to give people who already hunt raccoons a bit of extra money", they're thinking "maybe we can get some of the people who have the skills to do this fairly difficult thing (invasive species populations can fairly easily get out of hand) that they otherwise might not be doing".

and they should be the same in rifts; a bounty on xiticix isn't something anyone should be putting in place to pay people that are unable to avoid fights with the xiticix (but still manage to kill at least one) in the event that it happens, it's something you should be putting into place to get those that have the skills and resources to hunt xiticix to be doing that instead of doing other things (and if you're really lucky, you'll get two birds with one stone and people that previously were hunting, say, merchants, will switch to hunting xiticix). otherwise your bounty basically does nothing (now, in the case of xiticix in particular, bounties are pretty much never going to work because nobody has the cash to pay enough for the sheer number of xiticix in north america, even at extremely low payout amounts, so you're never going to be able to afford to even put a noticeable dent in their numbers, but the principle remains... if you want someone to track down the splugorth squad that's been raiding your outlying farms, you're going to need to offer a bounty that at least covers the minimum ammunition cost presuming reasonable equipment. the same should be true for other forms of work).

[guardiandashi]

I know a lot of games have the same basic financial issue that makes you just go "huh? and huh???! " when you get to the payout vs expense ratios.

personally I am pretty convinced that Kevin and company just made prices up by saying "oh $ sounds good" without actually knowing anything about how a real economy would work.

I mean don't get me wrong, I don't have a huge issue with the cost of buying eclips for example (I do think the list prices are awfully high and reducing them ~5-10x would be more realistic, but whatever) but the recharge prices are frankly highway robbery UNLESS those prices are essentially removing spent fuel of some kind and replacing it with new "fuel" if you reduced the "base" cost of an eclip from 5000 cr to 500, and a recharge from ~1000cr to ~10-20 that would make a lot of the "rewards" make sense, especially if the repair cost of armor was significantly reduced as well. the purchase price for armor and weapons is still a little steep but arguably not totally outrageous.

of course for something like the coalition all those suits of "deadboy armor", and guns in a lot of ways only cost them what they say (claim) they cost them but for the soldier they are "free" as issue gear, and price only comes in if they get in trouble and "have to repair or replace it, out of pocket, and can't just requisition a replacement, for some reason.

[boring7]

Ignore, Avoid, or Embrace

Ignore: Don't use the in book numbers for the pay out, or have a plot point that you work for an outfit where repairs are considered part of your employement

Avoid: Play characters that make use of a renewable resource. Usually magic armor, or natural MD Beings

Embrace: Pretty much what the second guy said.

----

Honestly i've had the most success with Ignore or Avoid

Never really had the "small payouts" problem because of Avoid. In fact, the hardest part has been making sure I don't invert the problem.

There are *so* many ways to "cheat" or "hack" the economics presented (without bending or breaking a single rule) to give yourself infinite money. At most they take time, and are off the table for parties that care about their short-lived members (e.g. Juicers, crazies, and such) and might require you bake the exploit into your character creation. To be sure, there are just as many ways for the GM to take your money away; but it illuminates the original problem. It reiterates that the economics don't make sense.

You have to have a "gentlemen's agreement" with the rest of the group to determine what a "fair" fight/payout rate is, and how much money your characters should be making off of their exploits. Which is essentially 'Ignore'.

[Killer Cyborg]

the problem with treating bounties as an afterthought is that irl they're specifically intended to incentivize certain behaviours; if the government puts out a bounty on, say, an invasive breed of raccoon or something, they're not just thining "hey, wouldn't it be great to give people who already hunt raccoons a bit of extra money", they're thinking "maybe we can get some of the people who have the skills to do this fairly difficult thing (invasive species populations can fairly easily get out of hand) that they otherwise might not be doing".

Last I checked the bounty on wild hogs was $5/tail.
That's supplemental income, not something that's going to replace a day job.

and they should be the same in rifts; a bounty on xiticix isn't something anyone should be putting in place to pay people that are unable to avoid fights with the xiticix (but still manage to kill at least one) in the event that it happens, it's something you should be putting into place to get those that have the skills and resources to hunt xiticix to be doing that instead of doing other things (and if you're really lucky, you'll get two birds with one stone and people that previously were hunting, say, merchants, will switch to hunting xiticix). otherwise your bounty basically does nothing (now, in the case of xiticix in particular, bounties are pretty much never going to work because nobody has the cash to pay enough for the sheer number of xiticix in north america, even at extremely low payout amounts, so you're never going to be able to afford to even put a noticeable dent in their numbers, but the principle remains... if you want someone to track down the splugorth squad that's been raiding your outlying farms, you're going to need to offer a bounty that at least covers the minimum ammunition cost presuming reasonable equipment. the same should be true for other forms of work).

What's the current official bounty for a Splugorth squad?

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

the problem with treating bounties as an afterthought is that irl they're specifically intended to incentivize certain behaviours; if the government puts out a bounty on, say, an invasive breed of raccoon or something, they're not just thining "hey, wouldn't it be great to give people who already hunt raccoons a bit of extra money", they're thinking "maybe we can get some of the people who have the skills to do this fairly difficult thing (invasive species populations can fairly easily get out of hand) that they otherwise might not be doing".

Last I checked the bounty on wild hogs was $5/tail.
That's supplemental income, not something that's going to replace a day job.

and they should be the same in rifts; a bounty on xiticix isn't something anyone should be putting in place to pay people that are unable to avoid fights with the xiticix (but still manage to kill at least one) in the event that it happens, it's something you should be putting into place to get those that have the skills and resources to hunt xiticix to be doing that instead of doing other things (and if you're really lucky, you'll get two birds with one stone and people that previously were hunting, say, merchants, will switch to hunting xiticix). otherwise your bounty basically does nothing (now, in the case of xiticix in particular, bounties are pretty much never going to work because nobody has the cash to pay enough for the sheer number of xiticix in north america, even at extremely low payout amounts, so you're never going to be able to afford to even put a noticeable dent in their numbers, but the principle remains... if you want someone to track down the splugorth squad that's been raiding your outlying farms, you're going to need to offer a bounty that at least covers the minimum ammunition cost presuming reasonable equipment. the same should be true for other forms of work).

What's the current official bounty for a Splugorth squad?

Wild hogs don't shoot back, and the chance of them doing any kind of damage to your truck is minimal. Even if I used my 6.5 Creedmoor, with the factory ammo I've been buying, I could profit off each wild hog. If I switched to one of my 7.62 NATO rifles and used my reloads, the profit would increase.

This doesn't hold true for any of the monsters with a printed bounty, unless you ONLY use energy weapons that draw power from a vehicle's power source, and then only if you can put them down before they can inflict any damage to friendlies.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

This has given me some ideas. I'll take some time this week and write something up to post here.

[dreicunan]

the problem with treating bounties as an afterthought is that irl they're specifically intended to incentivize certain behaviours; if the government puts out a bounty on, say, an invasive breed of raccoon or something, they're not just thining "hey, wouldn't it be great to give people who already hunt raccoons a bit of extra money", they're thinking "maybe we can get some of the people who have the skills to do this fairly difficult thing (invasive species populations can fairly easily get out of hand) that they otherwise might not be doing".

