The problem with that is that it makes vehicle creation even more insane.
Really, it makes sense to me that a L-S Strato-9 with MMG should be easier to get than an MMG. The Star makes extensive use of these things for surveillance and fire support, whereas security vehicle-mounted or hand-carried MMGs are pretty rare. By the same token, it's comparatively difficult to find gold ingots for sale, whereas you can buy plenty of gold jewelry because that's got a common use.

~J

I'm of the belief that nothing should be more common then it's component parts. Simple

Just my two pence. And damn the Euro. (only kidding )

But I don't think that holds true in the real world. I'll do some digging to see if I can come up with evidence tommorow, or rather later today, when I'm actually awake.

~J

maybe if you're a manufacturer that uses gold as a component in your product (shielding and whatnot). joe blow on the street would have a much harder time buying a single gold ingot for its price in dollars / euros / whatever. there's a very low demand for the sale of single gold ingots, which means it's difficult to find someone who sells them in that quantity. that, in turn, can be represented by a high Availability rating.

it's easily possible for the strato-9 to be easier to obtain than its component parts. for instance, the manufacturer might have overproduced them for some reason--maybe LS reneged on its initial contract, maybe someone typed in one too many zeros on the order form. the result is a flooded market as the manufacturer tries to recoup their losses; strato-9s become relatively common, among riggers. this creates an upswing the in the parts business for the strato-9, as riggers buy up the things they need to keep their strato-9s operational. pretty soon, the strato-9 has an established market base, and the manufacturer keeps pumping them out because they're in demand.

Lots of jewelers either have or can get you gold, silver, platinum, etc. ingots. Just because they don't have it at the counter at JC Pennys doesn't mean you can't get it. Coin collectors also sell ingots. Many of them even have them in stock, esp. the higher-class places in larger cities because there's a demand there. If not, they can be ordered and in your hands in a matter of days at most.

Having Tailored Pheremones have that high an availability (meaning it's not available at chargen) would be like saying the same about breast implants. They're popular, they're fairly easy to implant, therefore they're available at a variety of places. You can go from office visit to new boobs in under a month in many places.

The only logical reason for such a high availability of tailored pheremones would be for game balance. It doesn't make sense within the universe. And it also doesn't even make much sense for game balance because frankly, Tailored Pheremones aren't that great. +1 to +4 dice for social interactions for people in your immediate radius dependant on wind conditions. And the +4 is only for the cultured version of Level 2 pheremones, which isn't available at chargen anyway. So basically your face could have 8 dice rather than 6 for the negotiations test with the Johnson, or to bulldrek the guard into letting the team into the parking garage. That's nothing compared to the dice boost if you use the optional rules for a social dice pool.

The Abstruse One

Would someone who actually knows about this stuff care to comment? If we're talking about the same size of ingot here (the Ye Olde gold bar, easily weighing 50lbs), then I should think it would be really easy to acquire. Where do goldsmiths get their gold? It's not very likely that they purchase much more than ~50lbs of it at a time -- you can make a whole lotta jewelry out of that. And I suppose the point of the comparison is lost in any case, because the market for MMGs do not work like the market for gold. [Edit]Abtruse put it way better than I could have. So much for the gold-comparison.[/Edit]

I'm just making guesses here, but it seems everybody else is too.

The ingots (and the prices for gold on the open market) are in ounces, not pounds. If you want a Fort Knox style gold brick, THAT is a tall order, but it can be done. If nothing else, you can get someone to melt a bunch of the ounce-sized ingots into a brick.

The Abstruse One

So the size of the order at least isn't a problem, like mfb suggested.

I knew the price was in ounces, but that doesn't mean much considering that the price of oil is in barrels...

I'd personally come down pretty hard on any PC lifting the MMG off of a Strato-9 for other purposes. A simple solution would be to give it a distinctive sound like the LS pistol. When cops hear it firing, they know someone's lifted police gear somewhere along the way.

Well, yanking the weapon system isn't a bad idea, but if they start cheesing the concept then I get cranky.

Of course, ripping out an embedded weapon system and using it as a man-portable device isn't as easy as it sounds...

-Siege

On the strato-9, an MMG isn't that bad. The drone goes down easily when someone fires back (range is the only issue). However, if someone yanks the system and crams it into a steel lynx...

Of course, an MMG and an LMG aren't much different, rules wise, so it's not that bad a lift.

I think I was thinking of something along the same lines as what Seige is hinting at. The weapon is probably meant to be vehicle-mounted. No grip, no trigger, whatever internal parts are needed for a computer-controlled weapon...

It should take some time, at least, to convert the gun to be fired by a metahuman or used in another machine.

Does anyone remember hearing that Marlon Brando demanded to be paid in gold for one of his films? Somehow this ingot business reminded me of that.

That actually prompted a question Kage --

Do you apply Good Rep across the board to all situations, or do you apply it "as appropriate?"

"Great Decker" would apply to people who know him/her/it as a decker, but wouldn't necessarily apply to interactions with a corporate secretary. (for example)

-Siege

I apply it as appropriate, which as far as I can tell is most places. Even if they don't know what you do, if you've got Good Reputation you're known for being trustworthy. I might not allow it to sweet-talk a guard, admittedly, but most other uses. I think it's bull that someone's just known as being a great decker; it doesn't matter how good you are, the point is that your reputation is good. "Oh, yeah, Runner X, don't know what he does but I hear he always plays straight with people. You can trust him."

~J