Have the Splugorth/Atlanteans gotten into orbit?

[Cyber-Knight]

I'm curious, do Syplynncryth's forces have access to spaceships on Rifts Earth? If so, why haven't they moved into orbit, yet?

[Pepsi Jedi]

Because there's noting there they need?

Not trying to be funny but the Mutants in Orbit book is stupid. I'm sorry but it is. if you do even a little math, one killer satalite would have to cover tens of thousands of miles and the range is miniscule. It doesn't work even remotely on the face of it.

It was established early on that there would be no way into space to prevent having to write for it. Then someone did the Mutant sin orbit book which still kept 'space' seperate.

The Rifts space stuff is supposed to take place via Phase world and the 3G. You rift there THEN go into space.

Around earth itself there's nothing that high tech, that the Sploog would want and nothing in the 'neighboorhood' to be worth the investment.

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

On Earth the Sploog go where they want, when they want. And noone can really stop them. They have atlantis, and treat it like a gated community. For the most part they stay in. Every once in a while venturing out for sport but ugg.. why would you WANT to go out there.. Plebs and pesants. Yuck.

[eliakon]

A corollary reason is the whole 'balance of power' thing. None of the "big boys" is going to just sit by and let someone take space. The high ground combined with modern Megaversal weapons means that basically the entire planet is hostage. That is not conducive to the sort of 'negotiated cold war' atmosphere that is in play where the major powers stick to their spheres of influence and tacitly agree to not to tip the balance one way or another.
The MiO Orbitals though... there a joke.
[headcanon] My take on it is that there is likely a secret witch cult running through them puppeted by the Splugorth and others that basically keeps the scrubs maintaining the status quo for them. Likely many of the mysteriously still functional SDI satellites that seem to be amazingly effective... are actually new additions with cutting edge 3G tech that explains how they manage the plotastic containment and preventing any of the lesser powers from getting into space and upsetting the applecart. [/headcanon]

[Shark_Force]

i thought the main thing keeping people on the planet out of orbit was the debris ring. you try to fly into space, you get sanded to death by particles of MD stuff as you blast through at mach 33ish. i mean, sure, there's killer satellites too, but those are just to pick off damaged stuff that makes it through by some miracle... also, they're probably mostly lined up around the part of the earth that is actually good for launching from. NASA didn't just randomly point to a spot on the map of the USA and wind up with cape canaveral, they picked it because it helps with getting into space more easily. that's still a lot of area to cover, but i would expect it helps a great deal that the orbitals don't need to cover the entire planet, mostly just a ring around the middle of it.

as to the splugorth being in rifts earth space... if they really really really wanted to get there, they probably could. but there really isn't any compelling need to. there's nothing up there that they really want. with atlantis, they're literally next door to anywhere in the megaverse they want to be by spending a few PPE. they aren't on earth because of the amazing natural resources, or even because the slave stock is exceptional (though they'll certainly raid for slaves, they likely do that in many other places too). they picked earth because it's a dimensional nexus. the only thing they cared enough about to come to earth over any other place for, they already got, and there isn't any of it in space. now, splynncryth probably has a space fleet somewhere (he owns other planets). and he probably has some sort of plan just in case atlantis gets attacked from space, which likely involves rifting in his fleet(s) from wherever else they are. but barring that, i see little reason to bother going into space on rifts earth. it's mostly empty, after all.

[ShadowLogan]

I'm curious, do Syplynncryth's forces have access to spaceships on Rifts Earth? If so, why haven't they moved into orbit, yet?

Yes they do, the Kittani Dragon Dreadnought (in WB2 no less). IIRC some of the tech stuff is also rated for space, which they could transport up there via teleportation/rift (level 1 caster) after some Material Plane Astral Projection Recon (need Level 2 to reach LEO distance unless you take a shortcut via Astral Plane itself). So getting into space isn't that difficult for them.

As to why they haven't moved into orbit yet...

As others have said there just isn't anything up there they want. It also doesn't interest them (IIRC Fot3G DB), at least the big wigs (Splugorth themselves) as the Kittani are interested and in space have a bit more authority due to contact with other 3G players.

[Library Ogre]

i thought the main thing keeping people on the planet out of orbit was the debris ring.

That is basically a non-sense idea; the debris would constantly de-orbit, meaning you'd need to add more, and eventually you're trying to shred Jupiter to encapsulate Earth.

as to the splugorth being in rifts earth space... if they really really really wanted to get there, they probably could.

Due to teleportation circles being a thing, and the levels of high lords as summoners, the Splugorth can go from Splynn saying "I want a rock from Pluto" to orbit in a couple of hours, at most.

