Back in high school, around... probably 1998 or 1999, I submitted a thing to the RIFTS faq and errata page on exactly that subject (though I compared it to the 5.56x45mm round), and suggested mach 7-9 was more realistic.
Suffice it to say, they did not post a correction then :I
the only thing that would make it more rifts-like would be for kevin siembieda to come out and say that it was the fault of his freelancers
Or that the boom gun was, in fact, a piece of alien technology that actually propelled the sabot to near light speed and it's just that the specs the public has to work with are deceiving enough that they even got the designers. Rifts loves the "we were fooled too" retcon.
This same sort of pseudoscience ridiculousness can be seen in their "scientific" explanations for the existences of Juicers and Crazies, and the reasons they give for Ley Line Walkers not wearing heavy armor (they cite the second law of thermodynamics, I believe).
It wouldn't be Rifts if it made a damn bit of sense.
...and the reasons they give for Ley Line Walkers not wearing heavy armor (they cite the second law of thermodynamics, I believe).
what
From wikipedia:
A change in the entropy (S) of a system is the infinitesimal transfer of heat (Q) to a closed system driving a reversible process, divided by the equilibrium temperature (T) of the system where wizards can't wear heavy armor.
Void Slayer on
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
There was something about how environmental MDC armor held in entropy or somesuch, and while that was fine for soldiery types it was hell on people who dealed in the energy levels that mages and physical psychics like bursters did. I'll have to see if I can dig up the quote. I can't remember what book it's in.
I always figured that mage-types could wear the heaviest armors they wanted--hell, power armors were fine in my book. Just don't expect to be flinging spells any time soon. Heavy armor? I'd just have it incur physical penalties out the yin yang due to their lack of training. And heavy was anything above a given weight in my games--I've just forgotten what that weight was. :?
I believe one of the books says something about "heavy armour" interfering with psionics and magic, but never defines what "heavy armour" is. Some armour states (often in the fluff) that it's "heavy", some has a higher MDC yet says nothing about being "heavy", and others ignore the concept altogether.
I recall in my games that we set it at the level of the average suit of Power Armour, which seems to have a main body around 250 (SAMAS, T-31, bunch of other stuff).
Which led to a funny debate on those suits blocking psionics and the Sixth Sense ability. Is "danger" really blocked by armour of a certain caliber?
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I believe one of the books says something about "heavy armour" interfering with psionics and magic, but never defines what "heavy armour" is. Some armour states (often in the fluff) that it's "heavy", some has a higher MDC yet says nothing about being "heavy", and others ignore the concept altogether.
I recall in my games that we set it at the level of the average suit of Power Armour, which seems to have a main body around 250 (SAMAS, T-31, bunch of other stuff).
Which led to a funny debate on those suits blocking psionics and the Sixth Sense ability. Is "danger" really blocked by armour of a certain caliber?
Well, I guess that depends on the caliber of danger coming at the armor, doesn't it
Well, I guess that depends on the caliber of danger coming at the armor, doesn't it
Funnily enough, that became a running gag in our games (I may have told this story before); but combat would be announced, initiative would be rolled and if we didn't think the GM was going to challenge us, we wouldn't even bother with 6th Sense bonuses. It became sort of a "shit has gotten real" note when we called them into play, or a bit of machismo where we'd egg him on a little (in good fun). "Two more glitter boys? Meh, still no sixth sense, we've got this".
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Just finished reading through this thread. I remember getting invited to a group to play a game once. As my only experience with Palladium (at the time) was with the Robotech RPG, I was rather out of the loop trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
It's good to see that it wasn't (necessarily) just my inexperience that caused that. I also remember being a little annoyed that the GM wouldn't let me bring my custom Beta veritech over. (I had managed to talk my Robotech GM into letting me swap out the Medium Missile Launchers on both arms for a CADS blade system... Good times were had by all, except the invid).
see317 on
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Dude, a Beta would have been fine. Underpowered even. Lots more burst firepower, but missiles are oh-so-easy to destroy mid-flight...and once those are gone, all you've got left is the puny 1d4x10 gattling gun.
And only, what, 350 main body MDC? 400 on the outside?
Yeah, cold meat for a lot of the stuff out there.