Last I checked the bounty on wild hogs was $5/tail.
That's supplemental income, not something that's going to replace a day job.

and they should be the same in rifts; a bounty on xiticix isn't something anyone should be putting in place to pay people that are unable to avoid fights with the xiticix (but still manage to kill at least one) in the event that it happens, it's something you should be putting into place to get those that have the skills and resources to hunt xiticix to be doing that instead of doing other things (and if you're really lucky, you'll get two birds with one stone and people that previously were hunting, say, merchants, will switch to hunting xiticix). otherwise your bounty basically does nothing (now, in the case of xiticix in particular, bounties are pretty much never going to work because nobody has the cash to pay enough for the sheer number of xiticix in north america, even at extremely low payout amounts, so you're never going to be able to afford to even put a noticeable dent in their numbers, but the principle remains... if you want someone to track down the splugorth squad that's been raiding your outlying farms, you're going to need to offer a bounty that at least covers the minimum ammunition cost presuming reasonable equipment. the same should be true for other forms of work).

What's the current official bounty for a Splugorth squad?

Wild hogs don't shoot back, and the chance of them doing any kind of damage to your truck is minimal. Even if I used my 6.5 Creedmoor, with the factory ammo I've been buying, I could profit off each wild hog. If I switched to one of my 7.62 NATO rifles and used my reloads, the profit would increase.

This doesn't hold true for any of the monsters with a printed bounty, unless you ONLY use energy weapons that draw power from a vehicle's power source, and then only if you can put them down before they can inflict any damage to friendlies.

Magic is also a freely renewable resource for some beings. Others are naturally mdc and can heal.

[Killer Cyborg]

the problem with treating bounties as an afterthought is that irl they're specifically intended to incentivize certain behaviours; if the government puts out a bounty on, say, an invasive breed of raccoon or something, they're not just thining "hey, wouldn't it be great to give people who already hunt raccoons a bit of extra money", they're thinking "maybe we can get some of the people who have the skills to do this fairly difficult thing (invasive species populations can fairly easily get out of hand) that they otherwise might not be doing".

Last I checked the bounty on wild hogs was $5/tail.
That's supplemental income, not something that's going to replace a day job.

and they should be the same in rifts; a bounty on xiticix isn't something anyone should be putting in place to pay people that are unable to avoid fights with the xiticix (but still manage to kill at least one) in the event that it happens, it's something you should be putting into place to get those that have the skills and resources to hunt xiticix to be doing that instead of doing other things (and if you're really lucky, you'll get two birds with one stone and people that previously were hunting, say, merchants, will switch to hunting xiticix). otherwise your bounty basically does nothing (now, in the case of xiticix in particular, bounties are pretty much never going to work because nobody has the cash to pay enough for the sheer number of xiticix in north america, even at extremely low payout amounts, so you're never going to be able to afford to even put a noticeable dent in their numbers, but the principle remains... if you want someone to track down the splugorth squad that's been raiding your outlying farms, you're going to need to offer a bounty that at least covers the minimum ammunition cost presuming reasonable equipment. the same should be true for other forms of work).

What's the current official bounty for a Splugorth squad?

Wild hogs don't shoot back

I'm not the one who brought up varmint bounties. Just working with the analogy I was dealt.

This doesn't hold true for any of the monsters with a printed bounty, unless you ONLY use energy weapons that draw power from a vehicle's power source, and then only if you can put them down before they can inflict any damage to friendlies.

Or if you use magic or psionics, or railguns with cheap ammo, or vibro-blades, or other attacks that don't cost much.
And yeah, put them down before they can inflict any damage to friendlies.
That's a good goal.

[Shark_Force]

a wild hog can be killed with a bullet that costs something like 50-60 cents, maybe as much as a dollar, and is unlikely to inflict 1,000 dollars or more in damage to any equipment you use. you can kill it with one bullet if you are accurate. it is also something you might do as a recreational activity, and which you might otherwise have had to pay for (and depending on where you live, demand might be much higher than supply in which case you're going to be buying lottery tickets, so you might not even be able to hunt legally at all except for varmint hunting)

a xiticix, on the other hand, is likely to require many shots (even the more powerful railguns do around 1d6x10 MD per action), and that isn't enough to kill a xiticix warrior at all reliably... and that assumes you're even someone who can use weapons that large). which means you're unlikely to kill it before it can fight back, and if you're one of the majority of people that cannot use those weapons with less expensive ammunition (railguns are large, bulky, and require rather impressive strength values to use; TW weapons require that you be either psychic or trained to use magic in general or TW weapons in particular).

essentially, you're *really* limiting your potential to get anyone to actually do what you're trying to incentivize when it's dangerous expensive work and you're offering nothing.

i actually like the high costs. i like that rifts is not designed as a game where you kick in the door, shoot everything, then move on to the next 10x10 room, do that 5 more times, take a rest, and then do it all again tomorrow. where you start by asking yourself *if* this fight is necessary, and then only if it is do you start trying to figure out how to not just win the fight, but win it in a way that isn't phyrric. i think that works fine for a normal game.

but it falls flat on its face when it comes to running a mercenary game. a group of wandering adventurers trying to find the secret to immortality or get their families back from the splugorth and righting wrongs and fighting injustice along the way aren't explicitly trying to make money. but a mercenary, that's a whole different story; no way is a mercenary going to get into a fight for you if you're not paying them enough to cover reasonable expenses. or, to look at it another way...

if you've ever GM'd you realize there's quite a bit of work involved. you create places, NPCs, maybe you draw pictures or make maps, figure out how you want your world to fit together, maybe do some research, come up with new ideas, adapt stuff from wherever you can find it, etc, and you probably do all that with no expectation of much more than an evening of fun with your friends. depending on group, you may also be exempt from chipping in for pizza and snacks. that's about the extent of "payment" that i've ever heard of, though.

but if that was your job (and for mercenaries, getting involved in your problems *is* their job), you're going to expect to paid a reasonable amount for the work you're putting in. that model of a dragon you buy for gaming because it's fun that cost you 120 bucks? you're not going to buy that for work on a regular basis unless they're paying you enough to cover the cost, and also to pay for your time, labour, and skills.

so the high costs? i have no real problem with those. i think it encourages a style of gaming that fits. it makes you realize that yeah, the glitter boy starts off with 770 MDC and the most powerful railgun in the world... but if you want him to still have have that stuff a week from now, you'd better start finding solutions that don't involve you getting shot (and frankly, solutions that don't involve you shooting would be good too... that boom gun is like a giant flashing neon sign floating over your head that announces your location). but when it's a mercenary RPA pilot, well, any time there's a risk to your armour, the pay had better be good enough to cover your expenses or you just aren't going to get involved. if people aren't willing to pay appropriately for the skills and resources you have, you're not going to give it to them, because there's a difference between a job and a hobby.

[Glistam]

Always insist on getting Armor Repairs and Ammo Replacement/Recharges as part of the contract. If they won't (or can't) support that, then they don't really want your expensive business. Now it's on you and your alignment to decide if the risk is worth pursuing.

[Alrik Vas]

Negotiation is a big part of it. They say there's a standing 50cr bounty on an X-bug. Go to them and say, "alright, i'll bring you all the carcasses I can carry, but when I come back here with their queen, I want a 5million credit bonus."