[kaid]

A corollary reason is the whole 'balance of power' thing. None of the "big boys" is going to just sit by and let someone take space. The high ground combined with modern Megaversal weapons means that basically the entire planet is hostage. That is not conducive to the sort of 'negotiated cold war' atmosphere that is in play where the major powers stick to their spheres of influence and tacitly agree to not to tip the balance one way or another.
The MiO Orbitals though... there a joke.
[headcanon] My take on it is that there is likely a secret witch cult running through them puppeted by the Splugorth and others that basically keeps the scrubs maintaining the status quo for them. Likely many of the mysteriously still functional SDI satellites that seem to be amazingly effective... are actually new additions with cutting edge 3G tech that explains how they manage the plotastic containment and preventing any of the lesser powers from getting into space and upsetting the applecart. [/headcanon]

Honestly the orbitals don't need to be that strong. They maintain the debris field in orbit around the planet and that alone makes getting into orbit highly problematic to suicidal. Basically running into a cloud of nails and random crap at orbital speed would alone wreck most ships and then you have the kill sats and other orbital defenses shooting down into the gravity well at ships trying to get out gives the units in orbit a pretty heavy advantage. The splugorth if they really devoted a full invasion fleet to try to break out could accomplish it but risks drawing negative attention he has been avoiding.

[kaid]

i thought the main thing keeping people on the planet out of orbit was the debris ring.

That is basically a non-sense idea; the debris would constantly de-orbit, meaning you'd need to add more, and eventually you're trying to shred Jupiter to encapsulate Earth.

as to the splugorth being in rifts earth space... if they really really really wanted to get there, they probably could.

Due to teleportation circles being a thing, and the levels of high lords as summoners, the Splugorth can go from Splynn saying "I want a rock from Pluto" to orbit in a couple of hours, at most.

Mutants in orbit describes the orbital communities constantly replenishing the debris fields. It is constantly deorbiting but as long as you have asteroid miners ready/willing to keep feeding more random junk into orbit you can keep it pretty fugly to try to cross indefinitely. The moon base can supply a whole lot of rock/sand alone to keep the debris field rolling for a long time.

[taalismn]

I got around it by imposing a layer of especially turbulent dimensional instability in the upper atmosphere that makes travel, as well as accurate observation, to and from the Earth's surface, much more difficult. In the context of this, the Splugorth have the ability to traverse this hazard, but really don't see why they should bother, since it effectively makes for a great natural barrier against anybody coming at them from above. They occasionally send up probes, but so far are unimpressed by what's happening up there, and with the Orbitals having a hard enough time fighting various rifted threats, fighting each other, and just trying to gather enough mass to stay alive, the Splugorth figure there's really no need to post troops and establish basecamps up in orbit. If anything DID come into the Solar System, they figure they'll have enough warning to prepare ground defenses and scramble Dragin Dreadnought gunships to counter.
It's also possible that there aren't stable or large enough rift points in orbit and the rest of the Solar System for the Splugorth to bring in the REALLY heavy iron, like entire Servitude-class cruisers, so they figure they don't have to keep any of those ships hanging around, soaking up maintenance time and resources.

[kaid]

i thought the main thing keeping people on the planet out of orbit was the debris ring.

That is basically a non-sense idea; the debris would constantly de-orbit, meaning you'd need to add more, and eventually you're trying to shred Jupiter to encapsulate Earth.

as to the splugorth being in rifts earth space... if they really really really wanted to get there, they probably could.

Due to teleportation circles being a thing, and the levels of high lords as summoners, the Splugorth can go from Splynn saying "I want a rock from Pluto" to orbit in a couple of hours, at most.

Given that I think they said even mars has some ley line activity it is pretty clear if the splugorth really wanted to there are dimensional ways of bypassing the barrier but breaking out from the planets surface with ships would still be problematic and overall the splurgorth may even like the debris fields. keeps riff raff out so they can enjoy their island retreat.

[Axelmania]

I'm curious, do Syplynncryth's forces have access to spaceships on Rifts Earth?

Yes, the dragon dreadnoughts are space-capable.

If so, why haven't they moved into orbit, yet?

The dreadnoughts are stationed defensively, probably protected by walls of earth to guard them from attacks. Flying them up into space would expose them to destruction and reduce Atlantis defenses.

A corollary reason is the whole 'balance of power' thing. None of the "big boys" is going to just sit by and let someone take space. The high ground combined with modern Megaversal weapons means that basically the entire planet is hostage. That is not conducive to the sort of 'negotiated cold war' atmosphere that is in play where the major powers stick to their spheres of influence and tacitly agree to not to tip the balance one way or another.
The MiO Orbitals though... there a joke.

The orbitals will basically provide a distraction as other forces like the Greeks/Hindus who hate the Splugorth smash their ground forces and cut off their supply chains.

