TE - Army Surplus pricing

[Fitz]

I'm in the process of running through the Terran Empire price lists, sorting out the retail and black market costs of various things. Quite a bit of the really useful stuff just has N/A under the Price column of the equipment tables, presumably because it's not stuff the characters can just go out and buy. No "Crazy Vaclav's Used Battle Armour Emporium" on the corner, and that's fair enough.

 

However, it occurred to me that planetary militias, mercenary companies and corporate security are going to have to get their equipment somewhere, and so I thought I'd price some of the unpriced equipment -- stuff like light, medium and heavy battle armour, military (or paramilitary) uniforms, and (god forbid that the party should ever get access to them) Drakon Battlesuits.

 

My problem is that I have absolutely no idea what this sort of equipment is likely to cost. I know that a lot of military equipment is surprisingly costly, but not having had a lot to do with arms merchants, I'm working in the dark.

 

Has anyone priced the unpriced TE equipment? Or, failing that, can anyone point me to a useful url for pricing military/paramilitary equipment so that I can do some comparisons?

[BobGreenwade]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

For the "quick" answer, equipment in TE is priced according to the guidelines on page 177 of Star Hero.

[Metaphysician]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

Would even Senatorial Worlds have drakon battle armor for their local forces??

[Fitz]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

Would even Senatorial Worlds have drakon battle armor for their local forces??

 

I would expect that they would, if they could get hold of it -- or they'd make clone designs themselves, in the same way that China cloned a lot of Soviet weapons. Presumably it would be fairly difficult to get the appropriate manufacturing specs, but I don't imagine that industrial espionage is any less common in the Terran Empire than it is today. In fact, that very operation could provide endless (mostly fatal) fun for a roleplaying group

 

Sleazy arms merchants (and unscrupulous arms manufacturers) will always be ready to make some extra money selling to people they shouldn't be selling to, as well. If, for example, the Xenovore Fleet hit a transport carrying battlesuited infantry and managed to disable the ship's propulsion and life support, all they'd have to do is wait and they'd eventually have a very valuable cargo to on-sell.

 

NOTE: I notice, after re-reading the description for the Drakon, that there is no time limit given for the suit's Life Support functions -- still, unless they magically replenish their oxygen and nutrient supplies, eventually the wearers will die. Hell, if you've got the patience, you could just wait for them to die of old age.

[Metaphysician]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

Given that the suits technically have the equivalent of the "real armor" limitation, yeah, the life support ain't unlimited. Its just undefined and left as a plot device.

 

Also, I wasn't so much thinking about availability as the wisdom of acquiring such armor when the Empress probably does not wish for you to acquire it.

[Fitz]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

After tinkering with the Star Hero pricing guide Monsieur Greenwade kindly pointed me to, I came up with a bunch of prices which all please me. The table works quite well.

 

I added a x5 cost modifier for classified military gear, which brought the Dracon to a per-unit cost of about 15 million credits, including the laser, and costing the whole thing as a weapon since it doesn't seem to me to be particularly defensive in nature

 

Lose the x5 "classified" multiplier, and they drop to about 3 million apiece, and if you actually go through and cost out the individual systems according to their item classes, it gets cheaper still (but still in the millions).

 

By comparison, the dearest of the unpowered armours -- the heavy combat armour -- comes out at a mere 50,000 credits. A bargain.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

What are TE Credits the equivalent of? Is 1cr the equivalent of $1 US?

 

If so, thats some expensive armour! (the heavy stuff, not the Powered Armour)

[Fitz]

Re: TE - Army Surplus pricing

 

I treat credits as equivalent to $ although it's never explicitly stated that that is the case.

 

It's not unbelievably expensive really; consider what it costs for a jet fighter or a main battle tank these days. A Dracon battlesuit almost turns an individual soldier into an MBT.