These stats are unchanged between both editions
It lists 5 cost rates, all per 10 MDC repaired. I am not sure why it is not per 1 MDC. The credit costs are all in multiples of 10 (actually, multiples of 100) so it would have been feasible to do so, and taken less space.
Perhaps that means if you want to repair a smaller amount (1 to 9) it still costs the amount of a full 10 MDC ?
The 5 categories are named as follows:
- Plated Armor (700/M)
Chain Armor (550/M)
Composite Armor (650/M)
Plastic Armor (630/M)
Fabric and Padded Armor (620/M)
The semantics here are not focused on in categorizing armor, far as I have seen. Some do contain descriptions to indicate a category, although some do not, or some may indicate multiple categories, introducing confusion as to which to use.
I was thinking, it might be an interesting group project of sorts for us to make a list of every suit of MDC Body Armor in Rifts and which of these 5 categories we can collectively decide they ought to go into.
Luckily for Power Armor (and Man-Size Robots, I assume non-vehicular) and Robot Vehicles, it's singular rates, leading to no confusion, just a very empty wallet (moreso with bot vehicles).
I don't know if we ever get any rates for repairing non-robot vehicles like hoverbikes or APCs or ATVs. I assume they'd be a bit cheaper than repairing a robot, but I don't know if they would be as cheap as repairing body or power armor.
Starting with RUE, I am going to propose what I think what category things are in and would like to know if anyone disagrees.
Per the SB/SB1R rates, from best to worst rates (from cheapest to most expensive to repair) is:
Chain > Fabric/Padded > Plastic > Composite > Plated
RUEp260: Dead Boy : called "lightweight ceramic", all I can figure is "Composite" may be appropriate ?
RUEp261: Dog Pack : unsure, no terms jump out at me.
RUEp267:
- Gladiator - Full Environmental: "lightweight fiber .. resembles chainmail and light plates" initially thought either the Chain/Plated rates but I'm thinking that 'composite' may still be appropriate since it is technically 'fiber' and merely 'resembles' those styles
Crusader - Full Environmental: "armor plates and chain mail-like MDC materials" am thinking the most-expensive "Plated" rate since it merely is "like" chain mail but does explicitly have plates
Juicer - Assassin Plate Armor: I figure 'plated' since it's in the name.
- Urban Warrior - Padded Environmental Body Armor: I figure "padded" since it's in the name. Although in addition to "flexible padding" it is mentioned as having "light metal plates" too. GMs might want to adopt variable rates, like maybe a cheaper repair rate for early damage and a more expensive rate for later damage.
note between these two: so is there a diff between "environmental" and "full environmental" or something? =/
Plastic Man - Full Environmental Body Armor: the name makes me want to say the middle-tier 'plastic' rate, but it's actually described as being made of 'polycarbonate plate' so I'm not sure if that should be the most-expensive 'plated' rate or the 2nd-most-expensive 'composite' rate.
Huntsman - Plate & Padded Armor: "heavy plate" + "padded vest" + "padded armor" + "leg and arm plates". The semantics of this one are 3v3 equally split between the most-expensive plated and 2nd-most-expensive padded categories. This leads me to just want to say "composite" and be done with it. Or, like with the Urban Warrior, let the GM possibly propose differing rates depending on how much damage is suffered.
Bushman - Full Composite Environmental Body Armor: the name demands the middle-tier 'composite rate', but it's worth noting that it is listed as having both 'padding' and 'plate composite' in it. Perhaps, even though Urban/Hunts are not called composite, this is grounds to declare them to be composite-rate as well, since they also have a mix of pads/plates.
Continuing the UrbanWarrior/Huntsman/Bushman issue, I can actually think of this two ways. At first I thought "padding is weak and would be the first to go" so I was thinking the first MDC you take would be the least expensive to repair, and the more expensive rates would only begin as it neared destruction.
Upon thinking on it further though: for comfort reasons, I would expect to see plating on the outside and padding on the inside, so perhaps the most expensive repairs would be the first MDC you take and the least expensive repairs would be the last MDC you take. This means it could make economic sense to not repair it to full MDC and keep it below half MDC or something along those lines so that you can get cheap repairs just for the padded cores of these armors.
Does anyone have an ideas for MDC body armor in other books?