Hell, that's the REASON for Rifts. Call it a fold accident that causes you to get rifted there.
Dude, a Beta would have been fine. Underpowered even. Lots more burst firepower, but missiles are oh-so-easy to destroy mid-flight...and once those are gone, all you've got left is the puny 1d4x10 gattling gun.
And only, what, 350 main body MDC? 400 on the outside?
Yeah, cold meat for a lot of the stuff out there.
Hell, that's the REASON for Rifts. Call it a fold accident that causes you to get rifted there.
All good points, points I made when pointing to the player who just had his brain jar inserted into Mecha Godzilla, the other player who had a hypersonic rail gun sitting on his shoulder, and the player bragging about how his mage could level a city by sneezing at an inopportune moment.
Maybe his point was that the Beta would have been too weak to keep up. Oh well, it's a long time gone.
The Conversion Book had rules for bringing Veritechs into Rifts.
As I recall, one of the things mentioned was that Rifts tech could allow for massive increases in MDC. And that missiles were different across dimensional barriers.
Compared to virtually anything from Rifts, the Beta Veritech was huge and made out of wet cardboard.
Veritechs/Valkyries do get autododge, though, which is all sorts of bad ass for robots. Plus, SDF-1/Macross main gun
On missle fratricide, was it that each parry destroyed 75% of the missles, or that there was a 75% chance that ALL the missles were destroyed? I kind of like the former, as it fits with the whole "unload my gatling gun on the swarm of missles for ten seconds as some get through the pink cloud of exploding missles".
Also, I always thought magic and psionics needed true LOS (not via sensors), which is why they couldn't be used from inside power armor or on someone inside power armor. Otherwise, mages/pyros would just 1D6 MDC fireblast the squishy SDC guy inside the MDC armor.
delroland on
EVE: Online - the most fun you will ever have not playing a game.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Macross mechs/ships out the yin yang, ready (for the most part) for use in the Rifts setting. I made extensive use of this during a crossover campaign I ran. And it was good.
My personal favorite? VF-19 Excalibur. Hands down.
Xenogear_0001 on
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Yeah, the missile retrofitting rules were silly.
del: it's a 45% chance each normal attack (e.g. lasers, guns) that depletes the MDC of the targeted missile will detonate the entire barrage. Using a missile to counter a missile, it's 75%.
So yeah, missiles were wayyyy easy to counter.
Forget this Robotech stuff, let's get a Metal Siren all up ins. See, I think THAT beasty would have actually been able to stand toe-to-toe with Rifts-style robots, especially once it's been upgraded a bit.
Yeah, I remember that from the Macross II RPG that was also made on the Rifts system. Seemed to lack a lot of cool veritechs, though, which I supplemented with the stuff I linked to on my last post. Made the setting much more dynamic, as you can imagine.
So... 1d6x10,000? Because in some of the games I ran, something like that just wouldn't cut it. Certainly not in a setting like Phase World. It isn't going to, for example, destroy a living planet. At least, not unless it has the destructive capabilities of a fully operational Death Star. Which, I assume, it does not.
God this is one of the nerdiest things I've typed on here. And that's saying something.
I believe that was for one of the guns (the main gun was I believe 2 booms/tines that could fire weaker shots individually) firing on its own. It also had a "full power main cannon everything including the kitchen sink" attack that was essentially (if not literally) "Damage: Yes".
The Saber Cyclone (I love veritech fighters, but absolutely adore Cyclones) had arm blades that did fairly decent damage, but were protected by an energy field that made them utterly impervious to attack as long as said field was engaged.
Yes, the SDF-1's main cannon would win in that match; the beam was orders of magnitude larger than the cyclone itself.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Yeah, but that's within the Macross/Robotech RPG. How would it fare against a Splugorth, for example? Or a god? Or, even... an Old One? They never even gave stats for that last one because they were supposed to be so far above everything else. Though, if I had to come up with an Old One's MDC values, I'd roll something x100,000,000. I don't think the SDF-1's main cannon is capable of that much carnage. Then again, it was never used on anything planetary, so I suppose we'll never know.
