Avengers Force Sub RIFTS!

[Ahriman238]

Loki throws the annoying insect, Stark out the window and prepares to receive his army, a vast host that will overrun this world for him. A column of light splits the sky metaphorically, and then literally as a vast portal opens and begins spitting hostile forces into this world.

Only, instead of lame aliens with hover-cycles and no real plan beyond general mayhem, the portal spits out fighter jets, Sky Cycles and SAMAS armor. Yes, on the other side of the portal is the New Coalition Army, which instead of invading Tolkeen has entered into a pact with Loki to gain the Cosmic Cube, and then wipe all alien life from their Earth. Now a million Dead Boys, and 16 divisions of Skelebots scramble to get through the portal bottleneck, well, with the drop they're either using jetpacks or boarding Death's Head transports that have replaced the Levithans to get a ride to the ground.

Unlike the Chitauri, they have specific objectives. Acquire any useful technical knowledge they can in a short time (never know what even a primitive pre-Cataclysm Earth may have) and secure the Cube so they can carry out their shocking but inevitable betrayal of Loki. If they get the chance to beat some self-styled heroes faces in, that's a plus, and several Juicer squads move out immediately to do just that.

Can the Avengers win the day? What if the army helps this time?

[Kojiro]

The Avengers get absolutely stomped.

This is, to use RIfts rules, a purely SDC world. Maybe you can make a case for Iron Man, Thor and Hulk treading in MDC territory. There is a literal order of magnitude difference. Thor could probably be classed as an MDC entity, as could Hulk but when the sidearms of the invaders are more powerful than our anti tank weapons there's just no way we can win. Certainly not over a million plus troops armed as such.

[Terralthra]

As an aside, I don't know anyone who runs Rifts as written, with 100 SDC : 1 MDC. Most I know run, at most, 20:1, and some 10:1.

[weemadando]

I've always like the tennis ball analogy.

Bean someone in the face with a tennis ball and you can do 1 SDC. But you can throw a tennis ball at a tank (MDC) for all eternity without doing a single fucking thing to it.

[Terralthra]

I've always like the tennis ball analogy.

Bean someone in the face with a tennis ball and you can do 1 SDC. But you can throw a tennis ball at a tank (MDC) for all eternity without doing a single fucking thing to it.

Yeah, but the main guns on an Iowa-class battleship do 3d6x100 SDC each, 27d6x100 SDC for all 9 at once. In other words, 27d6 MDC, for all nine guns fired all at once. The average coalition infantry rifle on burst fire (3-5 rounds) does 24d6 MDC.

The disparity is simply ridiculous.

[weemadando]

Eh, that's dumb.

But then, when we did combat it was generally so absurdly unbalanced that we didn't care. Either we'd get a TPK or we'd strap a fusion demolition block to a SDC creature just to be sure. Because fucking D-bees and their natural MDCness.

[Alkaloid]

Yeah that seems insane. Is MDC vs SDC a representation of actual ability to do damage or penetrate armour or something similar?

[Ahriman238]

Yeah that seems insane. Is MDC vs SDC a representation of actual ability to do damage or penetrate armour or something similar?

My understanding is that MDC emerged to represent buildings and giant mecha, before expanding to include every serious weapon and armor.

For the time being lets ignore the whole SDC/MDC die rolls, yes? We'll say that the invaders are armed with lasers that always kill on a head or torso shot, indeed turn one to a smoking skeleton a la Star Wars. A mini-missile works much as an RPG, and getting stepped on by a 20 ton robot will generally squash you flat (unless you're Thor or the Hulk.)

[Kojiro]

My understanding is that MDC emerged to represent buildings and giant mecha, before expanding to include every serious weapon and armor.

MDC is more than that. You can have something with several hundred SDC points- what would equate to MDC, and it can be destroyed slowly with SDC weapons. MDC is another category- specifically that MDC items/creatures simply cannot be damaged by SDC weapons. A piece of chest armour with 1 MDC would be utterly immune to all SDC weapons. Simply put Dead Boys could walk the streets in plain view and the main gun of a battle tank would do little more than knock them down and dent their armour. And they could eviscerate the tank with a few shots at worst from the pistol on their hip.

