Bit of Analysis: Rifts II

[Simon_Jester]

This is something of a mystery yes. In my headcanon, Geofront, Triax et al. can make big nukes but choose not to, for much the same reason the Coalition keeps theirs mostly as a Splugorth deterrent. Namely, they're afraid of starting a cycle of escalation they won't be the ones to finish.

Yeah. Among other things, from the point of view of the human technological powers, everyone else has citizens who are naturally MDC creatures in their skivvies.

While even MDC monsters generally can't survive the conditions inside a nuclear fireball, they would be able to cope with being caught on the fringes of the blast- the large area of raging firestorms and 5 psi overpressure that can easily kill humans with gigantic third degree burns on your skin. They'd be very likely to survive, unharmed, close enough to a nuclear explosion that a human would experience...

You know what, I am NOT going to link to pictures of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. They're ghastly, you can look them up on your own.

Anyway, the point is that SDC creatures (like humans) are going to suffer far more casualties in the outlying zone of effect of a nuclear weapon than a race of MDC creatures would. The lethal footprint of such a weapon is much less against them. And their inhuman constitution might well extend to being considerably more resistant to radiation poisoning, or to the other infrastructure problems (like lack of food and drinkable water).

So while we may point and laugh at the Phoenix Empire, if they built ICBMs and it ever came down to a nuclear war between the Phoenix Empire and, oh, the New German Republic, both sides employing large numbers of strategic nuclear weapons... the odds are that there'd be a hell of a lot more left of the Phoenix Empire than there would be of Germany afterwards.

Sure, their entire armed forces might lose to Triax's finest in an afternoon, but it would hardly matter after the power-armored soldiers unbuttoned their suits and realized that they'd lost 90% of the population from the Alps to the Baltic... while the population of the Phoenix Empire consists of monsters who are mostly, amazingly, still alive.

And as to the railgun thing... Oh yes. Railguns would lose speed reallly fast. Also, having water between the rails would tend to short-circuit the gun, so you'd have to somehow prevent water from getting inside the barrel.Honestly, any viable projectile for use underwater has to be self-propelled. You can get surprisingly fast, though, with things like the Shkval supercavitating torpedo.

That's what I thought, less the short-circuiting. Yet the whale armors, the Skull walker, even the Sea SAMAS all use railguns underwater, apparently with no effect on range.

Rationalization: the railgun is acting a low-velocity launcher that fires a self-propelled, high velocity projectile. I'm sure this is contradicted in canon but it's really the only way to make sense of things.

Given how wonky Rifts technology is, building a low-velocity electromagnetic launcher for your 'torpedoes' is probably less work than building an equivalently reliable compressed air or steam or gunpowder launching system.

[Simon_Jester]

Complement of about 340 total, roughly the same as ours. 30x66 feet good so far, length 504 ft. I don't think they've been that in a while, could be an older model. Displaces 83,000 tons, now I know it's based one a Flight I or II.

Uh... an 83000 ton displacement on a five hundred foot hull would sink.. It would be like trying to load a pile of anvils onto a rowboat. Are you sure you didn't pop in an extra zero by accident?

Weapons, primary armament is still 96 missiles in VLS tubes, 4 Tomahawks, 2 Fireflies the rest a mix of HE (30-120 MD) and plasma (30-180 MD). Six torpedo tubes with 60 medium torpedoes in the magazine, unlike most modern ships they have to be physically hauled out and loaded manually. One five-inch gun, 30-120 MD with a ten-mile range and 50 shells. 2 railgun CIWS turrets, 30-120 MD with a hundred bursts each.

Hm. Okay, to be fair, it sounds like they didn't really "refit" the ships nearly as extensively as I would have. I'm not disappointed by that, just surprised.

Reworking the ship as a missile destroyer does actually make a certain amount of sense if you can't make the hull really resistant to MDC weapons. A ship like a Burke has some space and tonnage to spare for armor above its critical spaces, but not that much, although you probably could at least coat the entire hull in a layer of MDC material as thick as what goes into infantry body armor.

But long range missiles are the one thing you can put on such a ship that will reliably be able to engage from outside the effective range of threats armed with MDC direct fire weapons, and thus stop the ship from being destroyed by a single platoon of pissed off renegade SAMAS troopers or whatever.

[biostem]

Why does the dolphin/whale power armor only have a 90 minute supply, when the human sized suits have many hours worth? Is it meant sort of as insurance that the dolphins to become too powerful, since they can't quite control them as directly as they could humanoid soldiers, or is there some other reason given??

[Highlord Laan]

One of my favorite points in the whole Pimp the CS Siege of Tolkeen series is the mention that the CS Navy gets completely gutted by Free Quebec in a series of engagements where the fucks learn that they're nowhere near as good as they think they are. FQ is just as bad, but at least they keep to themselves.

[Ahriman238]

Oh hey, I found my picture of the Sea Fin combat sled. Moving on.




The Sea King Cruiser, the largest vessel ever produced by Iron Heart Armaments. 565 feet long and displacing 10,000 tons, it's the biggest ship most people in the Americas have ever seen, proof that the Coalition really is heir to the naval power of the American Empire. Pretty funny since a.) they're purchased, though presumably home-built from now on and b.) they were actually designed when some naval nerd at IHA got his hands on ancient specs for a big destroyer and took it as a challenge to redesign and upgun the thing. Like I said, the Navy more-or-less started when Quebec brought four of these, and when the Navy officially formed the Coalition brought another two and seized the last at New Kenora. At least eight more exist outside Coalition control. The known ones are the CSS Texas, Ranger, Isle d'Orleans, City of Iron, Fort El Dorado, and FQS (Free Quebec Service) Formidable, Redeemer, and Trois Riviéres. Rene Leblanc kept his Isle d'Orleans when he stuck with the Coalition.

Unlike the Arleigh Burke Revenge-class, this has full modern automation, and so despite being 25% bigger, it actually has a nominal crew of 50. Plus 40-50 marines.

2600 MDC, top speed of 40 mph/64 kph. Main battery, 4 missile launchers with 160 medium or large missiles each, complete reload in the hold, and 6 torpedo tubes for 600 heavy torpedoes, again with the five-second cycle times. Oh yes, and a lovely pair of 8 inch naval rifles, one bow, one amidships, because the designers thought they were cool and looked intimidating, 40-240 MD, twenty mile range and 60 rounds aboard ship. Two heavy railgun CIWS, 30-120 MD with ammo for 100 bursts, and 50 depth charges. The main launchers can also fire the ship's six Tomahawks and four Fireflies.

The ship also carries and can deploy four helicopters or VTOL fighter jets. It also has a single unarmed UAV for recon, fire-control and bomb damage assessment. Usually has 40 SAMAS as a limited flying wing, but can carry 50 vanilla infantry instead

Also I mentioned the Mk. XII Aegis? 800 mile range and tracks 144 targets by itself. Networking adds some serious bonuses to aim, initiative and locating stealth rolls.

[Ahriman238]

Complement of about 340 total, roughly the same as ours. 30x66 feet good so far, length 504 ft. I don't think they've been that in a while, could be an older model. Displaces 83,000 tons, now I know it's based one a Flight I or II.

Uh... an 83000 ton displacement on a five hundred foot hull would sink.. It would be like trying to load a pile of anvils onto a rowboat. Are you sure you didn't pop in an extra zero by accident?

