Well, there is no cost or anything generally placed on it. I think its generally overlooked. If you are after a make shift house rule, look and an SRO.
SROs (short for “sentient robotic organisms”) are among the most advanced forms of robots, with internal circuits and positronic brains so complex that they, like androids, attract a soul and develop true artificial intelligence and free will. SROs are most common on Aballon, though they are different from the native anacites. Unlike androids, SROs do not have a unified appearance, and many are at best vaguely humanoid in shape, while others have shapes designed purely to assist in their primary functions.
SROs can eat and drink, though they don’t need to, and they must recharge their internal batteries by entering an off-line mode that is similar to sleep for 8 hours every day.
So if you wanted to give the Drone some need to recharge over the X days then maybe treat it like it needs the SRO's Off line mode
It has been a beef of mine for some time that the most viable method of charging anything out in the wilds is to use a Backup Generator (CRB pg 206), which is an armor upgrade. Will someone please tell me why there isn't a more efficient method of generating power in the middle of nowhere?
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It has been a beef of mine for some time that the most viable method of charging anything out in the wilds is to use a Backup Generator (CRB pg 206), which is an armor upgrade. Will someone please tell me why there isn't a more efficient method of generating power in the middle of nowhere?
the purveyor of the armor upgrade tested it on a bunch of ysoki hopped up on sugar and the results were overly optimistic, and thus delayed development of other options.
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There is solar sheeting, as a nice "get charges while roughing it" option. It's cheaper than a bag of holding stuffed full of batteries, in any case :D
Just for homebrew funsies: I don't think it would be a stretch to use that as a template to think up similar generators that create electricity from other sources: windmill sheeting to generate from air currents, bioreactive sheeting to generate charges from organic materials, radiotrophic sheeting to generate charges from radioactivity, chemolytic sheeting to generate charges from acids or bases, and so on. Heck, this being Starfinder, it probably wouldn't be game-breaking to make planar conductive sheeting to generate electricity from coterminous planar areas, or technomagically-inductive sheeting for charges from ambient magic, or whatever else.
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There’s also that hybrid skull battery charger that you can use to drain life from captured enemies. Nonlethal weapons for evil PCs!
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Also if we're talking about drones (which don't need to be charged, but for things like their weapons), the mechanic trick portable charging station is an awesome option for recharging batteries.
There are a couple Mechanic Tricks that generate power. My SRO Experimental Armor Mechanic basically plugs his power armor into his own internal generator.
There is solar sheeting, as a nice "get charges while roughing it" option. It's cheaper than a bag of holding stuffed full of batteries, in any case :D
The issue with that is you are quite literally burning daylight waiting for your batteries to recharge. With other convertible power sources, either wind or mini hydro so the party can sleep while their batteries are charging, would work better, as would a rig you could set up around a camp fire to serve as both cooking surface over the flames, and power generator, using both thermo-electric effects, and turbines powered by smoke (with built in chimney so the smoke comes out over the party's heads rather than in their faces) to generate charges.
Also if we're talking about drones (which don't need to be charged, but for things like their weapons), the mechanic trick portable charging station is an awesome option for recharging batteries.
OK, but what about those parties that have another class for their engineering needs? Or if the mechanic really needs that trick for something else in their build? Yes, there are class options (Including technomancer spells. Can't think of any operative tricks for parties relying on one of them for tech needs.) to meet the need, but the game shouldn't be designed such that a party in the middle of nowhere needs their tech support character to ret-con themselves to be able to get by.
The main point of my earlier objection is this is the far future. Where are the nano-scale fission/fusion generators? Since this setting also includes magic, where are the planar siphons to draw down electrical power from storms in the plane of air? There should be items that meet the need of power generation in the back of beyond so that a party doesn't need to configure themselves in unusual ways to make sure they don't run out of power.
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There is solar sheeting, as a nice "get charges while roughing it" option. It's cheaper than a bag of holding stuffed full of batteries, in any case :DThe issue with that is you are quite literally burning daylight waiting for your batteries to recharge. With other convertible power sources, either wind or mini hydro so the party can sleep while their batteries are charging, would work better, as would a rig you could set up around a camp fire to serve as both cooking surface over the flames, and power generator, using both thermo-electric effects, and turbines powered by smoke (with built in chimney so the smoke comes out over the party's heads rather than in their faces) to generate charges.
Also if we're talking about drones (which don't need to be charged, but for things like their weapons), the mechanic trick portable charging station is an awesome option for recharging batteries.OK, but what about those parties that have another class for their engineering needs? Or if the mechanic really needs that trick for something else in their build? Yes, there are class options (Including technomancer spells. Can't think of any operative tricks for parties relying on one of them for tech needs.) to meet the need, but the game shouldn't be designed such that a party in the middle of nowhere needs their tech support character to ret-con themselves to be able to get by.
The main point of my earlier objection is this is the far future. Where are the nano-scale fission/fusion generators? Since this setting also includes magic, where are the planar siphons to draw down electrical power from storms in the plane of air? There should be items that meet the need of power generation in the back of beyond so that a party doesn't need to configure themselves in unusual ways to make sure they don't run out of power.
I want to say it's a gamist argument. A) this particular style of spending multiple levels without resupply does not happen often without loot (and a UPB grinder) and a workbench to make more ammo out of. B) Your projectile weapon users are just SOL if you're in that situation, why aren't your laser users?
I want to say it's a gamist argument. A) this particular style of spending multiple levels without resupply does not happen often without loot (and a UPB grinder) and a workbench to make more ammo out of. B) Your projectile weapon users are just SOL if you're in that situation, why aren't your laser users?
It's more of a setting/flavor question. If you just get dropped in the middle of nowhere, no chance to prep, more than likely you're going to be up fecal creek without a paddle, regardless, because you're going to be equiped on the basis of regular resupply. However, it you know you're going to be out of contact for a while and choose to cling to your trusty six-shooter, because reasons, you kind of deserve what you're going to get. So preparing for such expeditions, why aren't there options? There have to be semi-portable power supplies for extended survey and exploration expeditions, so where are they?
I want to say it's a gamist argument. A) this particular style of spending multiple levels without resupply does not happen often without loot (and a UPB grinder) and a workbench to make more ammo out of. B) Your projectile weapon users are just SOL if you're in that situation, why aren't your laser users?It's more of a setting/flavor question. If you just get dropped in the middle of nowhere, no chance to prep, more than likely you're going to be up fecal creek without a paddle, regardless, because you're going to be equiped on the basis of regular resupply. However, it you know you're going to be out of contact for a while and choose to cling to your trusty six-shooter, because reasons, you kind of deserve what you're going to get. So preparing for such expeditions, why aren't there options? There have to be semi-portable power supplies for extended survey and exploration expeditions, so where are they?
The baseline prepared option is a workbench and UPBs that you turn into batteries with 4 hrs of work. GMs discretion if those tools are portable from the ship/require power of their own.
There are options, as others have said, like backup generators, solar sheeting, charge cloak, charged skin. Maybe that's not enough for you, but it's just how the setting is. There are likely a lot of reasons for it; game balance between power and things like bullets, to make scenarios like being dropped in the middle of no where a bit of a challenge, and something like a 'nano scale fusion reactor' is too advanced for this game.
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"I release the containment on my handheld antimatter/matter reactor (good for 1 million battery charges or my money back)."