At the end of the Robotech run, there was a sourcebook that had some prototype Destroids in it. One of them was a refitted Gladiator with CADS-style claws that it could use to block lasers and missiles and it's own set of missiles that made it invisible.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds.2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
The main gun on the SDF-1 and all its comparable weapons (like the Zentradi and Masters main guns) all did damage = "shit gets dead"--but IIRC on planetary targets they said it was on the order of 1d6*1 million damage. So even the Splugorth have to take notice if I remember their stats correctly (my Dad threw out that book when he found it for being too evil or something, hah. Good thing he didn't find the other Rifts books I had!). Living planets can just laugh it off of course. Everything else? Everything in a 2 mile wide radius 200,000 miles long gets annihilated.
Yeah, there were weapons of equivalent power that they made mention of in one of the Phase World books--I just don't recall which one. I always wanted to take Macross and mash it up with Phase World, but never got around to it. Which is a shame, because it's an even better fit than Rifts.
"The Main Gun / Reflex Cannon.
Mega-Damage: Absolutely destroys EVERYTHING in its path of fire. That's an energy bean approximately two miles wide and 60,000 miles long."
It also packed
8 Reflex Beam Cannons (1d4x1000 MD, 16 mile range)
4 Rail Cannons (3d4x100 MD, also 16 miles)
12 Long Range Missile Launchers (2d4x10 to 4d6x10 MD, 500-1800 mile range)
48 Medium Range Missile Launchers (1d6x10 to 2d6x10 MD, 40 to 80 mile range)
48 Dual Auto Cannons (2d4x10 MD, 12 mile range)
48 Laser Cannons (1d4x10 MD, 1 mile range)
Over 300 Veritech Fighters, and over 200 Destroids of various models.
I do remember the "damage to a planet" bit for the main gun, and think it might've been in one of the sourcebooks that came later.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
The SDF-3 was pimp.
No less than TWO SDF-1 style main guns
A full shield system (60,000 MDC)
A backup pinpoint barrier
48 laser turrets (1d4x100 MD, two attacks per melee, 1-200,000 mile range)
24 missile bays (each of which can volley off 8 long range missiles at a time, presumably either proton torpedoes or heavy reflex)
4 laser cannons (1d6x1000 MD, once per melee, 1-200,000 mile range, each of which is the equivalent of 3 Zentraedi main laser cannons, and each Zentraedi ship carries only one of them)
~1200 veritechs, including ~900 alphas and betas, ~200 shadow fighters of various stripes, ~100 old-style veritechs (I assume all of them are either Super or Armored, or it'd be silly to bring them aboard) and 36 hovertanks--which don't inflict much damage outside of guardian mode, but can withstand a crazy amount of punishment.
~1700 destroids, including 32 walking battleships and 130 walking missile batteries
4000 cyclones
The real downside to SDF-3 and especially the SDF-1 is that they don't have the MDC to back up their firepower, even with the shield system (which regenerates too slowly and disables their offensive punch while it's active). They're eggshells armed with hammers.
Orca on
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
AHA! Found at least one mention in the Zentraedi sourcebook.
The heavy particle cannon (which is basically a longer-ranged SDF-1 main cannon; the SDF-1's main cannon may or may not deal heavier damage to compensate since most human tech provides heavier firepower albeit at lower range, particularly in the SDF-1 era) does the following to a planet:
"...virtually [obliterates] everything in its path. . . . The beam lasts one full melee (15 seconds), cutting a swath approximately 1 mile wide and 100,000 miles long.
Mega-Damage: Destroys EVERYTHING in its path of fire regardless of M.D.C. Against a planet, it inflicts approximately 2d6 x One million M. D., leaving a massive, smoldering crater measuring 1d6 x 10 miles round and 3d6 x 100 feet deep."
Seems I've got Southern Cross, Invid Invasion and the REF Field Guide on my shelves. Damnit, after I finish off Be Good Little Puppy I know what I'll be perusing this weekend.
... and I'm still tempted to hunt down Triax & the NGR 2. And the books detailing the beginning of it all, despite having not played a Rifts game in somewhere around a decade.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
0
Options
OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
Yeah, I'm with you.