[Mack]

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

MiO, p61, describing the CAN Republic:

The level of technology is unsurpassed by any in the Zone or on Earth and the efficiency of the colony is unbelievable.

So more advanced that either the CS or Triax (and one could argue more advanced than Atlantis, but I wouldn't) plus they have ARCHIE 7 which is "a more sophisticated version of Archie Three."

[Shark_Force]

i thought the main thing keeping people on the planet out of orbit was the debris ring.

That is basically a non-sense idea; the debris would constantly de-orbit, meaning you'd need to add more, and eventually you're trying to shred Jupiter to encapsulate Earth.

as to the splugorth being in rifts earth space... if they really really really wanted to get there, they probably could.

Due to teleportation circles being a thing, and the levels of high lords as summoners, the Splugorth can go from Splynn saying "I want a rock from Pluto" to orbit in a couple of hours, at most.

Mutants in orbit describes the orbital communities constantly replenishing the debris fields. It is constantly deorbiting but as long as you have asteroid miners ready/willing to keep feeding more random junk into orbit you can keep it pretty fugly to try to cross indefinitely. The moon base can supply a whole lot of rock/sand alone to keep the debris field rolling for a long time.

doesn't even need to be special trips. travel out to the belt, find an asteroid that is half rock half ice, fling it back, and now you've got half an asteroid worth of abrasive sand material sitting around. do the same with whatever other random stuff you get from mining, etc. and of course, every time something tries to come up from earth, they're adding to it as well

plus, if you put it at the right height, the debris can stay up there for a really long time. as in hundreds of years. maybe more if (for example) the debris is attracted by magnets and you have a station set up to keep pulling it up further at the same rate that it falls down. although that doesn't cover as far down as the orbitals might like (iirc they start shooting at things as far up as 50,000 feet above sea level), there's no particular reason the orbital debris ring needs to be the first line of defense, or that the entire thing (particularly the part the orbitals maintain) would need to be that low.

[eliakon]

A corollary reason is the whole 'balance of power' thing. None of the "big boys" is going to just sit by and let someone take space. The high ground combined with modern Megaversal weapons means that basically the entire planet is hostage. That is not conducive to the sort of 'negotiated cold war' atmosphere that is in play where the major powers stick to their spheres of influence and tacitly agree to not to tip the balance one way or another.
The MiO Orbitals though... there a joke.
[headcanon] My take on it is that there is likely a secret witch cult running through them puppeted by the Splugorth and others that basically keeps the scrubs maintaining the status quo for them. Likely many of the mysteriously still functional SDI satellites that seem to be amazingly effective... are actually new additions with cutting edge 3G tech that explains how they manage the plotastic containment and preventing any of the lesser powers from getting into space and upsetting the applecart. [/headcanon]

Honestly the orbitals don't need to be that strong. They maintain the debris field in orbit around the planet and that alone makes getting into orbit highly problematic to suicidal. Basically running into a cloud of nails and random crap at orbital speed would alone wreck most ships and then you have the kill sats and other orbital defenses shooting down into the gravity well at ships trying to get out gives the units in orbit a pretty heavy advantage. The splugorth if they really devoted a full invasion fleet to try to break out could accomplish it but risks drawing negative attention he has been avoiding.

The problem is
1) that debris field isn't going to "wreck most ships"
2) that the debris field needs to constantly be replenished
3) that the debris field is pretty shallow

Basically anything with even moderate armor let alone force fields is going to punch through the debris field like the joke it is. The damage from the ring is not going to be more than say.... oh I don't know ship class railguns?
The fluff that it will shred things instantly is nice and all... but unless you decide that your version of the debris field is doing thousands of MDC per round or even tens of thousands... its not going to be stopping diddly.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

MiO, p61, describing the CAN Republic:

The level of technology is unsurpassed by any in the Zone or on Earth and the efficiency of the colony is unbelievable.

So more advanced that either the CS or Triax (and one could argue more advanced than Atlantis, but I wouldn't) plus they have ARCHIE 7 which is "a more sophisticated version of Archie Three."

It's three hundred years+ old with no way to innovate or advances. So while the bad writing might say that, the reality of the situation would be far different. I.E. It -is- Unbelievable.

It's a throw away line trying to justify the stupid.

It should also be noted that the CAN is not a Station. It's a lunar colony with over 100,000 people and lunar mining ability.

But yeah it's bad writing. Looking at the tech in the book and comparing it to the rest of rifts, it's nothing special.

