The description in the original rules:

Tornadium D-19. Tornadium D-19 ("kaboomite") is the standard plastic explosive. It can be bought legally only by someone with Demolitions skill. A 50-gram charge of TD-19 will cause 5d10 points of damage to anyone and anything within 1 meter of the explosion. Each additional 50 grams causes an additional 25 points of damage. Anyone farther from the explosion than 1 meter, but within the blast radius, takes one-half damage. The blast radius is 1 meter for every 100 grams of TD-19 used. A thrown charge does full damage to living creatures, but only one-half damage to structures.

The price is 50 credits and the mass is listed as 1 Kilo.

Regardless of the listed mass I was under the impression that 50 credits bought 1 charge of TD-19 which is only 50 grams.  It doesn't make sense that you could buy 20x50 gram charges of explosive for only 50 credits.  I am thinking this may have been clarified somewhere else but I can't think of where.  Any of you guys know what I am talking about?

In reply to GM (msg # 1):

https://starfrontiers.fandom.com/wiki/Tornadium_D-19



Edit- as an aside, TSR in the early 80s didn't exactly use exact mass, but more of a system to gauge 'encumbrance'.  One of the biggies in SF is that an 8 liter water pack 'weighs' 4 kg (1 liter of water=1 kg for folks not familiar with metric)  The water pack comes in a load bearing backpack that can be assembled for easy carrying.  I've looked in the various 'Star Question' articles from the Ares section in Dragon magazine and any other source for errata on it and the 'encumbrance' thing is the only explanation I have for a measure everyone should <cough> know (even for American authors in the 1980s:-).
This message was last edited by the player at 08:20, Sat 26 June 2021.

That works for me, thanks for digging that up.

I was going through my electronic copy of the rules, trying to avoid handling my original hard copy, it's getting pretty worn out.  Probably about time I ordered a re-print :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 09:52, Sat 26 June 2021.

In reply to GM (msg # 3):

I'm cool with that. \If we need to retcon how much Rayek has based on the amount of money he had at the beginning, let me know the ruling and I'll put it back.

For some reason it didn't cross my mind because the rules restrict the use and success rates of explosives such that they are difficult and dangerous to use in combat (needing to buy a laser pistol, variable timer or suffer -10 penalty in success for radio detonation; bad hops that can kill friends, accidental detonation, the time it takes to set a charge, etc...). I figured the cost was to offset those challenges, and reflect that people with demo skill had access to buy it.

I also made a mistake. I need to deduct 200g from my stash instead of 100g for the 2m radius affect.  I misread that.  At 50credits a charge, that means I'm out of TD-19.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:54, Sat 26 June 2021.

Lets just say you still have 100 grams and 3 timers and we will move on

In reply to GM (msg # 5):

Grateful.  That'll do.

Not sure if its helpful, but Frontier Explorer #26-28 had stuff on explosives and such. I haven't read all of it yet. There is a chart on page 39 of issue #27 that could be useful. That's all I've found so far..

Frontier Explorer is not canon, as much as I like some of the work in the fanzines I don't consider them 'official rule books'

In reply to GM (msg # 8):

:)