Mlp7029 wrote:Dystopianman wrote:The Naruni aren't the only game in town. Magefire is there too. Ultimately their products are inferior to the basic CCW weaponry. (Compare the Silver Hawks to Naruni PA or the HI-Laser rifles and the GR rifles to the Naruni Plasma weaponry.).
What I just don't understand is why dimensional travelling cities like Lazlo have not tried to initiate trade ties with a place like Center (which would have no trade restrictions due to it's nature).
Center alone could supply the city's trade needs.
In a setting where the premise is dimensional travel and it's effects on Earth, the lack of interdimentional trade at least by Rift friendly powers makes 0 sense, considering plenty of crossover (like the Minion War) has occurred at this point.
In response to the above post about the ships being shot down as soon as they're rifted in, perhaps, but not sub capitals like frigates and whatnot. Those would be harder to spot.
Don't forget that things like gold and silver appear to hold their value cross dimension (reference value of a ton of gold in phase world vs Rifts earth).
And most of all. Silverhawks.
EDIT: I do feel compelled to acknowledge that the splugorth are a notable exception to this.
Where have you seen the price of precious metals on Phase World and Rifts Earth?
There's a general statement that trade goods do much better with things like food, precious metals, etc being worth roughly the same number of credits, and weapons being 50-ish percent of their value (And it specifically calls out NG weapons as being loved by the freedom fighters of the FWC), but the actual credits themselves are 10:1.
Lazlo just doesn't have the cash (as far as we know, of course, there could be all sorts of resources available that we aren't aware of as it hasn't been detailed) from the information we have, nor the resources, to be able to buy anything expensive from Phase World. They could likely afford to buy cheap goods like foodstuffs, and medical gear if they were beseiged, and basic parts and bobs.
But phase weapons en masse? Nope. Fighters? Good luck, particularly the very effective ones with good shields. An actual space-ship (even a Destroyer) is 300+ million credits. (And, really, a Hunter-class Destroyer on its own isn't going to present a real problem for the CS or any other large military power. They really aren't that tough. Nor are they packing that much firepower. A swarm of attack fighters and SAMs will bring a Hunter down fairly quickly. )
You're not getting anything much cheaper than that - and you can even only get a Hunter if you are a friendly government that is part of the CCW. Same with their Power Armor and 'bots. Those aren't available on the open market in most cases.
The actual warships available to the public are Naruni, and hideously expensive.
Espandon Frigates are half a billion credits. 3.5 billion for the Conquistador to go with them (and you need 4)... so 5.5 billion credits - or, in Earth Universal Credits.. 55 billion.
Even fighters are expensive - 50+ million. The really goods ones over 100 each. And while they have great weapons compared to earth fighter craft and are (generally) faster even in atmo, there is no way Lazlo could afford enough of them to matter against the CS or FQ's air forces. Theyll just throw 4x your number at you and swamp your defenses. Youll get a great kill ratio before you die, but die you will.
Im loving the Foes list; it's the only thing keeping me from tearing out my eyes from the dumb.