[Pepsi Jedi]

A corollary reason is the whole 'balance of power' thing. None of the "big boys" is going to just sit by and let someone take space. The high ground combined with modern Megaversal weapons means that basically the entire planet is hostage. That is not conducive to the sort of 'negotiated cold war' atmosphere that is in play where the major powers stick to their spheres of influence and tacitly agree to not to tip the balance one way or another.
The MiO Orbitals though... there a joke.
[headcanon] My take on it is that there is likely a secret witch cult running through them puppeted by the Splugorth and others that basically keeps the scrubs maintaining the status quo for them. Likely many of the mysteriously still functional SDI satellites that seem to be amazingly effective... are actually new additions with cutting edge 3G tech that explains how they manage the plotastic containment and preventing any of the lesser powers from getting into space and upsetting the applecart. [/headcanon]

Honestly the orbitals don't need to be that strong. They maintain the debris field in orbit around the planet and that alone makes getting into orbit highly problematic to suicidal. Basically running into a cloud of nails and random crap at orbital speed would alone wreck most ships and then you have the kill sats and other orbital defenses shooting down into the gravity well at ships trying to get out gives the units in orbit a pretty heavy advantage. The splugorth if they really devoted a full invasion fleet to try to break out could accomplish it but risks drawing negative attention he has been avoiding.

The problem is
1) that debris field isn't going to "wreck most ships"
2) that the debris field needs to constantly be replenished
3) that the debris field is pretty shallow

Basically anything with even moderate armor let alone force fields is going to punch through the debris field like the joke it is. The damage from the ring is not going to be more than say.... oh I don't know ship class railguns?
The fluff that it will shred things instantly is nice and all... but unless you decide that your version of the debris field is doing thousands of MDC per round or even tens of thousands... its not going to be stopping diddly.

Some one write down the date... I agree with Eli. Completely. Fluff is great but reality of stats and such make it so stupid as to be comedic.

[eliakon]

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

MiO, p61, describing the CAN Republic:

The level of technology is unsurpassed by any in the Zone or on Earth and the efficiency of the colony is unbelievable.

So more advanced that either the CS or Triax (and one could argue more advanced than Atlantis, but I wouldn't) plus they have ARCHIE 7 which is "a more sophisticated version of Archie Three."

It's three hundred years+ old with no way to innovate or advances. So while the bad writing might say that, the reality of the situation would be far different. I.E. It -is- Unbelievable.

It's a throw away line trying to justify the stupid.

It should also be noted that the CAN is not a Station. It's a lunar colony with over 100,000 people and lunar mining ability.

But yeah it's bad writing. Looking at the tech in the book and comparing it to the rest of rifts, it's nothing special.

Why can't they innovate or advance?
Is there some reason that no one can invent, or study, or develop?

As for the tech... they have some pretty interesting tech. Magnetic shields, traction drives, magnetic dust weapons, very advanced genetic engineering (The equal of Lone Star and Achilles)...
Oh yeah, and they have recycling technology good enough to keep everything humming along just fine 300 years later.
And compared to what was available in rifts books when it was published? Yeah it was pretty snazzy stuff. The fact that decades of power creep has retroactively increased the power level of the ground doesn't mean much. If a new MiO book were published I have no doubt its tech would get the same level of power creeping love as Triax 2 and Northern Gun and the CS and all the rest.

Now granted, people may not like what the canon is...but that doesn't change it.

[Mack]

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

MiO, p61, describing the CAN Republic:

The level of technology is unsurpassed by any in the Zone or on Earth and the efficiency of the colony is unbelievable.

So more advanced that either the CS or Triax (and one could argue more advanced than Atlantis, but I wouldn't) plus they have ARCHIE 7 which is "a more sophisticated version of Archie Three."

It's three hundred years+ old with no way to innovate or advances.

How so? Their brains didn't stop functioning.

So while the bad writing might say that, the reality of the situation would be far different. I.E. It -is- Unbelievable.

Depends upon the eye of the beholder. But we can often say the same of any number of things (the CS, Vampire Kingdoms, Cyber-Knights, Bon Jovi's acting career...)

It's a throw away line trying to justify the stupid.

It should also be noted that the CAN is not a Station. It's a lunar colony with over 100,000 people and lunar mining ability.

I'm not sure why that's significant, but OK.

But yeah it's bad writing. Looking at the tech in the book and comparing it to the rest of rifts, it's nothing special.

Comparing it to the rest of Rifts is sketchy, since the book was written in 1992 and has not been updated.

Although I do agree that it's a poor outing. KS had a few ideas (but not enough) and wrote them twice (once AtB and once for Rifts) and then published it as a short book. I find little of the material compelling, which is why I imagine it's never been revised or expanded.

[shadrak]

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

MiO, p61, describing the CAN Republic:

The level of technology is unsurpassed by any in the Zone or on Earth and the efficiency of the colony is unbelievable.

So more advanced that either the CS or Triax (and one could argue more advanced than Atlantis, but I wouldn't) plus they have ARCHIE 7 which is "a more sophisticated version of Archie Three."

PA 109--

CS and Triax (and almost Northern Gun too!) seem to beat Kittani and early Naruni...

