Legal equipment can usually be purchased from shops or from catalogs. Very expensive items (in general, anything costing more than a campaign’s average starting wealth), or those that require licenses, may require dealing directly with a manufacturer, authorized dealer, or other specialist. Expensive but commonplace civilian gear such as cars will be easy to purchase, but specialized items may take longer to arrange. Administration skill rolls (or bribes!) may help. TL11+ goods may be routinely made in nanofactories or replicators, reducing or eliminating the waiting period for most items.
If an item is illegal to own, expensive to acquire, or rare, it may be available from one or more outlets in the underground economy – the black market.
Acquiring goods usually requires a Contact (pp. B44-45) who knows how to reach the local black market merchants. Alternately, Streetwise (p. B223) can be used to locate new connections. The PCs should specify what they are looking for, and the GM decides on the local availability of the item. A failure may result in the unwanted attention of the local cops or criminal syndicates, while a critical failure may mean that the PCs walk into a police “sting” operation, are ambushed by other criminals, or acquire dangerously defective goods.
Modifiers: Subtract the local Control Rating (p. B506) and Cultural Familiarity modifiers (p. B23); +1 if the area includes a major shipping port, is bordering a low-CR country, or has ineffectual (i.e., corrupt or undermanned) law enforcement; -3 in an unfamiliar area.
The term “black market” describes any businesses that operate illegally. Some sell proscribed services, while others circumvent tax or safety laws to undercut legitimate competitors. The GM may set up various niches within the “black market” that cater to specific customers, and that require specialized Contacts or skill penalties (see above) to deal with. Some examples of specialized black markets include:
Electronics: This can include prototype or custom-made computers, pirated copies of brand-name goods, and banned software (“Guaranteed to break the intrusion countermeasures on that military mainframe . . . but owning it will get you a death sentence. You still want it?”). Failure means the product you bought doesn’t work as advertised or was fake. A critical failure means a knock on the door (or the head) by the legal owner or patent holder – who might have found you thanks to a tracking device in the gadget itself!
Medical: This can include cut-rate surgical, unlicensed implant clinics, stolen bionics (perhaps with the previous owner still attached), and cheap drugs or nanosymbionts. Failure means you don’t find what you’re looking for, or the seller can’t provide the amount requested. A critical failure may leave you with scars, placebos, or an angry amputee on your trail.
Entities: Androids, robots, slaves, organs, and illegal clones (your own, or someone else’s). Failure means you receive a defective product, or that having it around will be a risk to life and limb. A critical failure means you’re the target of a raid or your new acquisition has a hidden homicidal streak.
Weapons: Stolen or smuggled firearms, banned ammunition, and purloined military vehicles and combat robots (“An Imperial grav-tank, fresh from the Guard armory”). Failure means you can only get an inferior version of what you were looking for. Critical failure means it will malfunction on first use, or that someone is tracking it. Caveat emptor.
The black market operates in competition with the normal market for many goods. To sell goods readily available from legal channels, it can only compete by making things easier to acquire (which is rare), or by selling for a lower price (by not charging for taxes, selling cheap copies, or fencing stolen goods). Easily copied media and textiles can sell for as little as 5% of normal price, but most other items sell for 60% of normal price.
The black market is opportunistic: if an item is hard to acquire legally, it has an edge over the legitimate market and will exploit it ruthlessly. Successful haggling with the Merchant skill can bring the price down, but black market dealers rarely have any incentive to offer big discounts!
Local availability and demand is a major factor in the final price. The inhabitants of a war-torn country may sell military weapons at a huge discount to anyone with hard currency, while electronics and food are sold at outrageous markups. A rich, peaceful country with thriving black markets in cheap alcohol and pirated movies may not have LC3 or lower weapons available for anyprice.
The GM may allow obsolete weapons and other devices to be available at an increased Legality Class. For every two full TLs by which a device is obsolete, its LC can increase by 1, to a maximum of 2 beyond its starting LC (up to LC4).
When calculating TL for these purposes, use the TL of the particular gadget, not the TL at which it was introduced or the last TL at which it improves.
Example: A TL10 gauss rifle is LC2. But two TLs later, it’s been obsolete for decades, centuries, or even millennia! As such, the weapon – or an exact replica – has its legality class increased by 1, making it LC3.