They look at you like you're crazy. You smile like you've done it before. They get to scraping money together in case you come back alive.

It can pay to be ambitious. Of course, it can also get you killed, sometimes by the very people who should be paying you. >.>

[Killer Cyborg]

a wild hog can be killed with a bullet that costs something like 50-60 cents, maybe as much as a dollar, and is unlikely to inflict 1,000 dollars or more in damage to any equipment you use. you can kill it with one bullet if you are accurate. it is also something you might do as a recreational activity, and which you might otherwise have had to pay for (and depending on where you live, demand might be much higher than supply in which case you're going to be buying lottery tickets, so you might not even be able to hunt legally at all except for varmint hunting)

Correct.

a xiticix, on the other hand, is likely to require many shots (even the more powerful railguns do around 1d6x10 MD per action), and that isn't enough to kill a xiticix warrior at all reliably... and that assumes you're even someone who can use weapons that large).

That depends on who you are.
This is Rifts, after all: a dragon could kill a single xiticix without much effort, rest up a bit afterward, and be as good as new.
Kind of like how when you think of hog-hunters, you think of people equipped to do that kind of thing without much trouble. You don't think of somebody who's risking their life.

which means you're unlikely to kill it before it can fight back

That depends on who you are, and what kind of approach you take.
If you're just a guy in EBA with a Wilk's rifle, then yeah... maybe this isn't the bounty for you. So don't take it.
Leave it for somebody better equipped to handle the job.

i actually like the high costs. i like that rifts is not designed as a game where you kick in the door, shoot everything, then move on to the next 10x10 room, do that 5 more times, take a rest, and then do it all again tomorrow. where you start by asking yourself *if* this fight is necessary, and then only if it is do you start trying to figure out how to not just win the fight, but win it in a way that isn't phyrric. i think that works fine for a normal game.

but it falls flat on its face when it comes to running a mercenary game. a group of wandering adventurers trying to find the secret to immortality or get their families back from the splugorth and righting wrongs and fighting injustice along the way aren't explicitly trying to make money. but a mercenary, that's a whole different story; no way is a mercenary going to get into a fight for you if you're not paying them enough to cover reasonable expenses.

Part of being a mercenary is picking and choosing your jobs. That's part of any kind of independent, for-hire occupation.
Just ask any artist how often people expect them to work "for exposure."
If you're a smart artist, you're just going to turn down those jobs.

Pulling out my copy of Merc Ops, and looking over pages 8-11...
The CR50/head for xiticix is something that is "Dead Only," and is "applicable only to select wilderness communities."
It's not something that an average mercenary is going to look for.
A wild Psi-Stalker pack/tribe that have MDC mounts and the right weapons, on the other hand, should be able to collect that kind of bounty without much trouble.
A gang of 1d6 City Rats with no special powers or pets? Probably not. But it's not something likely to be in their territory anyway, unless they're living in a select wilderness community.
Same with most of these "Select Wilderness Community" bounties.
CR 100 for the head of a Brodkil or Gargoyle seems pretty low. If I was a Mercenary, I'd skip that kind of bounty. If I killed either of these guys, I'd try to get the CR 2k for the head of a "Supernatural Monster." Shop it around a bit, see who pays the most.
CR 1,000/head for secondary vampires? Yeah, I might bite, depending. Water and crosses are fairly cheap.

Meanwhile, the "Common Bounties" starts with CR 2 million for people wanted for Treason. THAT's not a bad motivator.
CR 250k to CR 25 million for Genocide.
Up to CR 5 million for Mass Murder.
Up to CR 250k for a serial killer.
CR 5k-50k for cyber-snatchers.
Up to CR 30k for manslaughter, for crying out loud.
Up to CR 10k for unarmed assault.

There are plenty of bounties for different mercs with different skills, powers, and experience level, and each crime might have any kind of power level.
That guy wanted for Genocide might be a Full Conversion Borg or a Demon, and he might be surrounded by a small army.
Or he might be a normal human Vagabond, hiding out in the Burbs or Downsides, unarmored and all but unarmed.

I don't see any reason why it would be too hard for a GM to make the listed bounties work pretty well. In some cases, they seem skimpy... but in other cases they might be overly-generous.

And this is just looking at bounty-hunting work, which isn't going to be the bulk of Merc work--it's a specialized subset.

[Killer Cyborg]

Negotiation is a big part of it. They say there's a standing 50cr bounty on an X-bug. Go to them and say, "alright, i'll bring you all the carcasses I can carry, but when I come back here with their queen, I want a 5million credit bonus."

They look at you like you're crazy. You smile like you've done it before. They get to scraping money together in case you come back alive.

It can pay to be ambitious. Of course, it can also get you killed, sometimes by the very people who should be paying you. >.>

[Shark_Force]

again: your bounty has to provide significant motivation to get anyone to act the way you want. an adult dragon could probably kill a single xiticix easily (assuming it can find one), but isn't going to do it for 50 CR. in fact, probably nobody who can do it remotely reliably is going to do it for 50 CR a head.

it's a particularly absurd thing when you consider you've basically got these communities trying to screw over heavily-armed people who tend to solve problems with violence.

perhaps even more problematic from a game perspective, is that if mercenaries can be hired for absurdly low amounts of money... what's to prevent the PCs from just solving problems by hiring those inexpensive mercenaries?

i mean, let's face it, a few hundred people with crappy MD weapons and MDC armour with enough vehicles to get them there could probably take down the apocalypse demons. lots of other things that prove difficult for groups of PCs to do, actually. that mechanoid fortress? yeah, that's pretty scary for 4-6 adventurers. not so scary to 4-6 adventurers and a few hundred mercenaries.

[boring7]

again: your bounty has to provide significant motivation to get anyone to act the way you want. an adult dragon could probably kill a single xiticix easily (assuming it can find one), but isn't going to do it for 50 CR. in fact, probably nobody who can do it remotely reliably is going to do it for 50 CR a head.

it's a particularly absurd thing when you consider you've basically got these communities trying to screw over heavily-armed people who tend to solve problems with violence.

perhaps even more problematic from a game perspective, is that if mercenaries can be hired for absurdly low amounts of money... what's to prevent the PCs from just solving problems by hiring those inexpensive mercenaries?

i mean, let's face it, a few hundred people with crappy MD weapons and MDC armour with enough vehicles to get them there could probably take down the apocalypse demons. lots of other things that prove difficult for groups of PCs to do, actually. that mechanoid fortress? yeah, that's pretty scary for 4-6 adventurers. not so scary to 4-6 adventurers and a few hundred mercenaries.

A bounty *can* just be "extra". I believe the example was already laid out for Feral hogs IRL. The idea is that they're going to be killed anyway, because you were out and about in bug territory, you are a little more incentivized to not only kill that random Xiticix scout that you don't think you're going to successfully hide from anyway, but bring back its head as proof.

Though 50 credits might still not be enough to even notice, in the scheme of "do I even want to drag this head home? It smells!"

[Killer Cyborg]

again: your bounty has to provide significant motivation to get anyone to act the way you want. an adult dragon could probably kill a single xiticix easily (assuming it can find one), but isn't going to do it for 50 CR. in fact, probably nobody who can do it remotely reliably is going to do it for 50 CR a head.