When Palladium lost their Robotech and Macross licenses I bought the books I didn't have (mostly their adventure books). My only regret is not replacing my by-then dog-eared copy of the original Robotech sourcebook. :]
I still look for Rifts sourcebooks when I hit used book stores. I can't justify buying them new since I'll never play 'em, but...well...I have fond memories of the universe of possibility they represented.
Even if the rules and designs were pants-on-head crazy.
Posts
Suffice it to say, they did not post a correction then :I
and then didn't bother to check if it was actually futuristic in any way
its like the writing equivalent of not playtesting the rules
so that fits pretty well with rifts i guess
This same sort of pseudoscience ridiculousness can be seen in their "scientific" explanations for the existences of Juicers and Crazies, and the reasons they give for Ley Line Walkers not wearing heavy armor (they cite the second law of thermodynamics, I believe).
It wouldn't be Rifts if it made a damn bit of sense.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
...
...
PFAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
what
From wikipedia:
A change in the entropy (S) of a system is the infinitesimal transfer of heat (Q) to a closed system driving a reversible process, divided by the equilibrium temperature (T) of the system where wizards can't wear heavy armor.
silly me
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I recall in my games that we set it at the level of the average suit of Power Armour, which seems to have a main body around 250 (SAMAS, T-31, bunch of other stuff).
Which led to a funny debate on those suits blocking psionics and the Sixth Sense ability. Is "danger" really blocked by armour of a certain caliber?
Well, I guess that depends on the caliber of danger coming at the armor, doesn't it
Funnily enough, that became a running gag in our games (I may have told this story before); but combat would be announced, initiative would be rolled and if we didn't think the GM was going to challenge us, we wouldn't even bother with 6th Sense bonuses. It became sort of a "shit has gotten real" note when we called them into play, or a bit of machismo where we'd egg him on a little (in good fun). "Two more glitter boys? Meh, still no sixth sense, we've got this".
It's good to see that it wasn't (necessarily) just my inexperience that caused that. I also remember being a little annoyed that the GM wouldn't let me bring my custom Beta veritech over. (I had managed to talk my Robotech GM into letting me swap out the Medium Missile Launchers on both arms for a CADS blade system... Good times were had by all, except the invid).
And only, what, 350 main body MDC? 400 on the outside?
Yeah, cold meat for a lot of the stuff out there.
Hell, that's the REASON for Rifts. Call it a fold accident that causes you to get rifted there.
All good points, points I made when pointing to the player who just had his brain jar inserted into Mecha Godzilla, the other player who had a hypersonic rail gun sitting on his shoulder, and the player bragging about how his mage could level a city by sneezing at an inopportune moment.
Maybe his point was that the Beta would have been too weak to keep up. Oh well, it's a long time gone.
As I recall, one of the things mentioned was that Rifts tech could allow for massive increases in MDC. And that missiles were different across dimensional barriers.
Compared to virtually anything from Rifts, the Beta Veritech was huge and made out of wet cardboard.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
wow
Robotech missiles didn't work in Rifts equipment, and vice versa. So Veritechs would need retrofitted to use Rifts ordinance.
Which is kind of weirdly logical when flanked by the phrases "Dimensional Rift" and "Transforming Robot."
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
On missle fratricide, was it that each parry destroyed 75% of the missles, or that there was a 75% chance that ALL the missles were destroyed? I kind of like the former, as it fits with the whole "unload my gatling gun on the swarm of missles for ten seconds as some get through the pink cloud of exploding missles".
Also, I always thought magic and psionics needed true LOS (not via sensors), which is why they couldn't be used from inside power armor or on someone inside power armor. Otherwise, mages/pyros would just 1D6 MDC fireblast the squishy SDC guy inside the MDC armor.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
Macross mechs/ships out the yin yang, ready (for the most part) for use in the Rifts setting. I made extensive use of this during a crossover campaign I ran. And it was good.
My personal favorite? VF-19 Excalibur. Hands down.
del: it's a 45% chance each normal attack (e.g. lasers, guns) that depletes the MDC of the targeted missile will detonate the entire barrage. Using a missile to counter a missile, it's 75%.
So yeah, missiles were wayyyy easy to counter.