I think PA 109 CS and Triax could give PA 100-15 CAN Station a run for its money...

Maybe it's time to revamp more of the older Worldbooks and Sourcebooks?

[Blue_Lion]

The Stations that are up there are held together with bailing wire and bubble gum and are realitivly low tech backwardsarse jury rigged remnants 300+ years old.

MiO, p61, describing the CAN Republic:

The level of technology is unsurpassed by any in the Zone or on Earth and the efficiency of the colony is unbelievable.

So more advanced that either the CS or Triax (and one could argue more advanced than Atlantis, but I wouldn't) plus they have ARCHIE 7 which is "a more sophisticated version of Archie Three."

PA 109--

CS and Triax (and almost Northern Gun too!) seem to beat Kittani and early Naruni...

I think PA 109 CS and Triax could give PA 100-15 CAN Station a run for its money...

Maybe it's time to revamp more of the older Worldbooks and Sourcebooks?

Thypically there is no power creep beteen tech levels in the books. With no guide for creating new items it is hard to not have power creep, so lower tech weapon makers have weapons as good some of the higher tech makers like traix.

[Shark_Force]

can't find the description of the counter-orbital ring, but unless someone screwed up the damage values badly it should tear things to shreds pretty easily. being counter-orbital, it will typically have a velocity of its own that will be quite high combined with the velocity of the ships coming up out of orbit, which should also be quite high (modern shuttles reach about 29000 km/h, and in order to remain in orbit the debris ring will need to have similar velocity... in the opposite direction, because it is *counter* orbital, and people aren't likely to try counter-orbital launches into space because it's already horrendously expensive in terms of energy to get into orbit and you'd need to add over 3,000 km/h to go counter-orbital). something like the equivalent of a mach 40+ projectile when combined.

in short, the damage *should* make a boom gun look like a joke. and should get worse the more the cross-section increased. and it will probably hit multiple times as you struggle to get through it, because if they're constantly replenishing it then it will be a very *thick* layer (or at least many smaller layers, each of which will be quite devastating).

so sure, someone probably wrote a stupid damage value somewhere. that just means you should change the stuff that makes absolutely no sense at all, like the stupidly low damage value that makes no sense for a mach 40+ hail of projectiles. if you haven't figured out how to do that by now, i'm not sure how you even play rifts at all, because it is loaded with stuff that directly contradicts itself all over the place.

oh, and also, on top of that, the orbitals patrol the area with spacecraft and such (specific numbers are not given, but it is at least "dozens"). so, not only do you need to survive the debris ring (and the killer satellites), you also have to survive the patrols that can clearly see you because you're a rather large object flying in an uncluttered area (the atmosphere) at tremendous velocity, which makes you very noticeable. so after surviving a bombardment that makes a boom gun look like a joke, you have to worry about stuff like x-ray lasers or squads of the space glitter boys unloading a volley or five of their particle beams into your face. and every single scrap of armour you add to the spacecraft makes it heavier, which makes it more expensive to launch and requires more fuel.

[eliakon]

can't find the description of the counter-orbital ring, but unless someone screwed up the damage values badly it should tear things to shreds pretty easily. being counter-orbital, it will typically have a velocity of its own that will be quite high combined with the velocity of the ships coming up out of orbit, which should also be quite high (modern shuttles reach about 29000 km/h, and in order to remain in orbit the debris ring will need to have similar velocity... in the opposite direction, because it is *counter* orbital, and people aren't likely to try counter-orbital launches into space because it's already horrendously expensive in terms of energy to get into orbit and you'd need to add over 3,000 km/h to go counter-orbital). something like the equivalent of a mach 40+ projectile when combined.

in short, the damage *should* make a boom gun look like a joke. and should get worse the more the cross-section increased. and it will probably hit multiple times as you struggle to get through it, because if they're constantly replenishing it then it will be a very *thick* layer (or at least many smaller layers, each of which will be quite devastating).

To bad damage does not scale like that in Palladium.
Its physics =/= our phsyics
That is why their kiloton yield nukes only do a few *hundred* MDC and have a blast radius of only 3 miles

so sure, someone probably wrote a stupid damage value somewhere. that just means you should change the stuff that makes absolutely no sense at all, like the stupidly low damage value that makes no sense for a mach 40+ hail of projectiles. if you haven't figured out how to do that by now, i'm not sure how you even play rifts at all, because it is loaded with stuff that directly contradicts itself all over the place.