Why not?
People kill boars for $5 a head.

it's a particularly absurd thing when you consider you've basically got these communities trying to screw over heavily-armed people who tend to solve problems with violence.

That's the history of the world, though. People like to pay as little as possible.
That's capitalism.

perhaps even more problematic from a game perspective, is that if mercenaries can be hired for absurdly low amounts of money... what's to prevent the PCs from just solving problems by hiring those inexpensive mercenaries?

Give it a whirl. See how it works out.

i mean, let's face it, a few hundred people with crappy MD weapons and MDC armour with enough vehicles to get them there could probably take down the apocalypse demons. lots of other things that prove difficult for groups of PCs to do, actually. that mechanoid fortress? yeah, that's pretty scary for 4-6 adventurers. not so scary to 4-6 adventurers and a few hundred mercenaries.

One way to find out; run it.

[Freemage]

Mixing up the discussion of "mercenaries" and "bounties" makes it a bit more confounding.

A Merc takes a job, with a contract, even just a verbal understanding. Any decent Merc is going to want expenses as part of the deal, or they're going to demand so much money for the job that expenses aren't going to come into it. There will also typically be performance bonuses.

Bounties are a different matter. They're meant to incentivize conduct that is relatively simple for someone who is already in the area to do. If you're an adventurer, or even a Merc on contract in an area with Xitixic, and you happen across a pod of them on patrol, the bounty might tip the scales for you to kill every last one of them (rather than just fighting them off if they weren't part of the job-at-hand).

In theory, one critter might even be worth multiple bounties from different sources. So long as the 'proof of death' is different for each, you could go to one town and turn in all the Xitixic's arms, another to turn in the head, and a third to turn in the torso.

As a further confusion point, "Bounty Hunters" are really freelance Mercs, by the above language--the contract is publicly posted for a specific target(s), and the first one to bring them in gets the payout. Generally, these awards SHOULD be high enough to cover any likely expenses (especially if the bounty is being offered by the CS, who won't take kindly to magic-slinging, naturally MD critters coming in to collect credits from the Prosek Regime). The Bounty Hunter is then just being confident that they'll be the one to collect the payout.

[Alrik Vas]

Yeah, i have to agree with Freemage on a lot of what he said.

I'd also like to swap around the example i gave in a more sensible spirit.

There's a 2 million bounty on a Xit queen.

You and your party go to take her down. You managed to kill 100 or so more bugs in the process, make an extra 5k from the local sheriff that pays for the kegger you have to celebrate afterward.

[Glistam]

I agree with a lot of what KC has said. I think it's also worth noting that there's another way to look at the 50cr./head bounty: supply and demand at work. The Xiticix are a major threat to North America that isn't going away on its own. It can really help illustrate just how bad that threat is, and how numerous they are. Think about just how many Xiticix are being killed and how many heads are being turned for a reward for that reward to have plummeted from a reasonable amount (define whatever that should be in your campaign) to only 50 credits each. There could be piles and piles of Xiticix heads at the offices where these bounties are paid out. And still the Xiticix keep coming.

[Shark_Force]

paying people to do what they were already going to do isn't the point of a bounty. it's getting people to do what they wouldn't otherwise do.

people don't hunt wild hogs for 5 dollars. they hunt wild hogs because it's legal to hunt hogs even if you weren't able to get a tag for a deer, antelope, or whatever. it's the next best thing to many peoples' preferred recreational activity. again, it isn't just that you're getting 5 dollars... it's that you don't have to pay potentially hundreds of dollars to go hunting, or worse, pay hundreds of dollars and not get any tags out of the lottery system at all.

so far as i am aware, nobody really has "xiticix hunting" as any form of recreational activity on rifts earth, the risks of hunting them are tremendous, and the benefit is puny, even if you actually have some means of hauling hundreds of xiticix heads around with you somehow. the only plausible result is that people who already were killing xiticix for one reason or another and are going to a place where there is that small bounty (if they even know about the bounty) and have the ability and desire to drag a bunch of xiticix heads with them will get money, and that's completely pointless; your bounty isn't really accomplishing anything at that point.

for example, those mercs that are fighting off a xiticix attack? well, assuming their ammo isn't already more expensive than the bounty could pay for in the first place (which it could easily be; a particle beam rifle costs about 200 credits per shot in most cases, and a good 3-pulse burst from most pulse lasers costs about the same), increasing the risk of taking even a single point of damage to anyone's armour is simply not worth 50 credits.

i'm not saying the bounty should be 20,000 credits per head (maybe for special ones like diggers or something; killing those might actually impact hive growth rates slightly, as well as how well-equipped the rest of the bugs are since iirc diggers can make resin weapons including the frame for the TW weapons, although the queen has to "activate" them somehow). but at 50 credits, that bounty shouldn't even exist. if there's going to be a bounty, it should be reasonable for the task, otherwise there should be no bounty.

[Shorty Lickens]

This is probably the one-hundredth time this issue has come up in the forums.

Anyway, my standard answer is this: Most bounties in the books need to be increased ten-fold. Even so, you probably won't be able to repair vehicles completely or buy new gear with just bounties and contracts. In my games I usually make it so people offering rewards also tend to help out with repairs and supplies once the job is done. That makes things run much smoother, at least when fighting monsters.

As for the rest of the world, looting is key. In fact looting is pretty much the only way you can possibly survive on Rifts Earth. Its not without precedent. Fallout and The Walking Dead and Mad Max make it pretty damn clear you have to grab whatever you find if you intend to go more than a day in the post-apocalypse.

[Killer Cyborg]

paying people to do what they were already going to do isn't the point of a bounty. it's getting people to do what they wouldn't otherwise do.

people don't hunt wild hogs for 5 dollars. they hunt wild hogs because it's legal to hunt hogs even if you weren't able to get a tag for a deer, antelope, or whatever. it's the next best thing to many peoples' preferred recreational activity. again, it isn't just that you're getting 5 dollars... it's that you don't have to pay potentially hundreds of dollars to go hunting, or worse, pay hundreds of dollars and not get any tags out of the lottery system at all.

And if there's a bounty on somebody/something, you don't have to pay for a hunting licence (or fines, or jail time, or bribing officials).

so far as i am aware, nobody really has "xiticix hunting" as any form of recreational activity on rifts earth,

Psi-Stalkers.
Maybe dragons & supernatural critters.

the risks of hunting them are tremendous, and the benefit is puny, even if you actually have some means of hauling hundreds of xiticix heads around with you somehow. the only plausible result is that people who already were killing xiticix for one reason or another and are going to a place where there is that small bounty (if they even know about the bounty) and have the ability and desire to drag a bunch of xiticix heads with them will get money, and that's completely pointless; your bounty isn't really accomplishing anything at that point.

Could be one reason why that bounty is only for select communities.
Which is one reason why I tried to refocus the conversation to the COMMON bounties, not the "select wilderness communities only" bounties.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Call it "Lifelike"?

[The Beast]

In 1850 the US Government would pay $10 to $25 for proof of executed Native Americans. That's just under $300 to just over $750 in today's money. Hunting down something just as dangerous as a human (or more dangerous in the case of MDC beings) should see a similar bounty if the writers were attempting to keep the setting plausible. Having said that, I don't think that the writers are why the numbers are so low.