Haha, I did. I'm sorry, 8,300 tons.

Weapons, primary armament is still 96 missiles in VLS tubes, 4 Tomahawks, 2 Fireflies the rest a mix of HE (30-120 MD) and plasma (30-180 MD). Six torpedo tubes with 60 medium torpedoes in the magazine, unlike most modern ships they have to be physically hauled out and loaded manually. One five-inch gun, 30-120 MD with a ten-mile range and 50 shells. 2 railgun CIWS turrets, 30-120 MD with a hundred bursts each.

Hm. Okay, to be fair, it sounds like they didn't really "refit" the ships nearly as extensively as I would have. I'm not disappointed by that, just surprised.

Reworking the ship as a missile destroyer does actually make a certain amount of sense if you can't make the hull really resistant to MDC weapons. A ship like a Burke has some space and tonnage to spare for armor above its critical spaces, but not that much, although you probably could at least coat the entire hull in a layer of MDC material as thick as what goes into infantry body armor.

But long range missiles are the one thing you can put on such a ship that will reliably be able to engage from outside the effective range of threats armed with MDC direct fire weapons, and thus stop the ship from being destroyed by a single platoon of pissed off renegade SAMAS troopers or whatever.

This is also true, the ships have about a third the MDC of a similarly sized ship made completely from MDC materials. Though I think it and the other destroyer/cruisers are pretty light on the point-defense weaponry.

Why does the dolphin/whale power armor only have a 90 minute supply, when the human sized suits have many hours worth? Is it meant sort of as insurance that the dolphins to become too powerful, since they can't quite control them as directly as they could humanoid soldiers, or is there some other reason given??

AFAIK, it's just due to being in different books, by different writers with different ideas on what's possible and what's easy. If you want a Watsonian reason, perhaps because once they start the emergency air it must constantly blow in a strong stream to keep their blowhole clear? If so they could probably engineer around it.

[Ahriman238]

Now then, the mystery of the Coalition Submarines. At the beginning of the book is a generally rather unhelpful order of battle, which lists 59 Coalition subs. A careful counting of the major subs will reveal exactly nine, while precluding the idea of extras in each class, except for the mini-sub, the Stingray. So naturally I thought to myself "OK, basic process of elimination means 50 of these" Except it turns out there's hundreds of the mini-sub, per it's own description, so it clearly doesn't count.

Either a typo, a miscommunication between multiple authors, or there are 50 subs unaccounted for, belonging to none of these classes.

In general, building subs has not been a priority for the Coalition, which is desperate for fast patrol ships and gunboats for it's primary, freshwater, interests. Copeland's Second Fleet has more use for subs, but wants carriers a lot more. What subs exist operate mostly in the Gulf and South Atlantic, and a large part of what they do is recon and shadowing of Atlantean craft.




The Stingray (Now I'm picturing Down Periscope- Coalition Edition) is a three-man mini-sub, meant for long patrols (3-4 months) but with the ability to transport and stealthily insert a squad of men. Not a ton to say, it's pretty much exactly the Coalition version of Tritonia's Bottom-Feeder, with a skull, naturally.

400 MDC, a speed of 40 mph/64 kph is mentioned, but not divided into surface and underwater as with most subs. Max depth of one mile. Two torpedo tubes, 14 medium torps, a double-barrel mini-torp launcher, very rapid fire for 40 mini-torps. Four bg lasers (3-18 MD) for point defense and a double-barreled belly turret of the same power.

According to the book, there are 480 of these in service throughout the fleets, though half are undergoing maintenance at any given time, and another 200 in construction.




Another part of the Great Norfolk Haul was two truly ancient Cold War ships, Ohio-class SSBNs, the Kentucky and Nebraska, now know as Defiance and Reprisal. For the longest time, these two ships were it. The primary nuclear deterrent to Atlantis, 48 Trident II missiles pointed right at Splynn and other important sites, and though they have lots more distributed capability, the subs are still considered extremely important. They hardly ever leave their base at Fort Pinnacle, beneath the shelter of the Fleet, the shore batteries and the airfield while still easily ranging on Atlantis, and on the rare occasion they do leave they get an escort of a single attack sub (more might draw attention) and strict orders to run at the first sign of trouble. The Coalition isn't planning on any new SSBNs for a long time, if ever, so the two Defiance-class subs are literally irreplaceable.

Same size and weight as the real-life, 350 MDC with a surface speed of 33 mph/52 kph and an underwater one of 34 mph/54 kph. Crush hull is after 3,000 feet (0.91 km). Crew of 157, supplies for 70 days, air enough to remain submerged that entire period. Four torpedo tubes for 24 medium torpedoes. And the big fuss, of course, is the VLS launchers that can send up two dozen Tridents without surfacing. Tridents are MIRVs, meaning each missile has 14 warheads that separate in the terminal phase and spread nuclear destruction over a wide area, and so each Defiance can deliver 336 megaton-yield nukes.

Also carries a dozen Sea SAMAS as a last-ditch sort of defense, but lacking a proper deployment airlock the only way to launch or recover them underwater is through the torpedo tubes.




Also in Norfolk, they found six attack subs, two each of the Los Angeles, Seawolf, and Centurion (future class, doesn't exist IRL) type submarines, which after upgrade got renamed for ocean predators and lumped into the Shark-class. All serve with 2nd Fleet in the Atlantic. They are CSS Shark, Seawolf, Skullfish, Hammerhead, Manta Ray and Thresher. All the Sharks were current as of the Cataclysm, so a little maintenance and some MDC armor and they were all done.

320 MDC, surface speed is 35 mph/56 kph underwater 34-41 mph/54-65 kph, crush hull varies some but is generally assumed to around 1200 ft. 132 crew, endurance of three months. Four heavy torpedo tubes with 32 torpedoes to use. A dozen VLS tubes, standard loadout is 6 long-range plasma missiles, 4 Tomahawks and 2 Fireflies. In the event that things get really serious, like total war serious, if they strip out the conventional munitions they can fit 12 Tomahawks & 6 Fireflies.




The Orca-class is the Coalition's first major, original sub design. It's literally the best sub they can build, and I'm sure the integral skull design is a huge relief to commanders who might be freaked out by the smooth subs. For the moment though, CSS Orca is sort of in a class of it's own. A first flight of five were planned, but then the Coalition started really feeling the pinch of the war with Tolkeen/Quebec and Admiral Fisher's bottomless well of funding ran dry. Carriers were prioritized and they adopted a more.... relaxed schedule for the Orcas. One new sub every two or three years, if they're lucky. Is extremely stealthy, with audio decoys to launch if it gets spotted.

850 MDC, top speed is 41 mph/65 kph on the surface or below, max depth of 1.5 miles. Crew of 98, and supplies for four months, has air to stay down for six. Four heavy torpedo tubes, two in the eyes and two under the teeth, and 40 fish for them, Two ion cannons, retractable, just before and after the sail/tower, 6-36 MD. 24 VLS tubes for long-range missiles standard is 6 Tomahawks and 4 Fireflies, total war loadout is 24 Tomahawks and 10 Fireflies.