Yes you can rewrite the entire game to make the debris ring work. That is an option I suppose

oh, and also, on top of that, the orbitals patrol the area with spacecraft and such (specific numbers are not given, but it is at least "dozens"). so, not only do you need to survive the debris ring (and the killer satellites), you also have to survive the patrols that can clearly see you because you're a rather large object flying in an uncluttered area (the atmosphere) at tremendous velocity, which makes you very noticeable. so after surviving a bombardment that makes a boom gun look like a joke, you have to worry about stuff like x-ray lasers or squads of the space glitter boys unloading a volley or five of their particle beams into your face. and every single scrap of armour you add to the spacecraft makes it heavier, which makes it more expensive to launch and requires more fuel.

Well, since almost all of that has pathetically short ranges. Thats not a huge issue.
And if they can see you then you can see them.
And since spaceship weapons have vastly superior ranges to anything the MiO people have simply swat them out of space before they get in range.

This isn't about some rattletrap built by the CS
This is, if you would pay attention to the title about Splugorth and their space ships. You can read about those in the PW books.
They will laugh at the entire MiO fleet on their way up through the debris ring that is going to be doing chump change damage and can't be all *that* thick as the orbitals don't have an infinite supply of stuff to put in it to replenish the loses it has taken every hour of every day for the last three hundred years.

Now sure, you can go through rewrite everything to make it work...
...but at that point it isnt MiO it is "my reason why space travel is impossible at my table"

[Shark_Force]

can't find the description of the counter-orbital ring, but unless someone screwed up the damage values badly it should tear things to shreds pretty easily. being counter-orbital, it will typically have a velocity of its own that will be quite high combined with the velocity of the ships coming up out of orbit, which should also be quite high (modern shuttles reach about 29000 km/h, and in order to remain in orbit the debris ring will need to have similar velocity... in the opposite direction, because it is *counter* orbital, and people aren't likely to try counter-orbital launches into space because it's already horrendously expensive in terms of energy to get into orbit and you'd need to add over 3,000 km/h to go counter-orbital). something like the equivalent of a mach 40+ projectile when combined.

in short, the damage *should* make a boom gun look like a joke. and should get worse the more the cross-section increased. and it will probably hit multiple times as you struggle to get through it, because if they're constantly replenishing it then it will be a very *thick* layer (or at least many smaller layers, each of which will be quite devastating).

To bad damage does not scale like that in Palladium.
Its physics =/= our phsyics
That is why their kiloton yield nukes only do a few *hundred* MDC and have a blast radius of only 3 miles

so sure, someone probably wrote a stupid damage value somewhere. that just means you should change the stuff that makes absolutely no sense at all, like the stupidly low damage value that makes no sense for a mach 40+ hail of projectiles. if you haven't figured out how to do that by now, i'm not sure how you even play rifts at all, because it is loaded with stuff that directly contradicts itself all over the place.

Yes you can rewrite the entire game to make the debris ring work. That is an option I suppose

oh, and also, on top of that, the orbitals patrol the area with spacecraft and such (specific numbers are not given, but it is at least "dozens"). so, not only do you need to survive the debris ring (and the killer satellites), you also have to survive the patrols that can clearly see you because you're a rather large object flying in an uncluttered area (the atmosphere) at tremendous velocity, which makes you very noticeable. so after surviving a bombardment that makes a boom gun look like a joke, you have to worry about stuff like x-ray lasers or squads of the space glitter boys unloading a volley or five of their particle beams into your face. and every single scrap of armour you add to the spacecraft makes it heavier, which makes it more expensive to launch and requires more fuel.

Well, since almost all of that has pathetically short ranges. Thats not a huge issue.
And if they can see you then you can see them.
And since spaceship weapons have vastly superior ranges to anything the MiO people have simply swat them out of space before they get in range.

This isn't about some rattletrap built by the CS
This is, if you would pay attention to the title about Splugorth and their space ships. You can read about those in the PW books.
They will laugh at the entire MiO fleet on their way up through the debris ring that is going to be doing chump change damage and can't be all *that* thick as the orbitals don't have an infinite supply of stuff to put in it to replenish the loses it has taken every hour of every day for the last three hundred years.

Now sure, you can go through rewrite everything to make it work...
...but at that point it isnt MiO it is "my reason why space travel is impossible at my table"

rewriting the damage on one thing is hardly rewriting everything. even if you have to do it for a bunch of inconsistent things, you do it as they come up, and frankly, it's probably less work than trying to use those inconsistent things.

and the orbital ring won't stop the splugorth, sure. they'd just go around it anyways (repairs are expensive, and besides they'll be coming in from another dimension anyways so why not just rift past the whole danged thing). and i'm sure if the orbital community realized that, they'd be extremely worried about that hole in their defenses.

but as noted, the splugorth have no reason to care. they have no reason to go into space around rifts earth. it's a waste of time. they have better places to raid for slaves, better places to exploit for resources, and the orbitals basically function as ablative armour for any space invasion the system may experience while costing the splugorth absolutely nothing at all. it's more trouble than it's worth for the splugorth to send ships there, although they may keep a few agents up there to listen for news of attacks (so they have more time to respond to conventional invasions of the solar system) and opportunities.

in short, it doesn't need to have stopped the splugorth to maintain setting integrity. the splugorth just don't care about space. it's big and empty, and there is no shortage of places that are full of much more tightly-packed resources. it just needs to have stopped everyone else.