[Killer Cyborg]

In 1850 the US Government would pay $10 to $25 for proof of executed Native Americans. That's just under $300 to just over $750 in today's money. Hunting down something just as dangerous as a human (or more dangerous in the case of MDC beings) should see a similar bounty if the writers were attempting to keep the setting plausible. Having said that, I don't think that the writers are why the numbers are so low.

Most bounties in Rifts are well above CR300. It's only the "applicable only to select wilderness communities" bounties that are less than that, and only 3-4 out of 11 of them.
The lowest Common Bounties that I can find are at CR 500, for "Resisting Arrest" and "Forged Documents."

[glitterboy2098]

it could well be that the bounties mentioned by the OP are what they'll pay if you just walk in to their office and deposit proof you killed those things.
and that if they hired you specifically to hunt said creatures, you'd get a higher bounty set by the contract.

[Shorty Lickens]

In 1850 the US Government would pay $10 to $25 for proof of executed Native Americans. That's just under $300 to just over $750 in today's money. Hunting down something just as dangerous as a human (or more dangerous in the case of MDC beings) should see a similar bounty if the writers were attempting to keep the setting plausible. Having said that, I don't think that the writers are why the numbers are so low.

Most bounties in Rifts are well above CR300. It's only the "applicable only to select wilderness communities" bounties that are less than that, and only 3-4 out of 11 of them.
The lowest Common Bounties that I can find are at CR 500, for "Resisting Arrest" and "Forged Documents."

I've been looking over the numbers since I started Rifts back in 1992. Have browsed every book and own most of them.
Near as I can tell, ten CS credits are roughly equal to one American dollar, based on what it can purchase.
A 50 dollar bounty for a felon is CRAP! OK? Crap!

[Killer Cyborg]

In 1850 the US Government would pay $10 to $25 for proof of executed Native Americans. That's just under $300 to just over $750 in today's money. Hunting down something just as dangerous as a human (or more dangerous in the case of MDC beings) should see a similar bounty if the writers were attempting to keep the setting plausible. Having said that, I don't think that the writers are why the numbers are so low.

Most bounties in Rifts are well above CR300. It's only the "applicable only to select wilderness communities" bounties that are less than that, and only 3-4 out of 11 of them.
The lowest Common Bounties that I can find are at CR 500, for "Resisting Arrest" and "Forged Documents."

I've been looking over the numbers since I started Rifts back in 1992. Have browsed every book and own most of them.
Near as I can tell, ten CS credits are roughly equal to one American dollar, based on what it can purchase.
A 50 dollar bounty for a felon is CRAP! OK? Crap!

I'm not going to argue with you about your made-up ratio of Credits to US Dollars.

[Shark_Force]

In 1850 the US Government would pay $10 to $25 for proof of executed Native Americans. That's just under $300 to just over $750 in today's money. Hunting down something just as dangerous as a human (or more dangerous in the case of MDC beings) should see a similar bounty if the writers were attempting to keep the setting plausible. Having said that, I don't think that the writers are why the numbers are so low.

Most bounties in Rifts are well above CR300. It's only the "applicable only to select wilderness communities" bounties that are less than that, and only 3-4 out of 11 of them.
The lowest Common Bounties that I can find are at CR 500, for "Resisting Arrest" and "Forged Documents."

I've been looking over the numbers since I started Rifts back in 1992. Have browsed every book and own most of them.
Near as I can tell, ten CS credits are roughly equal to one American dollar, based on what it can purchase.
A 50 dollar bounty for a felon is CRAP! OK? Crap!

honestly, i don't know how you can look at *anything* to do with the economy in rifts and come to only one conclusion. i would expect there to be on occasion multiple conflicting conclusions per page...

edit: blech, it's late, i'm tired, and i said that wrong. replace "anything" with "everything". i don't know how anyone can look at all of the information there is about the rifts economy and come to one conclusion.

[Alrik Vas]

"Or, how I stopped worrying about price tags and learned to love the Rifts."

SO, uhm. I feel real stupid saying this, but I just came to the conclusion that the massive price tags on the average weapon and suit of power armor (never mind a robot) were not realistically designed to be accomplish able goals for the average player character or group of player characters. I mean, what D&D player ever spent 10 plus million gold on ANYTHING?

The mad price tags on war machines, cyborg parts and the like forces the characters into a level of quid pro quo. You get that new bionic arm, and the king gets that brodkill problem solved. Yeah, we'll give you a NG combat robot, but weve got a small army of zombies roaming the countryside. Like that SAMSON Power Armor? Well, the mayor's daughter was kidnapped by vampires. Nice UAR-1 you got there. Whats that? Multiplel radar contacts squawking Coalition ID?

You get the idea. Wanna play? Gotta pay. but not monies. No character can amass or steal that much money.

Or worse. Ever seen that movie "Lord of War?" Maybe the characters get paid in super illegal drugs, worth several million credits. Or Necromantic supplies.

Option three is the war campaign, where the entire party gets some form of war machine (robots and armor for the pilots, APC/tank for the non-men of arms characters) and they are hired guns instead of freelance adventurers. The characters are issued their gear, military style, and must return them after missions.

Someone else's solution. Narrate the details of cost away and just have fun. It's not a terrible plan, honestly.

[Proseksword]

The primary cost of weapon & vehicles doesn't bother me much. RIFTs is a post-apocalyptic adventure setting with limited access to manufactured goods, after all, and it doesn't seem all that reasonable that players would be buying up a golf-bag full of toys to play with. Capturing or purchasing something other than what you start with should be a major accomplishment, not something you do on a lark.

On the other hand, I've always house-ruled ammo & repair costs to be 1/10th the value presented. While I appreciate Killer Cyborg's suggestion that players should minimize contact with hostiles & look to salvage, my players & I find that kind of game-play rather boring, and we don't really have time for the kind of long, drawn out campaign where bush-whacking dozens of individual Xiticix over the course of several weeks would start to put pressure on our resources.

Further, I agree that the prices provided are pretty nonsensical. Even for an Operator, the cost given for replacing 1 pt of MDC means that repairing 59 MDC on a suit of Bushman armor costs as much as two brand-new suits, & the cost to recharge e-clips makes no sense when any operator can rig up a charger to any generator for infinite free access to ammunition. If the cost of basic supplies is greater over the course of a couple of uses than the whole product, that's a broken economic system. The distinct impression I got with RIFTs is that Kevin wrote it basing the values for everything off Palladium Fantasy w/o any acknowledgement of the differences in the settings or the realities of subsistence-level rural economics. Universal Credits being somehow counterfeitable strikes me as similar nonsensical handwavium, so it's cash or trade-goods in my games outside of major tech centers.

[Killer Cyborg]

On the other hand, I've always house-ruled ammo & repair costs to be 1/10th the value presented. While I appreciate Killer Cyborg's suggestion that players should minimize contact with hostiles & look to salvage, my players & I find that kind of game-play rather boring, and we don't really have time for the kind of long, drawn out campaign where bush-whacking dozens of individual Xiticix over the course of several weeks would start to put pressure on our resources.

