Armor Repair Cost

[Supergyro]

The word "inability" means that he is incapable. Just because he has not provided an example does not mean he is unable to do so.

True, but if he's going to pretend not to know what the word 'example' means, I will continue to believe his charade.

On a more serious note, thank you for the example. It is very illustrative of how it works out. This sort of thing is very useful and I sincerely appreciate your doing so.

Party consisted of:
- Cyber-Knight
- Wilderness Scout
- Juicer
- Merc Soldier
- Samson Pilot

Funds between all of them: ~7000cr

So: Important to note here. At the start, (and I presume this is the start of the game, but not sure.). The *party* starts with enough credits between them to repair about 12 MDC..total. The party is also 80% combat characters. This should ideally, given the party composition, be a combat heavy campaign.

They also have a juicer. Every Rifts party has a juicer, it’s like, the law!

So, if this party wants to have any longevity, the GM has to make available access to cash (either by having them fight guys with lots of $$ or by offering them $$ for jobs or whatnot). And until they get big $$, the GM is forced to have them fight small potatoes. This is a limitation in most RPG’s in one form or another, but in Rifts it’s a killer. Largely because most PC’s are like Christmas trees (like these classes for instance), defined by their ornaments, and those ornaments are very expensive Watch how the sessions go, and how the armor repair dominates things.

Interestingly, only one of the characters is a heavy guy, the Samson, who has one of the lightest power armors. He's as cheap and inexpensive a tech heavy guy as you're going to see.

Summary of last few games:
- Party enters small town that is having some problems with nearby bandits. Beg for help. Offer the party 2000cr (All they could scrounge up) and a place to live in town.
- Party accepts.
- Party engages bandits, freeing slaves, killing punks...etc.

There were approximately 12 bandits. Half were armed with plain SDC firearms and SDC explosives. 4 had ramjet rounds and partial MDC armor providing them about 24MDC. The other 2 had 40 MDC and "light" energy weapons. 3D6 range.

- Party wins. They had taken a total of ~25 MDC (bad rolls) to normal armor and the Samson took about 12. 1 e-clip used up and one half drained.
- Party salvages SDC weaponry, some silver bullets, the scraps of MDC armor, the MDC weapons and e-clips, clothes, food, a few vid-discs and a computer.
Total earned from salvage: 32,650 + 2000 from the town = 34,650
Total spent in repairs and reloading: 25,750
Total profit: 8900
Total funds: 15,900

Needless to say, this party wasn’t fighting anything that was a real challenge. The Samson could have taken these guys single-handedly.

But the GM had to softball the party, the party has no $$. However the shortness of cash doesn’t make the party any weaker in an individual combat. As a result, the only solution is for the GM to softball the party (have them fight things they could wipe the floor with) and the GM is softballing the party but good.

- A week or so later they run into a small settlement dealing with a demon.
- They do some research and learn how the demon works.
- They set a trap and take on the demon taking minimal damage (13 MD)
Total loss: 8,950
Total funds: 6670 (They spent some on food and supplies between locations)

The party doesn’t ‘run into’ a settlement dealing with demons, the GM ‘has them encounter’ a settlement dealing with demons’. This is an incredibly important distinction. The GM has to choose what the party encounters, and the GM is softballing the party again, but the GM has to…. Because Armor Repair is more expensive than they can afford!

When the game design hardwires this sort of softballing of the characters, I think it’s a problem. The sort of marathon ‘death by a thousand cuts’ campaign is a do-able one, but they don’t look like this.

- They think they can get something for some of the demon's parts so they load up with the parts and depart towards a magic based kingdom that could pay them well for it.

Good idea. Did they do a demon/devil lore check (from the cyberknight) to determine approximate value?

- They run across a group of miscreants they've met before. They've got a Titan combat robot (semi depleted missile payload), 3 headhunters and a crazy.