[eliakon]

can't find the description of the counter-orbital ring, but unless someone screwed up the damage values badly it should tear things to shreds pretty easily. being counter-orbital, it will typically have a velocity of its own that will be quite high combined with the velocity of the ships coming up out of orbit, which should also be quite high (modern shuttles reach about 29000 km/h, and in order to remain in orbit the debris ring will need to have similar velocity... in the opposite direction, because it is *counter* orbital, and people aren't likely to try counter-orbital launches into space because it's already horrendously expensive in terms of energy to get into orbit and you'd need to add over 3,000 km/h to go counter-orbital). something like the equivalent of a mach 40+ projectile when combined.

in short, the damage *should* make a boom gun look like a joke. and should get worse the more the cross-section increased. and it will probably hit multiple times as you struggle to get through it, because if they're constantly replenishing it then it will be a very *thick* layer (or at least many smaller layers, each of which will be quite devastating).

To bad damage does not scale like that in Palladium.
Its physics =/= our phsyics
That is why their kiloton yield nukes only do a few *hundred* MDC and have a blast radius of only 3 miles

so sure, someone probably wrote a stupid damage value somewhere. that just means you should change the stuff that makes absolutely no sense at all, like the stupidly low damage value that makes no sense for a mach 40+ hail of projectiles. if you haven't figured out how to do that by now, i'm not sure how you even play rifts at all, because it is loaded with stuff that directly contradicts itself all over the place.

Yes you can rewrite the entire game to make the debris ring work. That is an option I suppose

rewriting the damage on one thing is hardly rewriting everything. even if you have to do it for a bunch of inconsistent things, you do it as they come up, and frankly, it's probably less work than trying to use those inconsistent things.

If you are rewriting the entire damage scaling for every kinetic attack so that they do damage based on the kinetic energy of the attack... yes you are rewriting the entire system as you just threw MD under the bus as well as the fact that in Palladium gun damage is determined by cool factor and not size or speed or energy ratios
now sure, you can rewrite the entire game into a game of hard science if you want. But it isn't meant to be one. It is meant to be a wild cinematic game. Over the top bollywood and four color comics. That is why it is written like it is. Plausbility takes a distant tenth or twentieth place to things like "cool" and "fun" and "fast" and "interesting" the like.

I find it less work to just roll with it and say "it works because it does" and "comic book logic" and move on.

[Shark_Force]

so because i have suggested reworking a single example of a wildly out-of-place thing which coincidentally lacks the stats to back up the description of its effectiveness, doing so would absolutely require that you rework every single projectile weapon in the game, most of which we have little to no information on any of the details that would let us know exactly how effective they "should" be? (in particular, i can only think of maybe two guns that give us a muzzle velocity at all, and i'm only assuming the shemarrian rail gun does, so it might be only one).

let's not be silly. i suggested reworking *one* damage value because it was wildly out of place, both in comparison to how it is stated to work in-universe and to how it should logically compare to the one data point that i know we have. if you want to interpret that to mean that you must rework *every* damage value, that's on you. i never said anything of the sort.

[eliakon]

so because i have suggested reworking a single example of a wildly out-of-place thing which coincidentally lacks the stats to back up the description of its effectiveness, doing so would absolutely require that you rework every single projectile weapon in the game, most of which we have little to no information on any of the details that would let us know exactly how effective they "should" be? (in particular, i can only think of maybe two guns that give us a muzzle velocity at all, and i'm only assuming the shemarrian rail gun does, so it might be only one).

let's not be silly. i suggested reworking *one* damage value because it was wildly out of place, both in comparison to how it is stated to work in-universe and to how it should logically compare to the one data point that i know we have. if you want to interpret that to mean that you must rework *every* damage value, that's on you. i never said anything of the sort.

Because 'reworking' the damage would either
1) just give it an arbitrary damage of some absurd amount that is utterly out of line with every other weapon and example of kinetics in the game
or
2) to get that one kinetic damage to be 'realistic' you have to make all the other kinetic weapons 'realistic' too (otherwise again your simply making one unique item get a massive damage boost for no other reason than you simply want to make something impossible but are not willing to actually ban it... so you pretend that its just mechanics...even though the mechanics say no such thing)

So yeah, you are either giving one weapon a HUGE damage boost for the sole purpose of "this weapon is kewl'/"I want to fiat that you fail" or you are going to have to bring all the other weapons into line too.
You can't simply boost one damage code out of the thousands of them that exist on the claim that "its more realistic this way" with out making everything just as realistic... unless your not actually intending to make it more realistic and just trying to ban something by making it impossible but hiding behind the fig leaf of the rules.