As part of the standard, 8 crew pilot Sea SAMAS, and it can accommodate either 20 more or 40 marines/commandos. The underwater launch bay for them can hold either a single Sea Spider or two Stingray mini-subs.

[Simon_Jester]

This is also true, the ships have about a third the MDC of a similarly sized ship made completely from MDC materials. Though I think it and the other destroyer/cruisers are pretty light on the point-defense weaponry.

I agree; I'd figured that the relatively cheap, rugged flying craft of Rifts would make air attack a huge threat and require.

A Burke should be able to pick off a lot of such attackers at long range with missiles, and if it fails to do so will probably sink whether its close-in weapons kill a few more or not. So to make close-in weapons work, you'd need to go whole hog (mount a fusion reactor in the space left by one of the VLS missile blocks, and power a broadside of ion cannon turrets or whatever) and have your CIWS defense work on "kill them before they kill us" principles.

Also, I'm not sure if there are rules in Rifts for shooting down enemy missiles in midair, which would be a huge deal. Even if a large reason for the anti-air fit on Rifts vehicles is the threat of heavily armored aircraft with direct fire weapons, as distinct from relatively flimsy missiles.

Another part of the Great Norfolk Haul was two truly ancient Cold War ships, Ohio-class SSBNs, the Kentucky and Nebraska, now know as Defiance and Reprisal. For the longest time, these two ships were it. The primary nuclear deterrent to Atlantis, 48 Trident II missiles pointed right at Splynn and other important sites, and though they have lots more distributed capability, the subs are still considered extremely important. They hardly ever leave their base at Fort Pinnacle, beneath the shelter of the Fleet, the shore batteries and the airfield while still easily ranging on Atlantis...

This is pretty much how the Soviets did it. It's called the "bastion doctrine." It works really well if the enemy landmass is only a few thousand miles away, too.

Surprised the Coalition isn't planning more. A ballistic missile submarine isn't that much harder to build than any other type. Possibly because an SLBM has to be fairly near the surface to launch its missiles without them getting crushed, and outside the 'bastion' areas the Coalition isn't sure it can keep the seas clear of threats that might attack the submarines before they can launch.

[Ahriman238]

This is also true, the ships have about a third the MDC of a similarly sized ship made completely from MDC materials. Though I think it and the other destroyer/cruisers are pretty light on the point-defense weaponry.

I agree; I'd figured that the relatively cheap, rugged flying craft of Rifts would make air attack a huge threat and require.

A Burke should be able to pick off a lot of such attackers at long range with missiles, and if it fails to do so will probably sink whether its close-in weapons kill a few more or not. So to make close-in weapons work, you'd need to go whole hog (mount a fusion reactor in the space left by one of the VLS missile blocks, and power a broadside of ion cannon turrets or whatever) and have your CIWS defense work on "kill them before they kill us" principles.

Also, I'm not sure if there are rules in Rifts for shooting down enemy missiles in midair, which would be a huge deal. Even if a large reason for the anti-air fit on Rifts vehicles is the threat of heavily armored aircraft with direct fire weapons, as distinct from relatively flimsy missiles.

There are rules for shooting missiles, and if you have the right guns, torpedoes, short of the target. To summarize, a missile usually has MDC, 1 for a mini-missile, 5 for short-range, 10, 20, assume an unknown has 25 MDC, 50 for heavy torps or nukes, damaging but not destroying them generally doesn't help you much. There's an aim penalty for hitting a small and fast moving object, but most weapons built for CIWS/point-defense grant a bonus that largely or completely negates that. You're generally assumed to have time for one, maybe two shots per gunman/turret before the missiles hits. Long range radar may help with that to an extent, but the range of the point-defense isn't really increased, they just get more tracking time and better firing solutions. There's a 33% chance that taking out a missile in a massive volley will trigger a chain reaction of explosions that kills them all.

[Ahriman238]

The CSN-120 Eagle drone is their standard recon UAV. 95 MDC, flight speed of 500 mph/800 kph at an altitude of 15,000 feet. Has the best passive radar, telescopes, thermal, nightvision etc. the Coalition can provide. Can stream live video to it's command station or record up to 12 hours of footage if stealth actually matters, which is why it's covered in stealth material. Actually uses liquid fuel instead of fission to keep cheap, 600 mile range.




The F-14 Tomcat was an iconic warplane of the American Empire, and a gross were recovered in Norfolk. The Coalition brought half of them from GAW as a stopgap until they could design, test and procure their own carrier-based fighters. Now they're just starting to phase out these "Super-Tomcats," though a bunch of pilots are pushing to keep them at least as reserves. Super might be stretching it, all GAW really did was coat it in MDC plastic, update the electronics and computers, and provides plasma warheads for the missiles and armor-piercing gyro-jet ammo for the guns to give it that extra punch.

180 MDC, flight speed is Mach 2.3 while cruising speed is anything subsonic, max altitude is 56,000 feet, 800 miles between refueling. Typical missile loadout is two long-range missiles and 6 modified AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, both do 30-180 MD. The cannon does 10-60 MD per 30-round burst and carries enough ammo for 20 bursts.




The CSN-115 Sea Striker is now the standard fighter-bomber for the Navy. VTOL, a little more weighted towards ground/sea targets but carries a lot of mini-missiles for dogfighting or simple saturation, it's supposed to be flexible. Incidentally, the Coalition seems to have reinvented the concept of the torpedo bomber, I suppose the Fireflies show they can cope with the problems.

465 MDC, top airspeed is Mach 2.8, cruising anywhere from 150-600 mph depending on the mission- missiles, bombs, strafing, etc. Max altitude is 60,000 ft. and it can stay in the air just about indefinitely or as long as the pilots hold up if it stays subsonic, 10 hours for the jets to overheat if they hit the gas. Got a laser does 20-80 MD, wing pylons can carry six long-range missiles or torpedoes, two big bombs or depth charges on the belly. Got 72 mini-missiles in a dorsal launcher, the belly one can be swapped out, either an identical mini-missile launcher or 72 mini-torpedoes.




The CSN-117 Shrike is a Sea Striker variant, designed by the same committee, meant to forget ground-attack and be a fast interceptor. It's a little more streamlined, less armored, has bigger engines and only one seat in the cockpit. It also adds a reduced radar cross-section and a fly-by-wire system. Still more than half the parts are interchangeable.

390 MDC, but top speed is Mach 3.5, cruising speed is 600 mph with an unlisted flight ceiling, VTOL like the other. Lot less endurance though, the high-performance jets overheat in just over four hours supersonic, and 10 hours at over 200 mph, below that is still basically indefinite flight. Same laser (20-80 MD) and six long-range missiles. The big-ticket item is the AIM-180 ASRAAMM (Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Multiple Missile) system, developed with considerable aid from Triax. Similar concept to a MIRV, it's a medium range missile that instead of carrying a warhead deploys 4 short-range heatseeking frag missiles (6-36 MD) when it gets half way to the target. One Shrike carries a dozen ASRAAMMs, this is a top-secret air supremacy weapon of the Coalition, while Triax considers it a proof-of-concept before they get down to the real designing.




