making income with E-clips

[Axelmania]

was perusing RUEp259 and it's neat how they expanded the info not just on charging / buying fully charged e-clips, but also the price that EMPTY clips go for...

Even if you don't have an operator friend to do a recharge job cheap for 800, if the most the black market charges is 1500 and the most an uncharged clip sells for is 3000, then it sounds like by investing 4500 creds, you have then acquired a 6000 credit asset, making 1500 profit.

Isn't that pretty lucrative? You could buy 10 empty e-clips for 30,000 take them to a black market dealer, pay them 15,000 to recharge them, and then sell them for 60,000 and you've earned 15,000 credits.

This makes me wonder... does anyone recall specifics on how much short/standard E-clips weigh and how much space they take up if you were wanting to pack lots of them for transport? I don't imagine either measurement could be that large since they fit into pistol grips.

I feel like somewhere I've seen a weapon which is "x lbs empty, y lbs with clip loaded" but can't recall where, maybe I'm just imagining it?

[drewkitty ~..~]

It would only be a side-hustle for anyone not in a big town with lots of people needing e-clip recharges. However, once you get into those big towns like that the char will run into 'the black market' mob that would strong arm the char into a 'deal they can't refuse' into stoping cutting into their business model.

[Axelmania]

Perhaps recruiting them into it? I expect the BM doesn't always like to risk venturing out to wilderness communities transporting full e-clips to sell, then buy up empty e-clips and transport them back, etc. So they might be okay as long as you gave them a cut.

[Orin J.]

who's selling empty E-clips though? it's much easier to recharge them then replace (unless they're damaged, but that's falling outside of the plan) and the only time people are really gonna just sell used E-clips is when they're hanging it up and then they're usually gonna be selling their kit at once. and odds are you'd have to go a fair ways from where you bought the clips to find someone in the market for one. i think transportation costs are the devil in the details here.

[Library Ogre]

who's selling empty E-clips though? it's much easier to recharge them then replace (unless they're damaged, but that's falling outside of the plan) and the only time people are really gonna just sell used E-clips is when they're hanging it up and then they're usually gonna be selling their kit at once. and odds are you'd have to go a fair ways from where you bought the clips to find someone in the market for one. i think transportation costs are the devil in the details here.

If I kill 5 bandit, and each have 3 e-clips, I bet I can make a fair bank on selling their used eclips, even if I don't have the means to recharge them.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The main issue here is, who are you (the PC(s)) selling E-clips to at Full Retail?

The moment you roll into a town and open up a shop, you're immediately in competition with the local merchants and the local Black Market.

They aren't going to let you sell at full retail and take their business without a fight. Probably quite literally.

The Black Market isnt going to pay you 6k. You're going to get maybe 1200. Same with any local merchant. Theyre going to give you at best 15-30% of retail.

I dont really see transportation costs accounting for much, TBH, as MOST adventurer groups have transportation that likely doesn't cost much, if anything, to operate. (Nuclear power supplies or TW power supplies).

The main thing that's going to kibosh this is the assumption that you're going to get market value for your E-clips. That's simply not going to happen, or, even if it does (people/NPCs come to you (the PCs) to buy their E-clips instead of the local merchant theyve known for years and/or the BM), its not going to go without consequences.

The likelihood of the BM, in particular, to send a few boys around to shoot your shop up (and maybe your vehicle, armor, etc) and cost you more than any potential profit is quite high.

[Orin J.]

who's selling empty E-clips though? it's much easier to recharge them then replace (unless they're damaged, but that's falling outside of the plan) and the only time people are really gonna just sell used E-clips is when they're hanging it up and then they're usually gonna be selling their kit at once. and odds are you'd have to go a fair ways from where you bought the clips to find someone in the market for one. i think transportation costs are the devil in the details here.

If I kill 5 bandit, and each have 3 e-clips, I bet I can make a fair bank on selling their used eclips, even if I don't have the means to recharge them.

if you kill 5 bandits, and the GM didn't make it enough of a challenge to make you want to avoid doing that to game the money system, i'd say the REAL money here is in not letting the GM realize how easy he's making it for you.

[Emerald MoonSilver]

If I remember right places like Merctown and Arzno have sections of their town where flea markets are set up regularly. If you want to sell e-clips why not set up a stall there.

[Killer Cyborg]

If I remember right places like Merctown and Arzno have sections of their town where flea markets are set up regularly. If you want to sell e-clips why not set up a stall there.

That'd be easy enough to do, BUT people go to flea markets for Dirt Cheap Prices, so you wouldn't get anything close to the going market rate.

[kaid]

who's selling empty E-clips though? it's much easier to recharge them then replace (unless they're damaged, but that's falling outside of the plan) and the only time people are really gonna just sell used E-clips is when they're hanging it up and then they're usually gonna be selling their kit at once. and odds are you'd have to go a fair ways from where you bought the clips to find someone in the market for one. i think transportation costs are the devil in the details here.

If I kill 5 bandit, and each have 3 e-clips, I bet I can make a fair bank on selling their used eclips, even if I don't have the means to recharge them.

Eclips are also one of those things thats easy to grab on the go if you don't have a lot of time to roll a body to loot everything or simply can't carry much more its small/light and easy to grab and potentially useful. Almost a perfect trade good.

[kaid]

Most areas in rifts still are barter system level commerce so things like eclips are a pretty good barter trade item for picking up necessities. Even if you can't get cash for them a half charged eclip probably gets you room/board and food/water supplies for the road.