I can respect that; games should be customized to a group's playing style.

Further, I agree that the prices provided are pretty nonsensical. Even for an Operator, the cost given for replacing 1 pt of MDC means that repairing 59 MDC on a suit of Bushman armor costs as much as two brand-new suits

If you have 1/60th of a Tuxedo, do you think it would be cheaper to repair that tux, or to buy a new suit (or two)?

& the cost to recharge e-clips makes no sense when any operator can rig up a charger to any generator for infinite free access to ammunition.

The bolded part is the issue, because IIRC it has never been stated to be possible in canon.

[Killer Cyborg]

honestly, i don't know how you can look at [everything] to do with the economy in rifts and come to only one conclusion.

Agreed.
Rifts has been around for pushing 3 decades, and the original idea for Credits was (IIRC) something like a 2:1 ratio (or a 1:2 ratio?) to the US dollar.
But the cost of any number of goods in the real world has changed over that time period, without the book prices changing to compensate.
Meanwhile, you also have issues of Rifts Earth having differing levels of supply and demand from the real world, and you have writers who don't pay any attention to that original ratio, AND there seems to be a preference to never have anything (other than used Wilk's CFT cartridges) cost less than CR1.
So it's a fairly garbled economy.

[Alrik Vas]

& the cost to recharge e-clips makes no sense when any operator can rig up a charger to any generator for infinite free access to ammunition.

The bolded part is the issue, because IIRC it has never been stated to be possible in canon.

It says that Operators can recharge e-clips. It's one of their perks in RUE. That it costs anything is their wish to charge for it, it doesn't really get into whether or not they have to pay into something to make it happen.

Regardless of that, in New West it gives some of the gunslinger type OCC's this perk as well, talking about how they can rewire things with a big power supply to recharge e-clips.

Or are you referring to something else?

[Killer Cyborg]

& the cost to recharge e-clips makes no sense when any operator can rig up a charger to any generator for infinite free access to ammunition.

The bolded part is the issue, because IIRC it has never been stated to be possible in canon.

It says that Operators can recharge e-clips. It's one of their perks in RUE.

Yup... provided they have "the proper equipment," with no description of what that entails.

That it costs anything is their wish to charge for it, it doesn't really get into whether or not they have to pay into something to make it happen.

RUE doesn't address whether the cost is a "friend price," or if it's breaking even.

Regardless of that, in New West it gives some of the gunslinger type OCC's this perk as well, talking about how they can rewire things with a big power supply to recharge e-clips.

The Gunslinger has a unique class ability that lets them jury-rig a recharger out of spare parts.
Operators don't.
Nobody else does.
It can be argued that the recharge costs don't make sense in the face of the Gunslingers' special ability... but I'd go the other way, and say that the Gunslingers' special ability doesn't make much sense in the face of the cost of recharging, the cost of rechargers, and their ability putting them above Operators in ability to recharge e-clips.

[Alrik Vas]

I'm inclined to say anyone with the Electrical Engineer skill can design a recharger and with enough parts, make it. Anyone with basic electronics can figure out wiring to charge an e-clip provided they have a power source.

Just the question of how long it will take. Operators probably charge based on labor. Though that's just my assumption based off them not giving much of any other reason. In reality it's just RPG speak. The bit about Gunslingers is as simple as the author deciding it was something that fit the New West setting, as there isn't supposed to be large tech centers, things are built further away and sometimes in hidden locations, so people had to adapt. Though it doesn't exclude people adapting in other regions.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm inclined to say anyone with the Electrical Engineer skill can design a recharger and with enough parts, make it. Anyone with basic electronics can figure out wiring to charge an e-clip provided they have a power source.

Just the question of how long it will take. Operators probably charge based on labor. Though that's just my assumption based off them not giving much of any other reason. In reality it's just RPG speak. The bit about Gunslingers is as simple as the author deciding it was something that fit the New West setting, as there isn't supposed to be large tech centers, things are built further away and sometimes in hidden locations, so people had to adapt. Though it doesn't exclude people adapting in other regions.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Lots of stuff can be house-ruled, but it's not official.
Officially, there's no mention of anybody other than Gunslingers being able to build or jury-rig rechargers.
People can (and do) house-rule that it's something that's easy to do, and then decide that the official recharge/recharger prices don't make any sense,
Or they can house-rule that it's something difficult enough to do for the official recharge/recharger prices to make sense, and the Gunslinger ability comes off as either badass or silly, depending.

[Shark_Force]

*shrug* up until people started publishing e-clip rechargers all over the place, it was possible to presume that e-clips have such high energy density that the sheer volume of energy stored in them actually means that the relatively low cost of producing electricity adds up high enough that 2000 credits for a recharge was a reasonable markup. after all, who's to say there isn't 1500 credits worth of electricity in those things? you can probably destroy a typical RL building with a couple well-placed blasts from even a (relatively) low-damage laser in rifts, after all... now make electricity harder to generate (there aren't a lot of power plants, no power lines spanning the continent, not a lot of hydroelectric dams around, not a lot of wind or solar power generating plants, and nuclear plants use a limited fuel source that really isn't something you just find lying on the ground in most places)...

of course, now we can put a price on recharging an e-clip. if there's a recharger you can buy for 1 million credits with 5 slots (because that's easier for math) that each recharge a spent e-clip in 12 hours (again, easier math) and doesn't need new fuel for a year, then you now know that 36,500 e-clips cost the provider at least 1,000,000 credits... which comes out to under 30 credits each. i don't know the exact stats on the new chargers (haven't bought anything that has that information), but iirc they're even more effective than that. which means the cost of those chargers *really* isn't lining up properly with the cost to recharge an e-clip. and those kinds of profit margins should only exist if someone pretty much has a total monopoly (and the firepower to prevent someone from ending that monopoly by force)... or, in other words, it doesn't fit with e-clip chargers being even *remotely* widely available.

[Killer Cyborg]

*shrug* up until people started publishing e-clip rechargers all over the place, it was possible to presume that e-clips have such high energy density that the sheer volume of energy stored in them actually means that the relatively low cost of producing electricity adds up high enough that 2000 credits for a recharge was a reasonable markup. after all, who's to say there isn't 1500 credits worth of electricity in those things? you can probably destroy a typical RL building with a couple well-placed blasts from even a (relatively) low-damage laser in rifts, after all... now make electricity harder to generate (there aren't a lot of power plants, no power lines spanning the continent, not a lot of hydroelectric dams around, not a lot of wind or solar power generating plants, and nuclear plants use a limited fuel source that really isn't something you just find lying on the ground in most places)...

Officially, an e-clip holds the same energy as 1,000 car batteries, as per CB1.

of course, now we can put a price on recharging an e-clip. if there's a recharger you can buy for 1 million credits with 5 slots (because that's easier for math) that each recharge a spent e-clip in 12 hours (again, easier math) and doesn't need new fuel for a year, then you now know that 36,500 e-clips cost the provider at least 1,000,000 credits... which comes out to under 30 credits each. i don't know the exact stats on the new chargers (haven't bought anything that has that information), but iirc they're even more effective than that. which means the cost of those chargers *really* isn't lining up properly with the cost to recharge an e-clip. and those kinds of profit margins should only exist if someone pretty much has a total monopoly (and the firepower to prevent someone from ending that monopoly by force)... or, in other words, it doesn't fit with e-clip chargers being even *remotely* widely available.