I don't know about this one. Sure, they say it's a Coalition plane, and it's in the CSN book, but without a skull so much as painted on, how do I know? Anyways, the CSN-118 Dagger is a stealth bomber, something the Coalition had been having a lot of trouble duplicating, even with working examples. So they called on Triax and inside a year had a prototype, which taught them how to build their own stealth planes. The major problem is the Dagger is so fantastically expensive, the Coalition hasn't been able to afford more than a few dozen, though they hope to change that in a decade or so and double the present amount. The NGR is interested in buying some, so that'll help a lot.

360 MDC, max speed is Mach 1.5, cruising is anything subsonic, max altitude of 60,000 ft. Is also VTOL, jets overheat after six hours supersonic or twelve above 300 mph, which is the speed for indefinite travel. Two-man crew, pilot and copilot/gunner. Has a [ulse laser (20-80 MD) in a right side compartment that snaps open and closed again when firing, so as to minimize the extent to which stealth is compromised by firing. Four medium-range missiles also get hidden compartments, and there are hardpoints on the wing for six more, though this greatly reduces stealth. The bomb bay holds a hexagonal cell frame module holding 48 bombs, either HE (20-120 MD) or multi-warhead plasma bomblets (20-80 MD apiece). The modules are a bitch to reload, taking an hour for a specialized flight crew, but it takes all of five minutes to swap them out. SOP is for ever Dagger in the air, there's three bomb modules and a ground crew standing by on the flight deck/airfield.

A large part of the expense is a Triax EMP-hardened supercomputer to manage the avionics and sensor systems. It has pretty advanced radar and laser targeting systems, plus very advanced infrared imaging and a telescopic closed-circuit camera that can ID most aircraft against an internal database 50 mile away without a single active emission to compromise stealth. The point, after all, is to deliver overwhelming fire with great precision. It's also the first jet I;ve seen in RIFTS that explicitly uses missile countermeasures, eight canisters of chaff.



The Navy also employs Sky-Cycles as light aircraft and the Black Lightning and Desert Locust helicopters the CS Army uses, though they call them Sea Storm and Sea Wasp to be contrary. And I guess because they sometimes forgo bombs for torpedoes.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. All the high Mach aircraft (Mach 3 and higher) there look sooo unaerodynamic by the standards of extremely high speed flight...

I mean, a plane like the F-18 with those square-ish, stubby wings is designed the way it is for a reason. As the speed gets higher you want very small wing areas. Otherwise you're wasting a lot of engine power just blasting through the sky, and exerting too much drag and heating on the wings. I'm sure MDC materials can withstand that, but why make them withstand it?

[Ahriman238]

Getting near the end here.



Also coming from Norfolk, two Wasp-class Amphibious Warfare Ships. Kind of a pocket carrier, but with much more focus on landing infantry/armor and supporting them with what aircraft are left, as transport will eat most of the capacity. The Coalition likes these ships, CSS Missouri and CSS Iron Heart, so much they're planning to build another dozen, though not so much as one keel has been laid yet.

8000 MDC, top speed of 28 mph/44 kph. Two medium missile launchers with eight missiles each (and 240 in storage, but it actually takes time to reload) 30-180 MD. Plus three of those railgun CIWS (30-120 MD, 200 bursts) and eight smaller railguns (10-60 MD, 10 bursts).

Air-wing is 8 Sea Strikers, 3 Deathbringers, a flying APC that can carry a full company or 60 SAMAS, 24 helicopters and 24 Sky Cycles.

The whole point is to land, by air or parasite craft, 2,000 troops, a naval infantry division. Such a force will typically include about 700 vanilla infantry, 740 SAMAS, 100 other power armor, 28 tanks, 12 howitzers, 4 MLRS, 14 ammo trucks, a recon/special forces company, a sapper platoon with bulldozers and other heavy equipment, 22 doctors and nurses in the medical section, and a headquarters group.




And we finally come to the last of the Norfolk group, the carriers USS George Washington, Lexington and Ranger, now CSS Joseph Prosek, Lone Star and Quebec, respectively. Showing that they get at least a bit of naval tactics, the CSN employs carrier groups, each is accompanied constantly by a pair of frigates (not shown in book) one or two destroyers and a Sea King cruiser. All four CSN carriers operate as part of Second Fleet, though that will soon change.

12,000 MDC, top speed of 35 mph/54 kph. Crew of 4,600. Has three missile turrets each with 240 long-range missiles, and a complete reload in storage. Four railgun CIWS (30-120 MD) with 500 bursts. Actually doesn't specify nuclear armament, but I know it's there. Of course, guns and missiles aren't an aircraft carrier's weapon, aircraft are. Well, that and the command facilities and EW.

94 aircraft, or maybe 70, I feel like counting the Sky Cycles is sort of cheating. Oh well, a dozen each Daggers, Shrikes, and Super-Tomcats. Two dozen Sea Strikers and Sky Cycles. Six helicopters and four Deathbringers. Oh, and expect 460 SAMAS of various types, they may be slow and low-altitude but they can still mess up any target they can reach. Typically 200 Sea SAMAS, 180 Super SAMAS, and the rest old-school, Smiling Jack or Strikers. Oh, and six Eagle UAVs.

Infantry component includes most of the SAMAS, and another thousand naval infantry.




The Chi-Town-class is the first capital ship entirely designed and built by the CSN. They wanted a ship that was at once carrier, battleship and amphibious warfare ship and they got it, kind of. It's less capable in each role than a dedicated ship would be. Still they very much appreciate the design and hope to eventually phase out the existing carriers and the Wasps they plan on building in favor of it. At the moment there's one, CSS Chi-Town and they're building the Arkansas at Fort Pinnacle and the Iowa near Chi-Town, on Lake Michigan. The plan at the moment is for the Iowa and carrier group to basically replace First Fleet in keeping the Great Lakes safe and secure, than move most of First Fleet to Halifax to patrol the North Atlantic, with a few parts joining Second Fleet.

No picture, so here's what I know. It has a flight deck of sorts, but no runway and can only accommodate VTOL craft. It has a large forward loading ramp for troops, and a giant three-gun turret, pretty much exactly like a battleship's directly ahead of the island/bridge section. 187x40x910 ft. or 56x12x277 m. and displaces 78,000 tons. Presumably there's a giant skull somewhere.

13,000 MDC, top speed of 41 mph/65 kph. 2880 crew. As mentioned, there's a big turret with three 16-inch guns, 35 mile range with 200 rounds in three munitions types: 100 frag rounds (40-240 MD, 80 ft. blast radius) 45 armor-piercing (100-400 MD, 10 ft. radius) and 55 plasma (100-600 MD, 50 ft. radius). Three missile batteries, the big long-range one has 40 cells and usually fires 60-360 MD missiles with a hundred-mile range, but this is also the launcher for the unknown number of Tomahawks and 8 Fireflies. There's 200 missiles in the immediate magazine and each individual cell can be loaded in 15 seconds, plus another 200 in secondary storage with time for swapping out, a nuke can be prepped in 30 seconds tops of the captain's confirmation of launch orders. The two smaller ones are more defensive turrets, 8 birds in each, medium range (40-240 MD, 20 mile range) and with 110 missiles per launcher. There are eight heavy torpedo tubes (also 40-240 MD with a 20 mile range), six front, two rear, and 100 torpedoes. Six of the exact same railgun CIWS every other Coalition ship has used (30-120 MD) ammo for 100 bursts, and four of what I can only call machine-railguns on the deck-rails, 10-60 MD, ten bursts in a quickly replaceable drum magazine.