They don’t ‘run across’ a group of miscreants, the GM ‘makes them encounter’ a group of miscreants. Very important, because in the GM’s notes it probably says something like

$$$$$$$ PAYDAY$$$$$$

Here is what a Rifts GM is forced to do. He needs to put in giant paydays or else his hands are tied. Nowhere in the book does it say "As a Rifts GM, you need to put in the opportunity for multi-million credit paydays", but it's what you have to do if they are going to be taking any reasonable amount of damage. And you have to softball the party until you do it.

Otherwise you're limited to combats where an entire party only risks taking 30 MDC of damage, total.

Total damage to party: 220MDC of body armor, 190MDC for the Samson
Total cost of repair and reload: 351,000

So now they need hundreds of thousands of credits.

Total profit from salvaging the camp, the 'bot, and whatever wasn't vaporized by the fusion blocks... which wasn't much: 480,000 + 1,000,000 for an aged nuclear reactor. Total: 1,480,000

And they’re now millionaires! Now the party can actually repair fallout from a fight commensurate to their power level (unless the Sampson loses a hand, at which point that whole chunk of change evaporates).

Salvage and scrounging for anything of worth is what keeps you alive.

And The GM softballing the characters when they’re poor, only being able to really challenge them when there’s availability of millions of credits. Four sessions in, a combat heavy party ( 4 out of 5 of the characters are men at arms) has only had one challenging combat.

It would be different if the system had some sort of mechanic making poverty weaken the party, but it doesn’t. Literal starvation renders you weak and unable to fight (there is a lot of drama when those kobolds have become lethal due to your weakness). However financial starvation doesn’t weaken you, and instead hardwires the sort of softballing observed above.

He sounds like a good GM, who's running the game as it is written. The game is written, however, with required softballing, which really weakens things.

[Noon]

I don't have them play out those long periods. I accelerate past the boring stuff and get to the real meat and potatoes of the adventure. Read the Rifts Adventure Guide... good stuff on running games.

Ok, so your working off the model of the GM taking all responsiblity for how play pans out. What you work from it's not like the system allows for these slow bits and therefore system is atleast partly to blame. Ok. I just don't think much of that model. If I wanted to take full responsiblity, I'd not have any rulebook around me. It'd only hinder rather than help because they are never to blame, yet for some darn reason I have to adhere to them sometimes. Bad setup.

Having 3 MDC means your armor is beat up pretty bad, probably is no longer EBA, and in my game (I believe it's also outlined somewhere in the GMG; meaning official) with armor that low you have an AR. There's still plenty of danger, and just because some punks are SDC it doesn't mean that they can't hurt innocents which your characters have sworn to take advanta.... I mean... care of.

I think this may have gone off topic. If the OP was cool with suddenly going SDC adventures, he wouldn't worry about repair costs. He would just have SDC adventures.

[SkyeFyre]

Ok, in an attempt to avoid further bickering.

I understand both individual's points of view. As someone who wrote out even a basic summary of how repair & reload costs work I would not want to do so more. The amount of numbers and logs I would need to trudge through to provide examples of the game once the group's power began to include several combat robots would be staggering and frankly I wouldn't want to do it. I would have much rather have said roughly how I run the game and expect you to do the math yourself based on the template I provided. I however adapt the way I communicate depending on who I am speaking with and as such did what I didn't want to do. The best language to speak to a French man in is French, the best language to speak to an English man is English. I didn't drop down to any level, it's a lateral movement.

Now on the other hand, instigating a conflict by attacking someone won't get you any answers. I'm frankly not surprised with how KC responded. If I was attacked personally (not my point... me) I would be on the defensive and much more reluctant to be cooperative in any manner.

Ok, so your working off the model of the GM taking all responsiblity for how play pans out. What you work from it's not like the system allows for these slow bits and therefore system is atleast partly to blame. Ok. I just don't think much of that model. If I wanted to take full responsiblity, I'd not have any rulebook around me. It'd only hinder rather than help because they are never to blame, yet for some darn reason I have to adhere to them sometimes. Bad setup.