I certainly agree that things were less problematic before Palladium started publishing e-clip recharging machines.

Here's a summary that Nekira did a while back, regarding the Universal E-Clip Recharger in Merc Ops (p. 118):
viewtopic.php?p=2621331#p2621331

I just looked at the Universal E-clip recharger in Merc Ops and did some math.

it costs 790,00 as the list price, but is often jacked up 2-3 times depending on local availability. it comes with eight ports each of which can recharge an e-clip in an hour.

So lets break it down. assuming 800 credits is the average minimum to get an operator to re-charge it for you, and each e-clip you use this product to recharge yourself is therefore 800 saved vs the cost of the machine, then you can, potentially, save up to 6,400 credits in an hour.

790,000. This means it takes a minimum of 124 hours for the machine to actually pay for itself.

Now that seems reasonable. Until you realize that, in order to make a profit on this purchae, a typical party of 4 players, assuming they spend exactly one e-clip every fight, need to get into a total of 248 fights for this device to pay for itself. or, more blunty:

at 800 credits a pop, and assuming you bought it at list price, a player group has to recharge a total of 988 e-clips in order for this to pay for itself.

How many player groups would ever see a return on investment: i'm going to be honest here: i've played rifts pretty continouslys for almost 10 years now, and I can honestly say, I don't think i've ever gone through 1000 e-clips adding the total e-clips expended by every PC and NPC in every single game of Robotech, Rifts, or Phase World i've ever played, total.

In short, if you buy this, you are buying it SOLELY for the logistical advantage of carrying a charge with you, because assuming you have fights every week epending a total of 8 e-clips every game, you would need to play for over 2 years of basically ceaseless battle for a charger to pay for itself. and if your GM screwed you and had you pay triple? congradulations, your looking at over 5 years of weekly nonstop combat to even have a hope of paying it off. I really hope you play only for the combat, because if your group likes to roleplay and interact with each-other/enviroment/npc's, you probablly won't ever see a profit.

[TeeAychEeMarchHare]

*shrug* up until people started publishing e-clip rechargers all over the place, it was possible to presume that e-clips have such high energy density that the sheer volume of energy stored in them actually means that the relatively low cost of producing electricity adds up high enough that 2000 credits for a recharge was a reasonable markup. after all, who's to say there isn't 1500 credits worth of electricity in those things? you can probably destroy a typical RL building with a couple well-placed blasts from even a (relatively) low-damage laser in rifts, after all... now make electricity harder to generate (there aren't a lot of power plants, no power lines spanning the continent, not a lot of hydroelectric dams around, not a lot of wind or solar power generating plants, and nuclear plants use a limited fuel source that really isn't something you just find lying on the ground in most places)...

Officially, an e-clip holds the same energy as 1,000 car batteries, as per CB1.

of course, now we can put a price on recharging an e-clip. if there's a recharger you can buy for 1 million credits with 5 slots (because that's easier for math) that each recharge a spent e-clip in 12 hours (again, easier math) and doesn't need new fuel for a year, then you now know that 36,500 e-clips cost the provider at least 1,000,000 credits... which comes out to under 30 credits each. i don't know the exact stats on the new chargers (haven't bought anything that has that information), but iirc they're even more effective than that. which means the cost of those chargers *really* isn't lining up properly with the cost to recharge an e-clip. and those kinds of profit margins should only exist if someone pretty much has a total monopoly (and the firepower to prevent someone from ending that monopoly by force)... or, in other words, it doesn't fit with e-clip chargers being even *remotely* widely available.

I certainly agree that things were less problematic before Palladium started publishing e-clip recharging machines.

Here's a summary that Nekira did a while back, regarding the Universal E-Clip Recharger in Merc Ops (p. 118):
http://palladium-megaverse.com/forums/v ... 1#p2621331

I just looked at the Universal E-clip recharger in Merc Ops and did some math.

it costs 790,00 as the list price, but is often jacked up 2-3 times depending on local availability. it comes with eight ports each of which can recharge an e-clip in an hour.

So lets break it down. assuming 800 credits is the average minimum to get an operator to re-charge it for you, and each e-clip you use this product to recharge yourself is therefore 800 saved vs the cost of the machine, then you can, potentially, save up to 6,400 credits in an hour.

790,000. This means it takes a minimum of 124 hours for the machine to actually pay for itself.

Now that seems reasonable. Until you realize that, in order to make a profit on this purchae, a typical party of 4 players, assuming they spend exactly one e-clip every fight, need to get into a total of 248 fights for this device to pay for itself. or, more blunty:

at 800 credits a pop, and assuming you bought it at list price, a player group has to recharge a total of 988 e-clips in order for this to pay for itself.

How many player groups would ever see a return on investment: i'm going to be honest here: i've played rifts pretty continouslys for almost 10 years now, and I can honestly say, I don't think i've ever gone through 1000 e-clips adding the total e-clips expended by every PC and NPC in every single game of Robotech, Rifts, or Phase World i've ever played, total.

In short, if you buy this, you are buying it SOLELY for the logistical advantage of carrying a charge with you, because assuming you have fights every week epending a total of 8 e-clips every game, you would need to play for over 2 years of basically ceaseless battle for a charger to pay for itself. and if your GM screwed you and had you pay triple? congradulations, your looking at over 5 years of weekly nonstop combat to even have a hope of paying it off. I really hope you play only for the combat, because if your group likes to roleplay and interact with each-other/enviroment/npc's, you probablly won't ever see a profit.

Assuming, of course, that one paid cash for the charger. If they traded looted/stolen weapons, armour, vehicles, PA, robots, whatever, it's a bit different.

To me, the advantage of being able to refill my own magazines, in the field, regardless of the level of tech in the area and attitude of the locals, is worth trading a Spoils of War suit of PA, or a bunch of weapons I got from people who no longer need them.

But that's just me.

[Shark_Force]

of course, now we can put a price on recharging an e-clip. if there's a recharger you can buy for 1 million credits with 5 slots (because that's easier for math) that each recharge a spent e-clip in 12 hours (again, easier math) and doesn't need new fuel for a year, then you now know that 36,500 e-clips cost the provider at least 1,000,000 credits... which comes out to under 30 credits each. i don't know the exact stats on the new chargers (haven't bought anything that has that information), but iirc they're even more effective than that. which means the cost of those chargers *really* isn't lining up properly with the cost to recharge an e-clip. and those kinds of profit margins should only exist if someone pretty much has a total monopoly (and the firepower to prevent someone from ending that monopoly by force)... or, in other words, it doesn't fit with e-clip chargers being even *remotely* widely available.

I certainly agree that things were less problematic before Palladium started publishing e-clip recharging machines.

Here's a summary that Nekira did a while back, regarding the Universal E-Clip Recharger in Merc Ops (p. 118):
viewtopic.php?p=2621331#p2621331

I just looked at the Universal E-clip recharger in Merc Ops and did some math.

it costs 790,00 as the list price, but is often jacked up 2-3 times depending on local availability. it comes with eight ports each of which can recharge an e-clip in an hour.