I know, lot of numbers. Airwing is much smaller, a dozen Shrikes and Sea Strikers, eight Daggers and helicopters, 20 Sky Cycles and two of a flying transport I'm not familiar with, called a Sky Lifter? I'll root around in my Coalition War books for it. 240 SAMAS, though only 40 are attached to the ship.

1,200 troops, including the 200 SAMAS pilots who get their own air-mobile PA company. There's also an infantry battalion with 640 infantry, 10% of them on rocket bikes. An armor company with a hundred skele-bots, 14 tanks, 4 walkers, and 46 mechs. Again a dozen howitzers, 4 MLRS, and 14 ammo trucks, a special forces company and a headquaters group. No mention of a medical unit this time, but I feel confident there is one.

[Ahriman238]

Relatively early in the book is a description of each CSN naval station and the assets there, now that we know what all the names mean, and what most of them look like, it seems a good time to pull it out.

Fort Pinnacle

Previously Port Horus, a thriving city of 98,000, excluding naval personal which would bump it right up to 133,000. Half the city is covered by the naval complex, which has docking facilities for 20 capital ships or subs and a hundred of the small patrol craft, plus the drydock and shipyard facilities needed to support 2nd Fleet. The harbor is protected by 60 ridiculously large caliber guns (100-400 MD) in 600 MDC bunkers. On the furthest side from the sea is the airbase, with 144 fighters and 48 choppers. After executing or deporting the original magic-wielding D-Bee residents, CS combat engineers threw everything together in a hurry and incentives were offered to Coalition citizens to relocate to Fort Pinnacle.

Because Fort Pinnacle is over 600 miles from the next closest bastion of CS civilization, great trouble was taken to ensure it remained in contact with Lone Star City, including the large number of helicopters at both cities, a railway linking them and a wall, the Simmons line, between the rail and their enemies along the northern bank of the Sabine river, behind 600 ft. of minefield and a thousand feet of obstacle-filled killing ground. Simmons line is MDC concrete 150 MDC to breach, 50 feet tall and ten wide. Every ten miles down the line is a tower with 80 MDC, a squad of men, 20 skele-bots, 3 laser turrets (6-36 MD) a railgun (40-240 MD, 100 bursts) 48 medium range missiles, and supplies to last months of siege.

There's three more new settlements on the line, Newgulf, Joaquin and Fort Simmons, just little naval stations dedicated mostly to holding the line. Fort Simmons is halfway down and boasts 6 Sea Strikers and Shrikes, 2 Dagger bombers, 12 choppers, 48 Sky Cycles, 320 old-school SAMAS, enough transports to airlift a thousand men anywhere, 24 Grinning Skull MBTs, and 4 MLRS. It;s not on the river, but is meant to provide rapid air-support to any part of the wall that is threatened.

Newgulf and Joaquin are on the river, and Newgulf boasts 100 SAMAS, 24 Sky Cycles, 36 Wave Demons, a Death's Head transport and a dozen more patrol/gunboats. Joaquin is lighter with just 40 SAMAS, 20 Sky Cycles, 24 Wave Demons, bunch of power armor, 6 walkers, a gross of skele-bots and 160 vanilla infantry with airlift.


Isle d'Orleans

The original base of First Fleet, now in Quebecois hands. They seized a lot of the smaller ships, but let the big fish go with Leblanc. Protected with thirty guns of the same power and bunker setup as Pinnacle.


Halifax

Meant to one day base First Fleet as it enters the Atlantic. As of the CSN book, effectively abandoned with it's 15,000 personnel and dozen small ships until things with Quebec are settled. Which they were, but I know nothing of how that impacted the base.


Baton Rogue

Is on the Mississippi now, lots of things are different like that. HQ for the Brownwater command, room for 50 ships to dock, a dozen laser turrets (10-60 MD) for defense. Operating out of here are 6 Sea Strikers, 12 Sky Cycles, 48 Wave Demons, 10 Barracudas and 7 Hurricanes. Plus 4 Sea Spider walkers and two companies of infantry.


Greenville

First Mississippi base north of Baton Rogue, an important link to Fort El Dorado, the Coalition's primary source of oil. A pipeline carries the oil to Greenville, and barges carry it North and throughout the CS. Mind it's not super-important outside of maintaining good relations with El Dorado. 8 patrol boats, 20 Wave Demons, 6 helicopters, 12 Sky Cycles, 40 SAMAS, 40 Skele-bots, 300 men.


Fort Girardeau

Cape Girardeau, first naval station South of Devil's Gate, last stop for ships wanting to form convoys to pass the most hazardous part of the river. 8 Barracudas, 4 Hurricanes, 18 Wave Demons, 8 Sea Strikers, 6 walkers, two platoons of SAMAS and one of skele-bots. 360 infantry. Got four laser batteries and 10 railgun emplacements.


Hannibal

First base North of Devil's Gate, same story as Ft. Girardeau, but had some minor strategic importance in the Tolkeen War and so got beefed up a bit. 6 Barracudas, 6 Hurricanes, 26 Wave Demons, 4 Sea Strikers, 18 Sky Cyckes, two platoons of SAMAS and one of Terror-Troopers. 640 infantry. 8 lasers and a dozen railgun emplacements, plus a rather serious minefield.


Chi-Town

Technically counts because the official HQ and around 600 personnel are there. No boats or big guns.


Old Chicago

36 Wave Demons, 12 Barracudas, 2 Hurricanes, 6 Sea Strikers, 8 Sea Spider walkers, a company of SAMAS, another of skele-bots and two of infantry. Plus a dozen of those guns from Baton Rogue and a group of scientists studying the rifts.


Sault Ste. Marie

The token naval base for the State of Iron Heart. Really more of a civilian commercial port with some naval presence. 24 Wave Demons, 6 Sea Strikers, 24 Sky Cycles and a company each of Super SAMAS, Sea SAMAS and skele-bots.

[Simon_Jester]

Actually doesn't specify nuclear armament, but I know it's there...

Ironically, this is pretty much the exact policy taken by the US Navy during the Cold War. They refused to say whether there were nuclear weapons on any particular surface combatant... but it was fairly obvious they were there.

Simmons line is MDC concrete 150 MDC to breach, 50 feet tall and ten wide. Every ten miles down the line is a tower with 80 MDC, a squad of men, 20 skele-bots, 3 laser turrets (6-36 MD) a railgun (40-240 MD, 100 bursts) 48 medium range missiles, and supplies to last months of siege.

Months of supplies in a tower... and it couldn't realistically survive a single salvo from its own mounted weapons. See, this sort of thing is exactly why aboveground fortifications went out of style in real life, and why defense systems like the Maginot Line consist mainly of underground tunnel and bunker complexes with gun turrets that pop up out of the ground and murderize things when needed.

[Ahriman238]

Simmons line is MDC concrete 150 MDC to breach, 50 feet tall and ten wide. Every ten miles down the line is a tower with 80 MDC, a squad of men, 20 skele-bots, 3 laser turrets (6-36 MD) a railgun (40-240 MD, 100 bursts) 48 medium range missiles, and supplies to last months of siege.