I'm not sure I understand. Sorry. Is your issue with how little the players have to do with travel? I'll clarify. I don't just say "You get to point B". I do ask questions and get input on how they progress but I'm not foolish enough to spend an entire session having them explain every step to travel a quarter mile out of their 40 mile journey. Give them options, give them choices, but don't play out every step. I'm a story teller, not a precision map maker. I'm not J.R.R. Tolkien, I'm ... well... some other author who is a good story teller

I think this may have gone off topic. If the OP was cool with suddenly going SDC adventures, he wouldn't worry about repair costs. He would just have SDC adventures.

I don't just go SDC adventures. I play the game by the book and sometimes if the players make bad choices or dice rolls go extremely bad they get blasted down to that level. They just need to work their way back up. My game is primarily MDC actually. I know I didn't write out the complete example as that would take too much time but my players had giant robots, power armors and borgs in their group and they managed just fine with this economy.

To address the above statements about the party not "running into" challenges, you are wrong. I map out my areas and based on the actions of my players and where they decide to go they encounter varying levels of challenges. My players were just smart enough to pick their destinations wisely.

Because it was a request for a lot of information I summarized it without explaining how exactly they "ran into" these encounters as I felt that was outside of the scope of the original request.

He sounds like a good GM, who's running the game as it is written.

Thank you.

[Colt47]

I think armor repair costs are kind of lumped into the same pile as figuring out good rewards. There are some cases where repairing the armor might cost more than a brand new suit, such as when you have to repair a suit of triax military body armor in North America and the repairs obviously require components that are not exactly common. The game has given no real reason to assume that Triax components are compatible with Northern Gun parts and vice versa, so that means repairing such a suit would require rare and often expensive imports.

[Killer Cyborg]

The word "inability" means that he is incapable. Just because he has not provided an example does not mean he is unable to do so.

True, but if he's going to pretend not to know what the word 'example' means, I will continue to believe his charade.

:shrug:
I know what the word means.
If you don't think I used it right, maybe you should look up the definition yourself.

[Killer Cyborg]

Salvage and scrounging for anything of worth is what keeps you alive.

And The GM softballing the characters when they’re poor, only being able to really challenge them when there’s availability of millions of credits. Four sessions in, a combat heavy party ( 4 out of 5 of the characters are men at arms) has only had one challenging combat.

How about you give us an example of the kind of "challenge" that you think is worthy, and how the players overcame it?

The game is written, however, with required softballing, which really weakens things.

You seem think that softballing means "giving the party a fight they can win without getting shot to hell."
I think it means "Giving the players freebies, because you can't or won't play the game by the rules."

[Noon]

I'm not sure I understand. Sorry. Is your issue with how little the players have to do with travel? I'll clarify. I don't just say "You get to point B". I do ask questions and get input on how they progress but I'm not foolish enough to spend an entire session having them explain every step to travel a quarter mile out of their 40 mile journey.

What I'm saying is if someone as GM played out every step, your calling that an error (or something) which by your account 100% attributable to the GM. Even though the rules totally grant that as a valid choice for the GM, you don't blame the rules at all for that. At the very least I'd say the rules are 20% responsible for that 'every step of the mile' play as they let it be a valid choice - so the rules are atleast partly at fault to allow such play to occur. The only thing you say that should change is how the GM runs things - you wont say the rules have themselves, in part, led to this 'every step' poor play and need changing. While I say it's atleast partly the rules fault, not just that the GM should think he's wrong for running every step. I'm just highlighting that difference to wrap up on it, because the 100% GM's error isn't compatable with how I approach it. Just saying it to describe why I'm wrapping up on that subject.

Also the above also goes for using 'tactics and strategy'. If the GM ignores what the player thinks is clever tactics, and just runs an encounter anyway - the rules let him do that. It's valid within the ruleset to choose that, as GM. The rules are atleast partly to blame, if that's considered a poor outcome.