Forget this Robotech stuff, let's get a Metal Siren all up ins. See, I think THAT beasty would have actually been able to stand toe-to-toe with Rifts-style robots, especially once it's been upgraded a bit.
edit: actually looked it up :]
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
God this is one of the nerdiest things I've typed on here. And that's saying something.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I believe that was for one of the guns (the main gun was I believe 2 booms/tines that could fire weaker shots individually) firing on its own. It also had a "full power main cannon everything including the kitchen sink" attack that was essentially (if not literally) "Damage: Yes".
The Saber Cyclone (I love veritech fighters, but absolutely adore Cyclones) had arm blades that did fairly decent damage, but were protected by an energy field that made them utterly impervious to attack as long as said field was engaged.
Yes, the SDF-1's main cannon would win in that match; the beam was orders of magnitude larger than the cyclone itself.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Just don't piss off the Cosmo Knight, or he'll beat your entire armada to death with his bare hands.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Man, I loved me some Robotech.
you really had to be a gamer during that time to fully appreciate it
(i was not even cognizant for palladium's heyday)
"The Main Gun / Reflex Cannon.
Mega-Damage: Absolutely destroys EVERYTHING in its path of fire. That's an energy bean approximately two miles wide and 60,000 miles long."
It also packed
8 Reflex Beam Cannons (1d4x1000 MD, 16 mile range)
4 Rail Cannons (3d4x100 MD, also 16 miles)
12 Long Range Missile Launchers (2d4x10 to 4d6x10 MD, 500-1800 mile range)
48 Medium Range Missile Launchers (1d6x10 to 2d6x10 MD, 40 to 80 mile range)
48 Dual Auto Cannons (2d4x10 MD, 12 mile range)
48 Laser Cannons (1d4x10 MD, 1 mile range)
Over 300 Veritech Fighters, and over 200 Destroids of various models.
I do remember the "damage to a planet" bit for the main gun, and think it might've been in one of the sourcebooks that came later.
No less than TWO SDF-1 style main guns
A full shield system (60,000 MDC)
A backup pinpoint barrier
48 laser turrets (1d4x100 MD, two attacks per melee, 1-200,000 mile range)
24 missile bays (each of which can volley off 8 long range missiles at a time, presumably either proton torpedoes or heavy reflex)
4 laser cannons (1d6x1000 MD, once per melee, 1-200,000 mile range, each of which is the equivalent of 3 Zentraedi main laser cannons, and each Zentraedi ship carries only one of them)
~1200 veritechs, including ~900 alphas and betas, ~200 shadow fighters of various stripes, ~100 old-style veritechs (I assume all of them are either Super or Armored, or it'd be silly to bring them aboard) and 36 hovertanks--which don't inflict much damage outside of guardian mode, but can withstand a crazy amount of punishment.
~1700 destroids, including 32 walking battleships and 130 walking missile batteries
4000 cyclones
The real downside to SDF-3 and especially the SDF-1 is that they don't have the MDC to back up their firepower, even with the shield system (which regenerates too slowly and disables their offensive punch while it's active). They're eggshells armed with hammers.
The heavy particle cannon (which is basically a longer-ranged SDF-1 main cannon; the SDF-1's main cannon may or may not deal heavier damage to compensate since most human tech provides heavier firepower albeit at lower range, particularly in the SDF-1 era) does the following to a planet:
"...virtually [obliterates] everything in its path. . . . The beam lasts one full melee (15 seconds), cutting a swath approximately 1 mile wide and 100,000 miles long.
Mega-Damage: Destroys EVERYTHING in its path of fire regardless of M.D.C. Against a planet, it inflicts approximately 2d6 x One million M. D., leaving a massive, smoldering crater measuring 1d6 x 10 miles round and 3d6 x 100 feet deep."
... and I'm still tempted to hunt down Triax & the NGR 2. And the books detailing the beginning of it all, despite having not played a Rifts game in somewhere around a decade.
When Palladium lost their Robotech and Macross licenses I bought the books I didn't have (mostly their adventure books). My only regret is not replacing my by-then dog-eared copy of the original Robotech sourcebook. :]
I still look for Rifts sourcebooks when I hit used book stores. I can't justify buying them new since I'll never play 'em, but...well...I have fond memories of the universe of possibility they represented.
Even if the rules and designs were pants-on-head crazy.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23