Equipment Availability

If someone is willing to pay good credits for it, there’s someone out there willing to sell it. However, depending on what the particular it is, finding that seller can prove to be less than easy. All items in High Tech Low Life have an Availability rating, which is listed as part of its statistics. This is a one- or two-letter rating that represents the item's rarity and legality - how hard it is to get, and how much trouble you can get in for having it. The first letter represent's the item's rarity, while the second, if present, represents its legality, with completely unregulated items omitting the second letter altogether.

When you attempt to buy a piece of gear, you make an Availability test, which is a Smarts roll modified by the item's Availability. If you succeed, you find the item for sale and can have it delivered after a given amount of time (see Delivery Times, below). If you fail, you may try again after twice the amount of time for delivery. If you Critically Fail, you not only fail to find the item for sale, but attract unwanted attention, as determined by your GM.

For example, a pair of headphones is a common, legal item (Availability C), so you can just walk into your local mallplex and grab a pair off the shelf. A Kendall 44 pistol is also common, but it requires a license to own (Availability CL), so it's easy enough to find in the local gun shop, but can be tricky to get hold of under the table (-2 to the Availability test if attempting to purchase on the black market). On the other hand, that Rockwell Avenger minigun you've had your eye on is both Very Rare and Illegal, making it nearly impossible to get your hands on (-4 to the Availability test for Very Rare, -4 for being Illegal, for a whopping -8 to the test).

However, don't despair just yet, minigun lovers, for money makes the world go round just like it always has. You wave enough credits around, and someone's bound to take them off your hands. You may increase the purchase price for whatever you're looking for by 25% to get a +1 to the Availability test, with no upper limit. Therefore, you can remove that -8 penalty by shelling out triple the weapon's standard purchase price.

The downside is, putting that many credits on the table draws a lot of attention. Any time you reduce the penalty on an Availability test by 4 or more (100%+ over the market price) any failure on the Availability test is treated as a Critical Failure.

As always, the GM is the final arbitrator on what can and cannot be found or purchased.

Rarity
The first (and sometimes only) letter of an Availability rating represents the item's rarity.
 * Common (C): A Common item can be found nearly anywhere, and is easy to buy legally. Unless you're attempting to buy it through the black market (to avoid a data-trail, for instance), you don't need to roll a test to find the item.
 * Uncommon (U): Uncommon items might not be available in your favorite vending machine, but they're not particularly difficult to find. Uncommon items require an Availability test, but receive no penalty.
 * Rare (R):  Rare items are hard to come by, and are typically only available through specialized retailers. Rare items require an Availability test at -2.
 * Very Rare (V): Very Rare items are supremely difficult to get hold of, and there's not likely to be many people offering them for sale, locally or at all. Very Rare items require an Availability test at -4.

Legality
The second letter of an Availability rating represents the item's legal status.
 * Legal (N/A): Legal items are not regulated by the government. Anyone is allowed to purchase or own them, though certain items may not be legal to carry around with you (sure, a combat knife may be perfectly legal, but the local police won't appreciate you waltzing into the governor's office with it).
 * Licensed (L): Licensed items, naturally, require a license to own, use, or carry. Characters with a valid SIN may apply for a license for a fee of 10% of the item's cost, which allows them to legally purchase it. Some items, such as firearms, require a separate permit to carry around, which can be acquired for an additional fee of 5% of the item's cost. Licensed items make up the bulk of the world's black market, so Availability tests are required to purchase Licensed items on the black market, but receive no penalty from their legality.
 * Restricted (R): Restricted items are a bit more serious than Licensed ones. Automatic weapons, dangerous chemicals, and explosives often fall into this category, when they're not outright Illegal. Availability tests made to purchase Restricted items are made at -2, as even legitimate purchasers have some trouble finding an appropriate vendor.
 * Illegal (I): Illegal items are just that - illegal. An item with an Illegal rating cannot be purchased legally by a private citizen, nor are there permits available to allow someone to own or carry an Illegal item. Government or corporate employees may be issued such items, however, and are legally allowed to carry them while performing their duties, so don't expect the corpsec team to get picked up by Johnny Law for possession of Illegal hardware.

Delivery Times
Once an item is purchased, it is shipped wherever you want it to go. However, pulling an item from the warehouse, boxing it, and shipping it out takes some time, which is typically proportional to the value of the item in question, as shown on the table below. Obviously, delivery times do not apply if you go pick up the item yourself, but for rarer items the "delivery time" may instead represent the time it took you to track one down, as determined by the GM. For every Raise on the Availability test, reduce the delivery time by one step. Each 10% increase in the cost of the item reduces the delivery time by one step. This is calculated based on the base cost of the item, price increases to alter Availability tests do not apply when paying more to reduce delivery time. However, the increased price does determine the base delivery time. For example, if you doubled the price of an ATI TAR-39 (base price 1,000 credits, Availability UR) in order to eliminate the -2 penalty to the Availability test, your base delivery time would be 2 days (2,000 credits). If you wanted same-day shipping on it, you would pay an additional 200 credits (20% of the base price), for a total of 2,200 credits.