Regeneration vs. Rejuvenation Tanks

[jspade]

Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious; I'm just comparing these two pieces of gear from Ultra-Tech for the first time. The Regeneration Tank costs $500,000, weighs 600 lbs., and is LC 3; the Rejuvenation Tank is $300,000, same weight and power requirement, and is LC2. The Rejuvenation Tank can be used as a Regeneration Tank, but has additional capabilities.

Can anyone suggest a reason why the less expensive item is more capable? Both are TL10; why (legality aside) would I buy a Regeneration Tank rather than a Rejuvenation Tank?

[hal]

Rejuvenation restores youth, while the other does not. Rejuvenation can also destroy memories or kill outright the patient - the other does not.

Ultimately, the more costly one reverses aging - making it more expensive. So, one does normal healing (cheaper) while the other does a lot more and potentially kills or causes amnesia.

A physician who is well trained (skill 14) has a roughly a 90% chance of healing the patient at a rate of 1 HP per 12 hours. Has a roughly 8% chance of healing 1 hp per 24 hours, and roughly 2% chance of a critical failure. A Regeneration tank doesn't does not seem to have any down side with a crit failure.

A Rejuvenation tank on the other hand, has a roughly 2% chance of resetting the character's age and instantly aware (after completion of the process of 3 month's time). A roughly 88% chance that the patient is foggy minded for a few days after the process is completed. There is roughly 8% who will emerge with a partial memory, and the last 2% will be of patients who either die from a horrible cancer that goes wild, or end up a total brain wiped individual.

That is why you don't buy a Rejuvenation tank to simply heal damage.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by hal

Ultimately, the more costly one reverses aging - making it more expensive. So, one does normal healing (cheaper) while the other does a lot more and potentially kills or causes amnesia.

Per UT 201, the Rejuvenation Tank costs less, not more ($300K vs $500K), and can also be used as a regular Regeneration Tank. The only downside listed is the Legality.

I suspect this is an uncorrected errata. Ultra-Tech is one of the older 4e books, and I'd take a lot of its content with a grain of salt. Certainly if I was to include both types of healing tanks in a setting, I'd bump Rejuvenation's cost, probably by an order of magnitude.

[Phantasm]

I too smell errata, very likely from a typo. The rejuvenation tank is probably meant to be closer to $3M rather than $300K; a typo of not hitting the 0 enough times can lead to stuff like that and not get caught for years.

[hal]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Per UT 201, the Rejuvenation Tank costs less, not more ($300K vs $500K), and can also be used as a regular Regeneration Tank. The only downside listed is the Legality.

I suspect this is an uncorrected errata. Ultra-Tech is one of the older 4e books, and I'd take a lot of its content with a grain of salt. Certainly if I was to include both types of healing tanks in a setting, I'd bump Rejuvenation's cost, probably by an order of magnitude.

Yup, my bad, I reversed them when I was looking back and forth between the two. Half a Million for the Regeneration, 300,000 for the other. As for errata, it is possible that the copy and paste was meant to be reversed in pricing. It is possible that the pricing was intended as it was written. I do however, suspect that a better pricing for the machine would be 3 Million versus 300,000. It is genetic engineering at its deepest level. In fact? The implications contained within the written description indicate that this is precisely what it is doing, organic chemistry and DNA manipulation. **shrug**

[munin]

My copy of UT (Softcover: stock # 01-6104 • ISBN 978-1-55634-799-3 • PDF: stock # 31-0104 • Version 3.2 – September 2014) says:

"A rejuvenation tank can also function as a regeneration tank. $1,000,000, 600 lbs., 2E/200 hr. LC2." (UT201)

So, errata fixed?

[Anaraxes]

Grabbed the latest PDF (3rd printing, Nov 2022) just to make sure I was up to date (which I wasn't...).

Rejuv is $1M LC 2, Regen $500K LC 3, same weight and energy consumption.

Given that Rejuv can function as Regen, it makes no sense for the latter to be higher LC. Not that actual laws are always entirely sensible; citizens might insist on having their rejuv handy. But, LCs are pretty much up to the GM to tune for any particular game setting anyway.

(I suspect the two items originated in different worldbooks in 3e if not earlier, and only one of the two existed in either one. Ultra-Tech doesn't try to define a single coherent setting at any tech level, so there's no reason everything in the book must exist at the same time. It just lists a lot of possibilities from the vast array of SF that fit about that far up the scale. Very much in the "toolkit" category.)

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Grabbed the latest PDF (3rd printing, Nov 2022) just to make sure I was up to date (which I wasn't...).

Rejuv is $1M LC 2, Regen $500K LC 3, same weight and energy consumption.

Given that Rejuv can function as Regen, it makes no sense for the latter to be higher LC. Not that actual laws are always entirely sensible; citizens might insist on having their rejuv handy. But, LCs are pretty much up to the GM to tune for any particular game setting anyway.

Well, given that the higher the LC number, the more "legal" it is to own. LC 2 is on par with most military grade weapons (assault rifles, etc.), while LC 3 is more along the lines of automobiles ("need a license to own and operate") (by contrast, LC 4 is "only the most repressive nations outlaw this" and LC 1 and 0 are "only able to be privately owned in absolute anarchies"). So Rejuv being a lower LC due to it doing more than just regenerating/healing makes sense to me.

[hal]

Originally Posted by munin

My copy of UT (Softcover: stock # 01-6104 • ISBN 978-1-55634-799-3 • PDF: stock # 31-0104 • Version 3.2 – September 2014) says:

"A rejuvenation tank can also function as a regeneration tank. $1,000,000, 600 lbs., 2E/200 hr. LC2." (UT201)

So, errata fixed?

Thank you for making this comment. I didn't have the latest PDF version. When I downloaded and read the relevant entries, I found that Regeneration Tank was 500,000 while the Rejuvenation tank was listed as 1,000,000.

So, yes, it appears that the errata was upgraded in the updated version. Nicely done Munin.

:)

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

the higher the LC number, the more "legal" it is to own

True enough. Must have been all the blood rushing to my head from the handstand. Thanks for the correction.