I don't just go SDC adventures. I play the game by the book and sometimes if the players make bad choices or dice rolls go extremely bad they get blasted down to that level. They just need to work their way back up.

Check out what I wrote again - if the OP was cool with working their way back up from SDC, he wouldn't have a prob with MDC armour repair costs.

[SkyeFyre]

I know what you wrote. Most of the time my players can repair their way out of a loss. Just too many losses will drop them down to SDC levels regardless of what the repair costs are.

As far as the travel bit goes: Ok. Don't really have a point to discuss there as I feel it's a matter of taste and I agree that the GM should not ignore the player's actions while traveling. I have often tossed an encounter aside due to my player's actions.

[Shark_Force]

noon, your arguments apply to any system. they have no particular meaning that is exclusively applicable to rifts.

the DM in a game of D&D is responsible for deciding whether or not an adult red dragon attacks a group of level 1 adventurers. the GM in a game of rifts is responsible for deciding if the group of level 1 d-bee shifters (with only gargoyles summoned) gets ambushed by a platoon of FQ glitterboys 1 mile away in open terrain.

technically, in just about *any* RPG, the GM could force you to roleplay out all the mundane, boring actions, and can negate your best attempts to do something. the GM is quite literally in charge of the entire world, and that is the case with every single RPG out there that uses a GM. if you think that rifts or shadowrun or any other RPG prevents the GM from deciding the players don't succeed at something (such as avoiding encounters) or from putting the characters up against something they have no chance of beating, then i can only assume you don't quite understand what it is that a GM does.

[Killer Cyborg]

Also the above also goes for using 'tactics and strategy'. If the GM ignores what the player thinks is clever tactics, and just runs an encounter anyway - the rules let him do that. It's valid within the ruleset to choose that, as GM. The rules are atleast partly to blame, if that's considered a poor outcome.

If the GM wants to railroad players, have Mary Sue NPCs, and/or make any other bad moves, the rules allow that too.
Are you saying that you think that the rules should dictate every action and decision that the GM makes?

[rc_brooks]

Something else I would like to address regarding repair costs....

I have read a few mention that repairs should never cost more than a vehicle is new.

In our world today, we know that isn't true. In fact, on many newer vehicles, I could easily damage one enough cosmetically (though still drivable) there would be enough damage to total the vehicle. That is to say, cost more to repair than it would be to buy another car.

I always give the players the opportunity to sell their vehicle for scrap or parts, and buy a new-used one more cheaply.

Also, there is both an operator and a ley line walking with a mending spell, which helps keep those repair costs down.

[Supergyro]

noon, your arguments apply to any system. they have no particular meaning that is exclusively applicable to rifts.

the DM in a game of D&D is responsible for deciding whether or not an adult red dragon attacks a group of level 1 adventurers. the GM in a game of rifts is responsible for deciding if the group of level 1 d-bee shifters (with only gargoyles summoned) gets ambushed by a platoon of FQ glitterboys 1 mile away in open terrain.

technically, in just about *any* RPG, the GM could force you to roleplay out all the mundane, boring actions, and can negate your best attempts to do something. the GM is quite literally in charge of the entire world, and that is the case with every single RPG out there that uses a GM. if you think that rifts or shadowrun or any other RPG prevents the GM from deciding the players don't succeed at something (such as avoiding encounters) or from putting the characters up against something they have no chance of beating, then i can only assume you don't quite understand what it is that a GM does.

Harsh....

I agree with the sentiment... It's 100% true and addresses a major misconception that too many gamers have when discussing RPG's..

but it's still pretty harsh... perhaps because Shark has been burned by GM's who think otherwise. I know I have (If you've ever been in a game where the GM refuses to take responsibility for being the arbiter of everything that occurs in the game, then you have tasted true sufferring).

[Noon]

Also the above also goes for using 'tactics and strategy'. If the GM ignores what the player thinks is clever tactics, and just runs an encounter anyway - the rules let him do that. It's valid within the ruleset to choose that, as GM. The rules are atleast partly to blame, if that's considered a poor outcome.