So lets break it down. assuming 800 credits is the average minimum to get an operator to re-charge it for you, and each e-clip you use this product to recharge yourself is therefore 800 saved vs the cost of the machine, then you can, potentially, save up to 6,400 credits in an hour.

790,000. This means it takes a minimum of 124 hours for the machine to actually pay for itself.

Now that seems reasonable. Until you realize that, in order to make a profit on this purchae, a typical party of 4 players, assuming they spend exactly one e-clip every fight, need to get into a total of 248 fights for this device to pay for itself. or, more blunty:

at 800 credits a pop, and assuming you bought it at list price, a player group has to recharge a total of 988 e-clips in order for this to pay for itself.

How many player groups would ever see a return on investment: i'm going to be honest here: i've played rifts pretty continouslys for almost 10 years now, and I can honestly say, I don't think i've ever gone through 1000 e-clips adding the total e-clips expended by every PC and NPC in every single game of Robotech, Rifts, or Phase World i've ever played, total.

In short, if you buy this, you are buying it SOLELY for the logistical advantage of carrying a charge with you, because assuming you have fights every week epending a total of 8 e-clips every game, you would need to play for over 2 years of basically ceaseless battle for a charger to pay for itself. and if your GM screwed you and had you pay triple? congradulations, your looking at over 5 years of weekly nonstop combat to even have a hope of paying it off. I really hope you play only for the combat, because if your group likes to roleplay and interact with each-other/enviroment/npc's, you probablly won't ever see a profit.

again, this is from the perspective of the PCs (though, that said... i don't think it would be all *that* hard to blow through a truly absurd amount of e-clips for many groups... i like rifts as a game where you try to avoid combat, but i've played with GMs who seem think that every single day needs combat to happen at least once, as well, and depending on your group i could easily see you going through 5+ clips every combat. obviously, if you make extensive use of that south america anti-tank laser assault cannon thing, you could really see some return, even as a PC group).

make this from the perspective of a person running a shop in merctown who just takes in e-clips from various sources, recharges them, returns them, and collects some of the profit? (we'll say 800 credits, since as i recall the official price to get an e-clip recharged is 2,000-2,500 credits, that means you're still leaving plenty of profit for the other merchant... and that way, we don't have to change the math).

that's 124 hours of full use to get back the owner's investment. the rest is pure profit. now, you're probably not going to operate it 24 hours a day. quite possibly there isn't even enough demand to call for that much recharging (which makes me wonder why there aren't less expensive stations that recharge 1 e-clip per hour or something like that for a much lower price, or that build up a charge so they can do a bunch all at once but then it goes down to a much slower rate until the battery is full, because i suspect there are far more shops that *don't* need to recharge 192 e-clips every day than there are shops that do... but again, rifts isn't written by economists, so even though there's a niche to be exploited, i'm not *too* surprised there's nothing to fill it published)...

anyways, back to my main point, in a sufficiently busy location, one of those facilities can pay for itself in under a week, with the rest of its lifespan (i'm not familiar offhand, but i presume it's substantially longer than a week) being pure profit. which leads me to believe that those numbers are a little screwy. yeah, it isn't a good investment for a PC adventurer group. but it means that NPC merchants are massively overcharging for the service of recharging an e-clip.

and if you're getting the full 2,000+ credits yourself? you only need to recharge 390 e-clips, and it will take you just over 2 days running at full capacity. granted, this doesn't account for the fact that there are going to be *some* other labour costs involved (if you have to transport the e-clips to a central location that will presumably have some cost for security and transportation, and if you're operating 24 hours a day you're probably not the *only* person on the job which means you have to pay someone else's salary too), but it just seems wildly off. which, again, isn't too surprising considering if you were to ask kevin how much it would have cost for a recharging station, he'd probably just say "a lot" or something like that, which is super subjective... because after all, nearly 800,000 credits certainly sounds like a lot to most people, it's only when you look at the potential for making money that you suddenly realise this is a paltry investment that will repay itself potentially in less than a week and then generate its own value in revenue every week for probably a few years onward... if you had a product that profitable in real life, you'd need someone to keep investors from constantly pestering you to see if you'd like more seed money...

[Killer Cyborg]

anyways, back to my main point, in a sufficiently busy location, one of those facilities can pay for itself in under a week, with the rest of its lifespan (i'm not familiar offhand, but i presume it's substantially longer than a week) being pure profit. which leads me to believe that those numbers are a little screwy. yeah, it isn't a good investment for a PC adventurer group. but it means that NPC merchants are massively overcharging for the service of recharging an e-clip.

A lot of that depends on how many locations are sufficiently busy to make it pay off that quickly.
I'd put that level of demand as being something pretty limited in both location and duration; most places that have that level of recharging activity required from the private sector would be likely to stabilize one way or the other pretty quickly, if one could find such a place to begin with.
But a lot of that depends on your view of Rifts Earth overall: how common Mega-Damage is, how commonly it is used in combat, etc.

considering if you were to ask kevin how much it would have cost for a recharging station, he'd probably just say "a lot" or something like that, which is super subjective... because after all, nearly 800,000 credits certainly sounds like a lot to most people, it's only when you look at the potential for making money that you suddenly realise this is a paltry investment that will repay itself potentially in less than a week and then generate its own value in revenue every week for probably a few years onward... if you had a product that profitable in real life, you'd need someone to keep investors from constantly pestering you to see if you'd like more seed money...

I would like to talk to Kevin in depth about e-clip recharging prices at some point. It could be quite interesting to get a better idea of his view on the subject.

[Shark_Force]

anyways, back to my main point, in a sufficiently busy location, one of those facilities can pay for itself in under a week, with the rest of its lifespan (i'm not familiar offhand, but i presume it's substantially longer than a week) being pure profit. which leads me to believe that those numbers are a little screwy. yeah, it isn't a good investment for a PC adventurer group. but it means that NPC merchants are massively overcharging for the service of recharging an e-clip.

A lot of that depends on how many locations are sufficiently busy to make it pay off that quickly.
I'd put that level of demand as being something pretty limited in both location and duration; most places that have that level of recharging activity required from the private sector would be likely to stabilize one way or the other pretty quickly, if one could find such a place to begin with.
But a lot of that depends on your view of Rifts Earth overall: how common Mega-Damage is, how commonly it is used in combat, etc.

if the price was 100 credits in some places (say, merctown, or an NG shop literally right next to an NG e-clip factory, or if you're buying from a mercenary company that you happen to come across looking to make a bit of easy money while their charger isn't at maximum capacity), going to as much as 2500 in isolated areas, fine. but the range is 2,000-2,500 last i recall.

and even then, it would still presume there isn't a discount version for isolated shops with a single slot that recharge an e-clip per day (and the shop just has a dozen e-clips in storage or whatever that they exchange full ones for empty) for a much lower cost to manage the needs of those places with much lower demand. (being 1/192 as efficient, you'd expect some major reductions in the cost to buy one, after all... probably not 1/192 of the cost, but even if it's 10% of the cost of the one for the busy locations, it should be able to make it's money back in fairly short order... at 78,000 credits, you'd only need 156 charges for a shop to get their money back, so potentially under half a year... still an excellent investment, quite frankly)