For the time being lets ignore the whole SDC/MDC die rolls, yes?

Sure if you want, but you've just changed the game entirely. It's like asking if Bruce Lee could beat up Thor, if we make Thor a human. Maybe, I don't know, but it's hardly Thor at that point. Actually Thor vs Bruce Lee would be about as fair as this comparison is and Lee would stand about as much chance.

We'll say that the invaders are armed with lasers that always kill on a head or torso shot, indeed turn one to a smoking skeleton a la Star Wars.

You might as well just say they've managed to make .50 HMGs into easily wielded rifles. You don't get the skeleton but no one walks away from a head/torso hit from one of them either.

A mini-missile works much as an RPG, and getting stepped on by a 20 ton robot will generally squash you flat (unless you're Thor or the Hulk.)

Mini missiles aren't RPG levels of destruction though- they're more like (as someone pointed out) the main guns of a battleship firing a salvo. Don't get me wrong, it's absurd, but at some point you're no longer comparing the stated units and there's no point.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah I'd be careful about SDC/MDC comparisons in any meaningful way. It can be pretty damn open ended (and variable) depending on the conversions you do, and they're really just too much abstractions to do it except in a very broad sense (and even then that's a very tenusous maybe.)

Given that Glitterboys are using around what is basically a tank gun version of a shotgun, nukes are still pretty much game-winners, and a few other tidbits of broad comparison, I wouldn't expect RIFTS firepower to get all that ludicrous. And what I know of most Marvel characters tend to make them pretty over the top (Didn't Stark's micro reactor have some ludicrious power ouptut for example?)

[Ahriman238]

I accept that Dead Boy armor is better than anything we've got, being made of special MDC materials, I'm not sure I buy that it's hundreds of times better. I certainly think it's more likely a broken rule than a fact that an explosion with a 20 ft. blast radius is more powerful than a battleship salvo.

@Connor, the novelization of the Iron Man film said 3 gigawatts for the first arc reactor. You know, the one he built in a cave, that couldn't sustain his Mk III suit for more than a couple minutes?

[Connor MacLeod]

I'd go with a VERY tenative 20-30x better maybe, but even then its not accounting for all possibilities in that regard. I'm kinda picturing most MDC energy-weapon small arms being somewhere in the double to triple digit kilojoule range per shot (for the MDC settings ta least, single to double digit kj maybe for SDC shots since they seem to be broadly consistent to other non MDC firearms.) Of couse given the effects described in the Ultimate RIFTS for many of the energy weapons they're mostly thermal effect, and thus not the most efficient setup for weapons.


One thing I'd be leery about with (for example) Battleship calcs is that the effects could be relative to the target. Does that measure just the KE of the projectile, or does it factor momentum? Explosive yield? What kind of shell does it use, and is that the damage it inflicts per person or is that the consecutive damage everyone suffers (that can matter, believe me.)

You get the same problem with nukes in RIFTS really. Case in point the 'damage rules' for Nukes:

Optional Damage Effects: The descriptions of CS nuclear weapons below, for simplicity's sake, list damage only for the
area immediately surrounding ground zero. If a greater degree of realism is desired, the G.M. should add the following damage effects to anyone outside the immediate area of effect listed under the weapon description:

Damage from Heat: Anyone within 6 miles (9.6 km) of the blast suffers 3D6xlO S.D.C., or one M.D. point for mega-damage creatures; modified by any heat resistance or vulnerability. Those in mega-damage body armor are totally unaffected. Damage from Dynamic Pressure: Winds created by the nuclear explosion hurl small objects with lethal force to a distance of about 10 miles (16 km). These projectiles inflict 3D6xlOO S.D.C., or 3D6 M.D. to anyone or anything caught out in the open.

