How affordable is body switching in Eclipse Phase? (Please assume I know very little of the game.)
How much does it cost relatively to switch bodies? Is it something available for anyone, or just for a privileged elite? Is it like a quick dinner in a fast food restaurant (IRL) or is it like buying your own private plane?
Also, does some kind of sanity system limit the number of possible switches and/or the number of copies (clones) a person can have?
I can give you a general answer because I'm away from the books. Switching bodies is relatively affordable especially if you don't care what kind of body you'd like. If you want a good body that's been properly maintained you're going to pay more and if you want an awesome one you're going to probably be pretty well off. For cost scale I'd say it might be closer to buying a car than anything else. Most people do it fairly rarely.
Short answer: yes, it's affordable but the more money/cred you put in the better body you get coming out with some exceptions (such as becoming an indentured servant).
There's no limit to switches. There is a sanity check for switching between bodies that are quite different (eq, human to sentient-octopus) but I can't remember if you are switching from damaged human body to regular human body if you have to make the check. If you do it's significantly easier to make the check then if there was a great difference between bodies. I believe your mind can also reject the body if you fail badly enough.
Best way I've found to think of it is to think about Morphs like you do cars. They range from a $1000 dollar junker (Case) to half-million dollar Supercars (Remade). To most people in EP bodies are a significant cost, but not an insane one. There's even a bit in one of the books where they explain that people normally swap morphs every few years, just like most people change their cars.
As far as I run the game, a morph is a piece of equipment and nothing more. You can get a better one if you can afford it (reputation, money, resources, contacts, whatever...) and you want it. remember that travel between places is easier if you just egocast.
There are no side effects of having more than one of your running around. In fact, one of the one shot scenarios is to play forks of one person trying to figure out what happened to you.
If you merge with different of your forks, you can (and should) get different memories that can overlap. Think multiple personalities and you are in the right bulk part. This is why it is inadvisable to create many forks of yourself to learn new skills and merge with them. You could well end up being utterly insane.
There is not a single answer for this. See the morph prices, acquire services table in the rep section, and the gear cost table in the gear section for costs.
Swapping from a morph in good condition to a morph of similar value in the same station is pretty cheap.
A Morph with a cyberbrain is a lot cheaper as you don't require a ego bridge for a long period of time. It's more in the minor favor range of about 250 credits assuming you can't find a morph to trade and do the transfer yourself.
Where things get pricey is if you are upgrading, switching bodies across a long distance, don't have a morph to trade, are in a hurry or morphs are in short supply in a given area. Not mention the cost of mods to the mod which can be more than the morph itself.
Morph costs vary wildly:
Egocasting varies from moderate 1K to expensive 20k depending on distance. Rarity can boost costs up 50%. Getting something in a hurry will likely require favors or increase the price.