Months of supplies in a tower... and it couldn't realistically survive a single salvo from its own mounted weapons. See, this sort of thing is exactly why aboveground fortifications went out of style in real life, and why defense systems like the Maginot Line consist mainly of underground tunnel and bunker complexes with gun turrets that pop up out of the ground and murderize things when needed.

I'm pretty sure at least two members of my old party could have soloed one of these towers, and I'd have given decent odds on the other three. Not that we would have, mind, having teleport means never having to go the hard way. Which is sort of reflected in the fluff text, the wall is a moderate inconvenience to the enemies of the Coalition, they still need two armored cars on every train and constant patrols, and the point of the towers is more to call for help and try and hold out until it arrives from the nearest of five points, the forts and cities.

[Ahriman238]

Welp, that's the Coalition done. Let's try someone new.



The Milu evolved on the ocean world of Ka-pa'a-he'o as bottom-feeding scavengers and at some point after developing sapience and discovering magic, necromancers. At some point in the distant past they were contacted by a Vampire Intelligence known formally as The Dark Warmth Of Cold Death and informally as Billy. Billy promised them power both physical and in learning parts of necromancy they hadn't developed, and dominance of the planet in exchange for their eternal service and worship. They said yes, and in short order became the dominant (and only living) species, so Billy ordered them to be fruitful and multiply and started opening portals to new worlds they could conquer in his name.

Physically, Milu are crab-men with a vaguely humanoid torso atop four crab-legs, their right arm is massive pincer, the left a human-like hand, largely human-like head with mandibles and antennae. 50-349 MDC, cold-resistant, with a depth tolerance of 12 miles, or a hell of a lot deeper than Earth's oceans get. Great nightvision (3,000 ft.) okay hearing, and awesome smell, able to pick up any blood or decay in the water three miles away, and their antennae are sensitive to electric and magnetic fields, can feel motion in the water 200 ft. away. Supernatural strength and endurance. Milu prefer to communicate by rubbing antennae, but have a language of chirps, whistles and creaking noises for when they need to speak at range.

Milu reproduce by laying egg-sacs that are later fertilized by males, like a lot of fish do. Female Milu are 20% bigger. Their young are set almost immediately yo work fetching things and scavenging food for the adults. About 33% of adults are vampiric nobility, another 30% are necromancers. Culturally, Milu are pretty fatalistic/nihilistic and think little of sacrificing friends for their own survival.


Mind, to manifest even partially somewhere or open those convenient portals, Billy needs a Master Vampire, someone to form a pact with him to become his living conduit. The Milu's leader on Earth is a 17th Century human named Davey Jones. In his previous life, a moderately successful pirate who retired to run a pub in London, with a side business in drugging patrons to be shanghaied into pirate and smuggling crews, for a price. Well, a few of his old customers got together and composed a strongly worded complaint by weighing him down and tossing him in the ocean. He died offering his soul to whatever dark god would have him, then woke up 500 years later to the words "pact accepted."

Davey Jones has 240 MDC, but is basically invulnerable to most physical damage except silver, wood which does MD to him, sunlight, holy/Millennium and weapons. Most magic does half-damage, but Biomancy does double, immune to all forms of illusion and mind control. Vampire powers work a bit differently for the aquatic types. He can't turn to mist or any of the traditional creatures, just a shark or a manta ray. Instead of "creatures of the night" he can summon and command crabs, barracuda and sharks. And instead of just skeletons he and others can raise 10-40 Zombie Servants. He is armed with a TW pistol that looks like a flintlock but holds six shots, does MD and can create bullets if he feeds it PPE, and has a 'singing sword' the Dirge Cutlass that does 2-12 SD to normal people, MD to anything with an MDC, and 5-30MD to demons, other vampires and anything with a weakness to sonics.

He's also very adaptable, just rolling with the general insanity of the world. He led the Milu to some early wins, but they also got served by the Naut'yll and Splugorth, the latter managing some kind of dimensional magic to seal Earth off from further portals by Billy. Davey Jones also constructed the Locker, a fortress built of stone laced with bone, letting his many necromancers reinforce it to an insane degree. It's been his impregnable fortress ever since, the Lemurians or the New Navy can roll up any number of outposts or cities as the Milu expand, but they can never destroy that place. Around it has grown the Milu capital on Earth, the City of Bone.

If Davey Jones should ever die, they would lose the ability to make new vampires. Jones and the Milu know this, and so they guard his life with suicidal devotion.


The Milu vampires, the Mahiki Milu are the top dogs in a rigid caste system, right below Jones. 108-486 MDC, hell of a lot stronger than the basic Milu who could already tear through steel. Smarter and faster too, with all the vampiric abilities Davey Jones has plus the staples of blood-drinking and immortality. Water does nothing to them, but they take twice as much damage from sun as other vamps, being creatures of the abyssal depths and all. Also take half damage from magic and most of the other weaknesses and immunities of Davey Jones, including wood going right through their MDC shells.

After them come the Milu Necromancers, then the ordinary Milu, stool, Path Walkers (non-Milu vampires) excluding Jones of course, then worms, dirt, manure, zombies, less intelligent undead, and finally outsiders. Milu are disgusted by the humanoid form, but keep others as wretched slaves/livestock to feed the Mahiki Milu/raw materials for making more valuable zombies and other undead.

The zombies created by the Milu turn pale grey or white and grow an armored exoskeleton, getting an MDC conversion. Their strength is doubled, they don't really get tired, or afraid. The retain their minds to an extent, they're only half as smart, hemorrhage memories and only keep 4-9 skills, while acting as if thinking through a fog. But they can drive a vehicle or operate heavy weapons and follow instructions. The Milu use them for brute labor and as canon fodder.

[Darmalus]

Simmons line is MDC concrete 150 MDC to breach, 50 feet tall and ten wide. Every ten miles down the line is a tower with 80 MDC, a squad of men, 20 skele-bots, 3 laser turrets (6-36 MD) a railgun (40-240 MD, 100 bursts) 48 medium range missiles, and supplies to last months of siege.

Months of supplies in a tower... and it couldn't realistically survive a single salvo from its own mounted weapons. See, this sort of thing is exactly why aboveground fortifications went out of style in real life, and why defense systems like the Maginot Line consist mainly of underground tunnel and bunker complexes with gun turrets that pop up out of the ground and murderize things when needed.

I generally attribute such insanity to Palladiums awful MDC combat system. It's one of the reasons I drop them like a sack of flaming poo, the other being their disgusting litigious ways.

That and their writers have no sense of scale in general.

[Ahriman238]

Horune. These guys. What to say about these guys.



The Horune are five-eyed pirate refugees from Waterworld, well, they call it the Mothersea, but same idea. The Horune and I have a bit of a history, as in, they were pretty much my group's most common enemy outside the Coalition. I don't even think they were meant to be that way, but after our first meeting most of us had learned a burning hatred and the GM kind of rolled with it. See, we were tracking a thief who'd stolen a mystic artifact that we believed he was trying to sell to the Splugorth, so when he stopped at this small town near the sea we saw our last chance to intercept him. As was our habit, we left the more obvious members of the party outside where they could come and bail out us sneaky ones when something inevitably went wrong. We trailed him to a tavern and there our troubles started. I've mentioned, I believe, that one of our group played a dinosaur-riding Juicer-Ninja? Well, the Horune are the source of the Horune Energy Blade, a weapon legally distinct from, but otherwise identical to, a lightsaber (4-24 MD) and my buddy decides that he needs one. So he stole himself one, triggering a search for us, hostages were taken and were going to be shot if the thief didn't step forward, and a house set on fire. We still might have pulled it off, I planned to turn myself and the thing in, then try and tank the execution shot and teleport out (a faking death trick that had worked out once before) but then the other half the team saw the fire and our GB started blowing away concentrations of monsters. After a long running firefight through a burning town, our ninja had his lightsaber, we'd lost our guy and the town was completely destroyed, creating a lengthy sidequest to safely evacuate everyone to the nearest safe settlement while prepping them for the intake of refugees. The next time we saw the Horune we opted for immediate and enthusiastic overkill.