Damage from Prompt Radiation: A regular nuclear device emits lethal prompt radiation to a distance of about a mile (1.6
km); CS nukes are enhanced-radiation weapons that emit lethal radiation to a distance of about 6 miles (9.6 km). Any creature
exposed to the radiation takes damage as follows: If less than 3 miles (4.8 km) from ground zero: !D6xlOO S.D.C. or 3D6xlO
M.D. to mega-damage creatures. Anyone up to 6 miles (9.6 km) away from ground zero suffers 5D6xlO S.D.C. (2D4xlO M.D.
for mega-damage creatures). A save vs lethal poison (14) reduces damage by half. Damage is also modified by any radiation
vulnerabilities/resistances.

How does one compare that to a MDC grade laser or particle beam/plasma weapon?

[Connor MacLeod]

@Connor, the novelization of the Iron Man film said 3 gigawatts for the first arc reactor. You know, the one he built in a cave, that couldn't sustain his Mk III suit for more than a couple minutes?

Well yeah that was kinda what I was remembering. Although I dont know what he uses all that energy for, I think its safe to say the Iron Man armour would definitely be able to compete with most anything in RIFTs on a one per one basis, and I'd expect most Avengers to be on a similar tier.

[Solauren]

This is a worse curbstomp then all of Warhammer 40,000 vs the United Federation of Planets just after the first Borg invasion.

[Enigma]

The Avengers can get help from Popeye.

[SAMAS]

Maybe not as bad as it seems. The typical rule of crossing into an SDC world is that your gear becomes SDC as well.

But yeah, MDC vs SDC is an evil evil curbstomp. The Guada Marta incident that ultimately triggered the Cataclysm is what happened when a squad of Glitter Boys took on an entire army with SDC gear.

On the other hand, you could argue that the MCU is an early MDC world. The effects of Hydra's weapons are if anything, even worse than what happens when you get shot by an MDC energy weapon and Cap's shield can easily take those. Tony tanked a um, tank shot in Iron Man 1, and Thor and the Hulk are, well, Thor and the Hulk.

[Stark]

Is this thread entirely based on a really stupid mechanic that was clumsily backported into the fanfic I mean fluff I mean setting? Should we look at a list of all the stupid stuff that is MDC in palladium games?

It's almost like hitpoint systems are inherently stupid and broken (poor Erick Wujic) and basing an argument on unadulterated game mechanics is a huge lol.

[gigabytelord]

Maybe not as bad as it seems. The typical rule of crossing into an SDC world is that your gear becomes SDC as well.

But yeah, MDC vs SDC is an evil evil curbstomp. The Guada Marta incident that ultimately triggered the Cataclysm is what happened when a squad of Glitter Boys took on an entire army with SDC gear.

On the other hand, you could argue that the MCU is an early MDC world. The effects of Hydra's weapons are if anything, even worse than what happens when you get shot by an MDC energy weapon and Cap's shield can easily take those. Tony tanked a um, tank shot in Iron Man 1, and Thor and the Hulk are, well, Thor and the Hulk.

Ok first of all that mdc to sdc rule does not apply to gear, weapons, and armor, only to mdc creatures.
Second of all its clearly stated in the rules that 1 mdc = 100 sdc, and that it is possible for sdc weapons to damage mdc materials, in fact give me some time and i'll post exactly what it says and which book its in.

[gigabytelord]

Okay after some serious searching I've found what I was looking for, here goes...

"S.D.C. attacks that inflict 1-99 points of damage bounce of the armor like bullets bouncing off superman. The attack might leave scratches, scuffs, little ding marks, and pit the paint job, but that's it. The character inside M.D.C. armor is safe and sound."

Then it goes on to say...

"Only S.D.C. weapons that inflict 100 or more S.D.C. points of damage can hurt M.D.C. armor. Always round down S.D.C. damage, so a missile that inflicts 450 or 496 points of S.D.C. equals 4 M.D."

There's more info listed but I feel that gets the point over just fine, the info listed here is from the Ultimate Edition Main Book, Page 288.

EDIT: So yes any S.D.C. Weapon that can do an equivalent to 100+ S.D.C. or more per shot can in fact damage M.D.C. armor, to put this into layman's terms, an Iowa class battleship could do an average of 78 M.D. per volley (all guns) with a total maximum of 162 M.D.

[gigabytelord]

Okay after some serious searching I've found what I was looking for, here goes...