If the GM wants to railroad players, have Mary Sue NPCs, and/or make any other bad moves, the rules allow that too.
Are you saying that you think that the rules should dictate every action and decision that the GM makes?

I'm not sure why you bring up the word 'should'? Is that the only way things can be conducted - what should or should not happen? Like some authority dictates it for all?

then i can only assume you don't quite understand what it is that a GM does.

It depends. As I measure it, with a rule you can snip off GM powers (as in what mechanics they can apply) in an instant (assuming you removed the golden rule to begin with - heresy, I know). I mean, you seem to be arguing it's impossible to change, via rules, what a GM does/can do and stay within the games rules. If it were impossible, I guess it'd be true that I don't quite understand what it is that a GM does.

Note: Waiting for the 'You could, but everyone (in the whole world) would reject it. Utterly' responce. How can it be I know that in advance...

[Shark_Force]

if i wanted to play a game where there is a clearly defined set of rules for GMing, i would play a computer game.

the reason i play with a GM is so that moronic things don't take place. if i wanted to play in a world where i try to do something clever and the GM says "i'm sorry, the rules don't say anything about that so it doesn't exist and isn't possible", i wouldn't be playing with a human being on the other side of the GM screen, i'd be playing with a machine on the other side of a computer screen.

placing rules to limit the GM is just dumb. it leads to stupid situations where logical actions cannot be taken because the GM isn't allowed to change things. in short, it leads to a system that is essentially a video game, only instead of having an impartial arbitrator that will consistently (formulaically even) return the same answers to the same question, you have a non-impartial arbitrator that will forget rules, make mistakes, and so forth.

i play table-top RPGs instead of computer RPGs to *remove* limitations. ultimately, that's the only reason to play table top instead of a computer game - no limits. if i can imagine it, my character can do it. without that, i may as well just go play WoW or something, where the GM has very clearly defined restrictions on what it can do, and no matter what your character's actions are the same thing will always happen.

[Noon]

SF, your describing it like it can only be a binary - either absolute freedom or utterly, utterly constrained. No in between.

Okay, it's only one or the other *shrug*
*Spoiler for not terribly on topic stuff*

Spoiler:

if i can imagine it, my character can do it.

But I can't help comment on this much said...missunderstanding? If I'm at home, by myself imagining a character, absolutely whatever I can imagine my character doing, he can do it.

So what happens if you add a GM? Then I have someone who might, after X amount of time, say no (unless they are a total yes man to you). All adding a GM can do is to limit you from what you could have imagined by yourself. Not free you! This is starkly obvious.

Your trying to celebrate a freedom when really it's a restriction you've added. And necessity is the mother of invention. Restriction actually aids creativity. Yet here you are, belating restriction, when really it's the foundation of what you play. Unless what your talking about is sitting at home imagining by yourself, in which case, okay, you've got a point.

Back to the armour stuff...

[Stattick]

Just went over this subject myself.

The armor costs seem appropriate to me. Once you've depleted a suit of armor down to around 30-40% of it's MD remaining, it's less expensive to just buy a new suit. In other words, like a vehicle that's been in a bad wreck, it's been "totalled", and it's less expensive to just replace it.

Now, what doesn't seem appropriate are the vehicle costs. The vehicles seem to cost about half of what they should... it also means that once you've expended around 30% of the MD from a vehicle, it then becomes cheaper to replace the vehicle.

To fix this, one can double the initial listed costs of the vehicles. OR one can charge half of the cost for replacing the MD on vehicles. It makes some sense too - replacing the MD of armor is going to be difficult, painstaking work because you're working in/on small areas with lots of small parts and such. With the greater room on vehicles, there would be a lot less difficult work - less labor, and less cost.

To have someone with the right materials and tools replace MD at cost, in other words without charging for labor, reduce the listed book cost to 1/4.


