been using a lot lately... noticed they only been using 4 energy >.> yet i cant use them unless i have 5

had 19 E, used one
19 ---> 15... figured i got 1 E
used next one....
15--->11 E
again....
11--->7
-_- somethings up ere!!
7---->3
refreshed wondering if i had lag and now i have 4 E

what is your energy recharge rate?

try waiting until immediately after an energy recharge tick, then take off your relays and try again
i just used one and it took 5 energy from my bar

i think a similar thing happened again.... i just watched my E tick over to 15 and completed a mission. requirements of 15 E. the mission has a risk of loss of additional energy and i was lucky enough to trigger this effect. problem is, after completing the mission and triggering the effect i still had 3 E left over....

simplified:
started with 15 energy --> did mission once (required 15 energy) --> activated effect which resulted in additional loss of energy --> had 3 energy left

You sure it wasn't showing -3? That minus sign is pretty hard to spot. I got -2 recently from a double post on someone's comm (went from +8 to -2 just by posting "blue badge", which is annoying enough for me to start a separate thread).