"S.D.C. attacks that inflict 1-99 points of damage bounce of the armor like bullets bouncing off superman. The attack might leave scratches, scuffs, little ding marks, and pit the paint job, but that's it. The character inside M.D.C. armor is safe and sound."

Then it goes on to say...

"Only S.D.C. weapons that inflict 100 or more S.D.C. points of damage can hurt M.D.C. armor. Always round down S.D.C. damage, so a missile that inflicts 450 or 496 points of S.D.C. equals 4 M.D."

There's more info listed but I feel that gets the point over just fine, the info listed here is from the Ultimate Edition Main Book, Page 288.

EDIT: wth double post? can someone delete this? I was trying to edit not post again

[SAMAS]

Is this thread entirely based on a really stupid mechanic that was clumsily backported into the fanfic I mean fluff I mean setting? Should we look at a list of all the stupid stuff that is MDC in palladium games?

It's almost like hitpoint systems are inherently stupid and broken (poor Erick Wujic) and basing an argument on unadulterated game mechanics is a huge lol.

The short reasoning behind SDC/MDC is basically that SDC is normal-grade materials, while MDC is Vibranium, Cerasteel, Gundanium, and other kinds of Sci-Fi Unobtanium and similarly super-hard materials (Chaobam and other forms of modern tank armor are also possibly MDC). You have to hit it really really hard or you're just scratching the paint.

[Korgeta]

This is a worse curbstomp then all of Warhammer 40,000 vs the United Federation of Planets just after the first Borg invasion.

I know I saw the episode, poor chaos, they never stood a chance against wesely crusher!

Loki throws the annoying insect, Stark out the window and prepares to receive his army, a vast host that will overrun this world for him. A column of light splits the sky metaphorically, and then literally as a vast portal opens and begins spitting hostile forces into this world.

Only, instead of lame aliens with hover-cycles and no real plan beyond general mayhem, the portal spits out fighter jets, Sky Cycles and SAMAS armor. Yes, on the other side of the portal is the New Coalition Army, which instead of invading Tolkeen has entered into a pact with Loki to gain the Cosmic Cube, and then wipe all alien life from their Earth. Now a million Dead Boys, and 16 divisions of Skelebots scramble to get through the portal bottleneck, well, with the drop they're either using jetpacks or boarding Death's Head transports that have replaced the Levithans to get a ride to the ground.

Unlike the Chitauri, they have specific objectives. Acquire any useful technical knowledge they can in a short time (never know what even a primitive pre-Cataclysm Earth may have) and secure the Cube so they can carry out their shocking but inevitable betrayal of Loki. If they get the chance to beat some self-styled heroes faces in, that's a plus, and several Juicer squads move out immediately to do just that.

Can the Avengers win the day? What if the army helps this time?

million dead boys? Is this an intentional one sided match?

Really they only win by tiring the hulk out, true the aliens were shooting at cars no apprent reason (or maybe that's what they want you to think!) but it is a more upbeat superhero movie where henchmen are served to as beat'em ups by the heroes. Besides i thought the Chitauri had a clear objective, free up parking space for the rest of their invasion force! (in other words just clear the area by useing superior technology to do so and grind everything down in a said mile radius so they have a secure point for the real invasion) That was pretty much seemed to be their plan in my eyes.

They were done quite simply but what objectives does an invading force have other then to clear the way and secure postion?

[Ahriman238]

million dead boys? Is this an intentional one sided match?

Not really. 1 million is the size of the Coalition Army, but they'll have some trouble moving everyone through the portal, even before they come out the other side and find sky. The CS doesn't have airlift for their entire forces, in fact, simple logistics will probably force them to come in waves, like the Chitauri.

Still, they can probably put 30,000 boots on the ground easily enough, not counting the SAMAS, Sky Cycle and jetpack-equipped troops who won't be needing a safe ride to the ground.

[Vehrec]

You mean it WAS the size of their army before Stark grabbed a nuke and seared it into their forces massed on the other side of the gate.

[khursed]

One rule nuked all my MDC games, Auto-dodge, followed by the ultimate reprisal, Simultaneous attack.

This got ugly fast.