Ironnerd wrote on Jul 4
th, 2013 at 11:55pm:
That may be subject to debate. Do animals have any Experience level at all? They do fight as if they were level 4, but they cannot earn any experience. In fact, no non-sentient animal I have found in any of my V&V books has an EXP LEVEL at all. So... it could be "N/A", which I would read as zero for math purposes. It could be "1", or it could even be "4". Is a small dog worth Zero experience, 48 pts, 96 pts, or 384 pts?
Although this is not a point I thought I would be discussing, I'm glad it came up, as it needs to be addressed.
In the revised rules, the section on animals says that non-sentient creatures fight as Level 4, and your character sheet reiterates that point by saying under the asterisk that the creature acts as Level 4. So from the game mechanics the character is Level 4.
If animal stats in the published books don't list levels it's because they act as Level 4, as already covered in the rules.
The power Illusions states that Solid Energy Illusions, which have Hits (but no Power Points), fight at Level 4 and are worth 8 XP for every Hit Point they have. This is consistent with the formula of multiplying (Hits + Power) x Level x 2.