Right, personal anecdotes aside, 20-154 MDC and regen 1-6 MDC per hour, they pretty much always have armor of at least another 50 MDC. Can live to 160 with good exercise and healthcare. The two eye-stalks are flexible enough to see behind without turning the head, or up/down and to the side, and can easily recognize a person's face from two miles off, but have lots of trouble with things closer than a hundred feet or so. The three main eyes are human, IR and UV range, we always had it one of each but that isn't actually listed here. Either way, they're really good at spotting invisible lurkers and seeing in the dark. People always assume they must be some kind of amphibian, their biology is actually closer to avian but they can still hold their breath for twelve minutes and dive down to 500 feet. They're also all great swimmers, sailors and especially navigators.

All Horune are major psychics with hydrokinesis, resist hunger, resist fatigue, mind block and object read. Horune have two caster types, Mystics who work like normal, and a unique racial type called Ship Dreamers. Ship Dreamers are one in a thousand, linked into a sort of vast hive-mind (NEVER telepathically probe or attack) and born floating in the lotus position. They don't eat, drink, sleep or speak just hover and meditate and use their magic to essentially conjure Horune ships and technology from nothing, and to repair it. If you attack them, a floating eyeball of fire will open out of the air and cast like a high-level wizard to get rid of you. On the other hand, they won't lift a finger to help their ship or crew and cast only in self-defense. You can scuttle the whole ship around them and they won't do anything but fly along home to start over. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to replace captains, crews and ships than a Ship-Dreamer, so the pirates will fanatically defend them.

The Horune have thousands of ships and dozens of bases on Earth, aside from being frequent allies, clients and mercenaries of the Splugorth. They have a reputation, even in the mad world of Rifts Earth as monsters who respect no law, truce, or border, respecting only power and brutality. On the other hand, they're pretty inclusive, welcoming members of all races into their ranks and even letting aliens become captains, and they generally follow "ape shall not kill ape." unless driven to some real extremes. Captains and fleet commanders sometimes settle major disputes with death duels. Horune are sometimes cannibals, eating the flesh of their rivals, and think nothing of killing and eating other sapient life, like humans.

Sometimes they'll conquer an out-of-the-way town or village to serve as a port or for some R&R, but Horune tend to get antsy after a couple weeks on land. Sometimes they're just after technical experts to fix and maintain the weapons and other gear they loot. Most Horune are aggressively athetistic, but they don't really care if any alien crew find religion, as long as it doesn't complicate their duties.

[Ahriman238]

Horune use a mishmash of weaponry mostly stolen from others. Aside from their signature lightsabers, they have knock-off of the Naut'yll energy trident, a sonic rifle (6-36 MD) and another harpoon gun firing regular, explosive, electric, plasma, and magic net with 3 spears to a gun.



The Horune also use a combat drone, a robot created by taking a dolphin, porpoise or shark and assimilating it with Ship Dreamer magic, growing mechanical armor inside and out, cybernetics that can never be removed, until a single-digit percentage of the creature is still organic. Incidentally, about 1% of dolphins/porpoises retain their memories and freewill in this process and get to live out their lives (~900 years) as terrifying cybernetic war-machines. The rest are programmed to obey the Horune.

270 MDC, regenerates 20 MDC per hour. Can run at 44 mph/70 kph forever, jump 100 ft. high/120 long, underwater speed is 69 mph/111 kph to a depth of 3 miles. Can easily lift 1500 lbs and deal MD with a punch. Dolphin type drones can cast dolphin magic and also Fly Like the Eagle. For weaponry, they're usually issued a sonic rifle (6-36 MD) and have a set of hip-lasers (2-12 MD) and a triple-barreled plasma ejector (10-60 MD on one shot, 30-180 for triple, rapid-fire a possibility) up top.




Aside from being creepier and having less magic, shark drones don't really ever have the problem of excess freewill.

470 MDC, can likewise regenerate 20 MDC an hour. Runs at 44 mph/70 kph, jumps 20 feet high or long, folds it's legs up to swim at 20 mph/32 kph, also to a max depth of 3 miles. Is stronger than the Dolphin, 1800 lbs. Casting is limited to Fly Like the Eagle, Globe of Daylight, Blinding Flash and Wisps of Confusion. One plasma ejector, in the mouth (10-60 MD) laser-eyes (3-18 MD) and a tri-barrel lightning gun on the upper right arm (2-12 MD) plus the ability to carry and fire multiple guns or melee weapons due to having four arms. 2 chest spotlights that let it see and double as foci for most of it's spells.





Horune have two kinds of ships, strike ships and dream ships, but a strike ships is basically just a scaled-down dream ship, so one picture for both. If it looks like a giant whale's tail sticking out of the water, that's deliberate. Dream ship first, obviously all there ships come from Ship-Dreamer magic, it actually takes ten Ship-Dreamers to form a ship but only one to maintain and repair. Because they're made of bullshit magic, Horune ships are submersible with no depth limit, and much faster and tougher than similar ships. Though they generally run on the surface unless they have a specific reason to dive, like hitting an underwater target or hiding. Plus, like the drones, they regenerate.

20,000 MDC, regenerates 100-400 MDC every hour. Surface speed of 90 mph/144 kph, underwater is 35 mph/56 kph, no depth limit as mentioned. Crew of up to 400, usually a caster or two in there most often Air or Water Warlocks, Mystics and Ocean Wizards also a possibility. Plus around 200 combat drones, usually divided evenly between the two types. The big gun up top is called a storm cannon, a magic gun that can summon or calm storms, form whirlpools or call down a bolt from the blue (10-60 MD.) Also on the top turret are two plasma point-defense guns (10-60 MD.) Mid-way down the main body are the main plasma guns, 100-400 MD with a mile range (only 300 ft. underwater). Plus two lasers (40-240 MD) on the bottom 'fins' of the three-part tail, and a ram. For disposables, 60 heavy torpedoes with two tubes, and VLS missiles, 20-80 long or medium range, and 100-400 mini-missiles for air-cover.

Strike ships on the other hand get just 6,500 MDC and regen 20-120 MDC per hour. Faster though, 120 mph/192 kph on the surface and (OK, still) 35 mph/56 kph underwater. Crew of a hundred, again with one or two casters, and 40 drones. Still got the plasma guns, same damage and replaced the storm cannon with a third and lost the PD lasers, tail lasers have the same punch. Only has 20 torpedoes, 10-40 meidum/long-range missiles and a hundred mini-missiles.