* I didn't look at robots/power armor and the like. Just personal armor and vehicles.

[kaid]

Typically if you are fighting things strong enough to do MDC to you they either have MDC weapons or magic weapons or are some big nasty critter. Typically if they are a tech opponent using MDC items with some strategy you can recover enough from them to offset your losses. Not always but often. For magic stuff magic users often have magic items and if you can find the right place to trade them they are pretty lucrative.

And if a monster is big enough and slobbery enough to be an MDC threat there is probably somebody who offers a bounty on them which can help offset your operating costs.

And as other people mentioned there is a break even point where as in real life its probably cheaper to replace than repair which is sensible. It is one reason you can let your players have some of the really good armor from time to time because it is a consumable item it will get broken soon enough even with repairs. Give them a chance to put on that mighty plastic man armor and give them a better appreciation of the good stuff when they have it.

It is also one reason it is good to have a balanced group. Having an operator or a techno wizard in your group fixes most problems with upkeep. As long as they have materials to work with they can keep your weapons/armor up to snuff. In the techno wizards spot using the item construction tools it actually is pretty dang easy to make a good armor repair tool that can do 10 MDC at a shot for a pretty darn reasonable PPE cost. If you look the gem needed for the repair spell is actually really inexpensive so you can afford to put a really big one in which minimizes the PPE cost.

Also if you have a magic user around their ability to basically put force fields on people greatly helps cut down attritional damage amongst the group.


As with any RPG game it takes a bit for a GM to find the right level of risk vs reward and in a game like rifts where the armor is basically consumable unlike D&D or pathfinder players have to be aware of the situation and doing this is a good excuse for role playing. Say your party is broke and their MDC armor is down to 3MDC. It may be a good time to hire on with a merc company or a city state where they can provide you some armor or repairs in return for helping them out or working for them. Players of all OCC have very marketable skills so if money is tight there are jobs for them to be had.

[Damian Magecraft]

Just went over this subject myself.

The armor costs seem appropriate to me. Once you've depleted a suit of armor down to around 30-40% of it's MD remaining, it's less expensive to just buy a new suit. In other words, like a vehicle that's been in a bad wreck, it's been "totalled", and it's less expensive to just replace it.

Now, what doesn't seem appropriate are the vehicle costs. The vehicles seem to cost about half of what they should... it also means that once you've expended around 30% of the MD from a vehicle, it then becomes cheaper to replace the vehicle.

To fix this, one can double the initial listed costs of the vehicles. OR one can charge half of the cost for replacing the MD on vehicles. It makes some sense too - replacing the MD of armor is going to be difficult, painstaking work because you're working in/on small areas with lots of small parts and such. With the greater room on vehicles, there would be a lot less difficult work - less labor, and less cost.

To have someone with the right materials and tools replace MD at cost, in other words without charging for labor, reduce the listed book cost to 1/4.


* I didn't look at robots/power armor and the like. Just personal armor and vehicles.

I dunno have you seen the repair to replace cost ratios on todays modern vehicles?
Someone took a baseball bat to the windshield of my fathers new car (not even a week old when it happened.)
The insurance company chose to "total" the car and have it replaced rather than replace the glass...
Why? because according to them the glass cost more than the car was worth.

[kaid]

Just went over this subject myself.

The armor costs seem appropriate to me. Once you've depleted a suit of armor down to around 30-40% of it's MD remaining, it's less expensive to just buy a new suit. In other words, like a vehicle that's been in a bad wreck, it's been "totalled", and it's less expensive to just replace it.

Now, what doesn't seem appropriate are the vehicle costs. The vehicles seem to cost about half of what they should... it also means that once you've expended around 30% of the MD from a vehicle, it then becomes cheaper to replace the vehicle.

To fix this, one can double the initial listed costs of the vehicles. OR one can charge half of the cost for replacing the MD on vehicles. It makes some sense too - replacing the MD of armor is going to be difficult, painstaking work because you're working in/on small areas with lots of small parts and such. With the greater room on vehicles, there would be a lot less difficult work - less labor, and less cost.

