Chromium Armor

[Rockwolf66]

I have a question for some of the more technological oriented Posters.

About how much MDC would a Jotan sized suit of Power Armor have if it was made out of a Glitter Boy's Chromium Armor.

I know that a Golden Eagle SAMAS has about 1.8 times the MDC of a regular SAMAS. Given that a high quality Giant Robot has between 600 and 1,000 MDC a suit designed for a 20' Tall Pilot would be of similar damage capacity.

Does Anyone want to Help with the Calculations?.

[Rockwolf66]

Forget about the armor calculations, how much damage is that boom gun going to do?

Boom Gun?....Boom Gun? I was thinking something along the lines of a Medium Particle Beam Cannon from Phase World.

The Armored Material is the Same as a Glitter Boy, but the design will be rather different.

[Starmage21]

screw the math. Just find a comparable sized robot with a similar specialty, and double the MDC.

[green.nova343]

I have a question for some of the more technological oriented Posters.

About how much MDC would a Jotan sized suit of Power Armor have if it was made out of a Glitter Boy's Chromium Armor.

I know that a Golden Eagle SAMAS has about 1.8 times the MDC of a regular SAMAS. Given that a high quality Giant Robot has between 600 and 1,000 MDC a suit designed for a 20' Tall Pilot would be of similar damage capacity.

Does Anyone want to Help with the Calculations?.

Considering that I didn't think there were any Jotan-sized PA suits, you're really talking about 2 conversions here:
-- converting a regular PA design by up-sizing it to fit a Jotan; and
-- converting said PA to Chromium alloy

And before starting down that road, consider why the Jotan would even need power armor, rather than just conventional body armor. He's already supernaturally strong, IIRC with a PS range equal to or superior to most PA suits, so he doesn't need enhanced strength to carry his heavy weapons around. Not to mention that, robotic strength being at a weaker power level than supernatural strength, the robotic systems would have to be greatly boosted/supercharged just to reach his power level, let alone surpass it.

Environmental protection can already be found with body armor suits, so you don't need PA suits for that. Plus the larger size of the suit (& the user's higher strength level) allows for larger air tanks/processors. And while most body armor doesn't come with long-range sensors, that's because they don't have the room/mass available to fit it in. Given a body armor suit bigger than the X-1000 Ultimax, though, it shouldn't be a problem to outfit it with a PA-sized radar system & power supply.

Which leads us to built-in weapon systems. You can find some body armor suits that already have them (i.e. the CS Special Forces has built-in vibro-blades). And if you've already added in a PA power supply, you've got enough on-board juice that you can have 1 or 2 built-in energy rifle equivalents, & still have enough juice to be able to directly plug in a railgun.

The final limiting factor, however, is going to be cost. The less features built into the armor, the cheaper it's going to be to purchase, or at least cheaper & faster to build. Unless you've got a huge market in the Jotan tribes, you're talking more about custom-built designs... which take longer, & are going to be much more expensive than mass-production runs (at least triple the cost, possibly up to 10 times as much, depending on demand & availability). And that's without accounting for the biggest cost & supply factor: the Chromium alloy itself. That's a very non-standard alloy, which most Rifts Earth nations (including the CS) aren't really capable of manufacturing. In fact, there's only 4 main sources I can think of in terms of manufacturing in the Rifts Canon: Free Quebec (which isn't friendly towards Jotan customers), Triax/NGR (again, not so friendly towards giants), the Republic of Japan (not necessarily unfriendly, but it's a little difficult to get there, & that assumes you're even aware of their existence) & the Silver River Republics (which, again, is hard to get to, assuming you even know it's there). So unless you've happened upon [another] secret pre-Rifts Chromium Guardsman/Glitter Boy manufacturing site, it's going to be very difficult (if not nigh-impossible) to secure deliveries of the Chromium alloy from the manufacturers. That leaves a) stealing it from the manufacturer (a very risky proposition), b) stealing it from an army depot (just as, if not more, risky), c) buying a bunch of Glitter Boy suits & cannibalizing the armor (somewhat easier, but given their scarcity on the market that'll take a long time & a lot of money to do so, since you're looking at at least 2 GBs, if not more, to get enough material -- call it 1D4+1 suits), or d) salvaging a bunch of trashed Glitter Boy suits for the materials needed (which not only runs the risk of starting a blood feud with the pilots' families, as well having to go through a lot of risky combat to get the material, but also needing a whole lot more suits to scavenge enough material -- call it 5D4 salvaged suits).

I'm not saying it can't be done. In fact, it could make for a very interesting campaign to provide the back story for the suit once it's done.

As far as the stats go... I'd suggest base M.D.C. for the suit (i.e. pre-Chromium) should be 2-3 times that of the original suit (body armor or PA), & then apply a x1.75 modifier for the use of Chromium alloy. I use the x1.75 modifier instead of x1.8 for 2 reasons. One, a long time, the Knightline Rifts page used that conversion factor for comparing different armor quality factors, & I'm a sucker for nostalgia . Two, & more importantly, using the x1.75 multiplier gives you a much neater number for a non-Chromium GB's Main Body (440) than with the x1.8 (427.77777777...).

[sennin]

Mercenaries, pg 73

The power armor for Grunt, the Jotan has 450 MDC

[green.nova343]

Mercenaries, pg 73

The power armor for Grunt, the Jotan has 450 MDC

OK, so depending which multiplier you use (x1.75 or x1., that's 787.5 to 810 M.D.C. for the main body. Call it 800 to keep it even.

[Rockwolf66]

Well the armor in Question is being built with the SB1 rules for makeing Giant Robots. With supplemental armor without useing the GB Chromium you are looking at 1,000MDC for a suit of Frontal Assault Powered Armor. Insted of your usual PA Augmented Strenght I am going with a +X Bonus to Supernatural PS.


The Jotan in Question is a Psi-Tech who is working for and was granted Immortality by a Godling in the service of a Pantheon.

In game terms the Jotan is MR. Johnsons personal assistant and the person who holds the keys to the PC's candy store.