The Splugorth have a long-standing relationship as a safe port for the Horune and a market for their loot. Horune are generally happy to do vaguely navy-like things if they're paid, so Horune ships often fill a cruiser/destroyer role for Atlantis (hence I had to do them right before or after.) The Splugorth have also managed to more-or-less duplicate the Horune ships, though lacking Ship-Dreamer bullshit magic they lose get less MDC (14,000 and 4,550 respectively) less speed (63 and 84 mph) and don't regen. The ships are also very expensive and time-consuming to build and so remain pretty rare.

[Simon_Jester]

Mm. Twenty thousand MDC... Yet another example of a really amazingly good reason to want tactical nuclear torpedoes on the oceans of Rifts.

[SAMAS]

That's why the CS has them.

And can I mention I just love the fact that Rifts has Giant Enemy Vampire Crabs literally surging up from the depths of Davey Jones' Locker?

Also, here we find out that Vampire Intelliences do have names, and they're as pretentious as any Vamp wannabe's.

[Simon_Jester]

Hm. Found a copy of the basic Rifts rules. We've been talking about nuclear weapons a lot lately, and I just noticed something... 10 MDC of damage to body armor or power armor (as opposed to big mecha-type 'armor') automatically inflicts 1 point of SDC damage to the user inside. I'm not sure this is meant to apply to Glitter Boys and the like, but I'd be strongly inclined to consider doing so if they want to go swanning around inside a nuclear fireball. Because the 3d4x100 or whatever damage from the nuclear explosion might not actually destroy your power armor, but it might still kill or seriously injure you.

[Ahriman238]

Mm. Twenty thousand MDC... Yet another example of a really amazingly good reason to want tactical nuclear torpedoes on the oceans of Rifts.

Well it's "only" as tough as the Ticonderoga or the NGR carrier-sub, there are tougher things out there. And not even getting into various Sea Serpents, Sea Dragons, Maelstrom-Makers, Leivthans, the Kraken etc.

And can I mention I just love the fact that Rifts has Giant Enemy Vampire Crabs literally surging up from the depths of Davey Jones' Locker?

Also, here we find out that Vampire Intelliences do have names, and they're as pretentious as any Vamp wannabe's.

Aside from the Splugorth who sound alien, most of the named Supernatural Intelligences sound like pretentious emos. The Lord of the Deep. The Dweller in Darkness. The Warm Darkness of Cold Death. When did this become Exalted?

And yes, Rifts is crazy fun like that.

Hm. Found a copy of the basic Rifts rules. We've been talking about nuclear weapons a lot lately, and I just noticed something... 10 MDC of damage to body armor or power armor (as opposed to big mecha-type 'armor') automatically inflicts 1 point of SDC damage to the user inside. I'm not sure this is meant to apply to Glitter Boys and the like, but I'd be strongly inclined to consider doing so if they want to go swanning around inside a nuclear fireball. Because the 3d4x100 or whatever damage from the nuclear explosion might not actually destroy your power armor, but it might still kill or seriously injure you.

It's not a bad rule, we kind of house-ruled it away for simplicity and I completely forgot about it. When I have the time, I should probably give the rules another once over in case there's important context there.

[Simon_Jester]

Mm. Twenty thousand MDC... Yet another example of a really amazingly good reason to want tactical nuclear torpedoes on the oceans of Rifts.

Well it's "only" as tough as the Ticonderoga or the NGR carrier-sub, there are tougher things out there...

Yes, but most of the others are either not a manmade construct, or there aren't hundreds and hundreds of them- and I gather the Horune have ships in those kinds of numbers.

Sure, a massed attack by swarms of RIFTS aircraft or small ships could probably dish out a combined damage output of thousands of MDC per round and whittle them down in fairly short order... but it would not by any stretch of the imagination be easy. So I still consider twenty thousand MDC to be a loooot. Enough to laugh off a blow that would annihilate a thing that would laugh off a blow that would in turn annihilate a thing which could in turn laugh off a weapon that could gut a modern main battle tank.

Hm. Found a copy of the basic Rifts rules. We've been talking about nuclear weapons a lot lately, and I just noticed something... 10 MDC of damage to body armor or power armor (as opposed to big mecha-type 'armor') automatically inflicts 1 point of SDC damage to the user inside. I'm not sure this is meant to apply to Glitter Boys and the like, but I'd be strongly inclined to consider doing so if they want to go swanning around inside a nuclear fireball. Because the 3d4x100 or whatever damage from the nuclear explosion might not actually destroy your power armor, but it might still kill or seriously injure you.

It's not a bad rule, we kind of house-ruled it away for simplicity and I completely forgot about it. When I have the time, I should probably give the rules another once over in case there's important context there.

Having now read them myself, I think you should at least skim over the rules for how weapons are fired and what a typical number of attacks per round is.

I mean, we see all this power armor with hundreds of MDC going around, and the typical infantry weapons might be a lazorthing that has, say, 2-12 MDC damage output... and you'd think that's a major disparity in favor of the defense. But then you read a little deeper and realize that in a typical firefight that lazorthing might get fired several times per fifteen second combat round, possibly with damage multipliers for sustained bursts...

[Ahriman238]

It's been a while but I'm sure most of you remember the Splugorth and their Minions. What you may not know is that lot more of the Splugorth's minions than not are aquatic. Pretty much everyone but the Kydian Overlords (who have magic armor that lets them breathe underwater) the Kittani (who have a myriad od underwater craft and power armor) the Altaran warrior-women, who are slaves, and the Sunaj who nobody cares about. The Splugorth themselves are beyond environmental concerns; ocean floor, high orbit, desert or tundra, the only thing that changes for them is the view. And so the underwater domain of the Splugorth covers five times as much area as Atlantis, basically all of the North Atlantic and most of the Mediterranean.

Most of the Splugorth's standard arsenal, lasers, plasma, railguns and magic weapons work fine underwater, just with some range reduction for the first three. The Kittani also have energy tridents and nets, basically identical to the Naut'yll versions. They do have a gill clog grenade that can be dropped or fired out the standard rocket-grenade launcher that stops fish and similar beings from breathing.

They also have a number of underseas Rune weapons. Rune Trident, 30-120 MD, gives all sensitive and physical psychic powers plus hydrokinesis, pyrokinesis, and bio-manipulation, and curses all aquatic beings who use it with a fear of water. Rune Harpoons (10-60 MD) can be cast 500 ft. through the air, 300 through water and return, and the wielder can cast mask of deceit, life drain, wind rush, summon fog, fly as the eagle, and agony, does another 4-24 MD being removed for the barbed parts. Rune Claws a fish-themed gauntlets with two retractable blades that can pinch shut, 3-18 MD for a stabbing, 6-36 MD for snapping shut, 20-80 MD for an energy blast. A Sea-Slayer Sword is 'silvery-blue' with a shark head pommel and dragon wings for a crossguard, 20-80 MD from the blade, 5-30 if the shark bites, souldrinker (save-or-die) that can sly/swim and fight on it's own alongside the wielder a la a Sword of Atlantis. And strangely enough a Rune Helmet, the Sea Helm, obtained through the sacrifice of an Ocean Wizard or Water Warlock. Looks like an open-face Greco-Roman helmet with two horns or blades, lets the wearer breathe underwater, swim with great strength and skill, and provides an Armor of Neptune spell.