To have someone with the right materials and tools replace MD at cost, in other words without charging for labor, reduce the listed book cost to 1/4.


* I didn't look at robots/power armor and the like. Just personal armor and vehicles.

I dunno have you seen the repair to replace cost ratios on todays modern vehicles?
Someone took a baseball bat to the windshield of my fathers new car (not even a week old when it happened.)
The insurance company chose to "total" the car and have it replaced rather than replace the glass...
Why? because according to them the glass cost more than the car was worth.

I find that kind of odd. I just got my window replaced on my new kia soul for 300 bucks installed. Now if they took a baseball bat to the body panels I can almost see that those can be insanely expensive to replace if they do enough of them.

[Damian Magecraft]

Just went over this subject myself.

The armor costs seem appropriate to me. Once you've depleted a suit of armor down to around 30-40% of it's MD remaining, it's less expensive to just buy a new suit. In other words, like a vehicle that's been in a bad wreck, it's been "totalled", and it's less expensive to just replace it.

Now, what doesn't seem appropriate are the vehicle costs. The vehicles seem to cost about half of what they should... it also means that once you've expended around 30% of the MD from a vehicle, it then becomes cheaper to replace the vehicle.

To fix this, one can double the initial listed costs of the vehicles. OR one can charge half of the cost for replacing the MD on vehicles. It makes some sense too - replacing the MD of armor is going to be difficult, painstaking work because you're working in/on small areas with lots of small parts and such. With the greater room on vehicles, there would be a lot less difficult work - less labor, and less cost.

To have someone with the right materials and tools replace MD at cost, in other words without charging for labor, reduce the listed book cost to 1/4.


* I didn't look at robots/power armor and the like. Just personal armor and vehicles.

I dunno have you seen the repair to replace cost ratios on todays modern vehicles?
Someone took a baseball bat to the windshield of my fathers new car (not even a week old when it happened.)
The insurance company chose to "total" the car and have it replaced rather than replace the glass...
Why? because according to them the glass cost more than the car was worth.

I find that kind of odd. I just got my window replaced on my new kia soul for 300 bucks installed. Now if they took a baseball bat to the body panels I can almost see that those can be insanely expensive to replace if they do enough of them.

Not that odd at all really...
The Eagle Talon when it was being produced had the same sort of issue...
Due to the nature of the back window if it ever got damaged it was cheaper to replace the car than the window. (the rear windows had to be made to order for the after market).

[Akashic Soldier]

Its important to note that these are the repair costs bot M.D.C. vehicles and armors which (in the same place the repair price is listed) explains that repairing such things require special facilities and tools that the average person does not have access to.

[Subjugator]

* I didn't look at robots/power armor and the like. Just personal armor and vehicles.

I dunno have you seen the repair to replace cost ratios on todays modern vehicles?
Someone took a baseball bat to the windshield of my fathers new car (not even a week old when it happened.)
The insurance company chose to "total" the car and have it replaced rather than replace the glass...
Why? because according to them the glass cost more than the car was worth.[/quote]

It depends very much on the car, the type of windshield, the actual cash value of the car, and so on. Some windshields are crazy expensive...one with a HUD can cost you $2,000 or more, easily.

/Sub

[Hotrod]

How many self-regenerating MDC armors are out there, by the way?

[kaid]

How many self-regenerating MDC armors are out there, by the way?

Lemuria has a bunch. Tech wise there are a few borgs with some nano repair systems and I think one or two from the three galaxies but not to many.

It is one reason the bio armor and bio skins from lemuria is so darn nice. Even when it hits 0 its not completly destroyed. It can still be healed by magic or in time if not pushed well past 0 will in time bio regenerate. They lack some of the offensive punch of tech power armors but for long term sustainability they are pretty awesome. They are probably some of the best armor out there for long range scouts and people unlikely to make it back to a town very often.