THAT is why I said you need to rewrite the entire system (or just admit that the goal is not to have a 'realistic' damage but to simply make something mpossible Because The GM Said So)

[Shark_Force]

you're right. the fact that annihilation exists means that we need to make every spell deal damage in the hundreds of MDC, because having that one outlier means that we can't have spells that deal anything less, no matter what, under any circumstances.

or, you know, that isn't true at all, and a hail of thousands of mach 40+ projectiles only needs to deal damage that is similar to other mach 40+ projectiles that might be in the game.

[Incriptus]

For what it is worth there are 5 pages about the stations at the End of Rifts: Aftermath [aka the book just after the siege on tolkeen] so they were mentioned in early 2000's.

It mentions that the Scandinavian nations are probing the debris field/killer satellites by firing long range missiles.

That book also mentions that some think there are dimensional anomalies that make it even worse. An idea is also mentioned in South America 2.



But as others have said, I'm sure the Splugorth could, it would just take more effort for what little there would be to gain.

[eliakon]

you're right. the fact that annihilation exists means that we need to make every spell deal damage in the hundreds of MDC, because having that one outlier means that we can't have spells that deal anything less, no matter what, under any circumstances.

or, you know, that isn't true at all, and a hail of thousands of mach 40+ projectiles only needs to deal damage that is similar to other mach 40+ projectiles that might be in the game.

Because as mentioned before
1) things don't scale like that in Palladium so yes, making one unique thing scale that way is in no way, shape or form "because of realism" and simply a case of "I want absurd damage because I want it"

2) because even in real life impacts with orbital debris and detritus just scars the outside of our SDC ships and doesn't instantly annihilate them like it would if they "realistically" were doing huge amounts of MDC.

3) And of course your example is a strawman of the worst sort simply because your trying to claim that something unrelated at all is the same as the discussion, and then because that totally unrelated thing doesn't map to the conversation it proves that your point is valid

4) And of course all of this ignores the issue of the debris field falling into the Earths atmosphere and needing constant replenishment.,, Which in turn ignores the fact that you can't make a 'field' orbiting a sphere. Belts sure, but you cant put a shell around the earth, doesn't work mechanically. Which of course if we are being "realistic" means that the entire concept of the debris field needs to go bye bye...oops.


Now like I said. If you want to make the debris field ultra deadly... sure, that's on you. You do you. But there is no way you can justify it as being "realistic" under the rules. It requires simply ignoring all the game rules on the subject and simply picking an arbitrarily high number.

[Shark_Force]

Because as mentioned before
1) things don't scale like that in Palladium so yes, making one unique thing scale that way is in no way, shape or form "because of realism" and simply a case of "I want absurd damage because I want it"

2) because even in real life impacts with orbital debris and detritus just scars the outside of our SDC ships and doesn't instantly annihilate them like it would if they "realistically" were doing huge amounts of MDC.

3) And of course your example is a strawman of the worst sort simply because your trying to claim that something unrelated at all is the same as the discussion, and then because that totally unrelated thing doesn't map to the conversation it proves that your point is valid

4) And of course all of this ignores the issue of the debris field falling into the Earths atmosphere and needing constant replenishment.,, Which in turn ignores the fact that you can't make a 'field' orbiting a sphere. Belts sure, but you cant put a shell around the earth, doesn't work mechanically. Which of course if we are being "realistic" means that the entire concept of the debris field needs to go bye bye...oops.


Now like I said. If you want to make the debris field ultra deadly... sure, that's on you. You do you. But there is no way you can justify it as being "realistic" under the rules. It requires simply ignoring all the game rules on the subject and simply picking an arbitrarily high number.

1) which other mach 40+ projectiles are you comparing to that allows you to determine how mach 40+ projectiles scale, exactly?

2) real life impacts with orbital debris are not collisions with COUNTER-orbital debris, because we launch everything in the same direction. mostly because you need to compensate for 2,000 mph difference in velocity (going with the earth's rotation, you start off with around 1,000 mph velocity... going against it, you need to first get rid of your 1,000 mph in the wrong direction, and then build up to 1,000 mph to get to the same starting point, so we don't do it).

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

4) debris can stay in orbit for quite a long time. depending on how high the orbit is, hundreds of years even (though it would certainly seem that aircraft start getting destroyed much lower than the ranges where things stay up there for centuries) without anything to provide added energy. furthermore, because sane people launch things from near the equator rather than near the poles (to enjoy the benefits of that added velocity i mentioned earlier, which is greater at the equator), you don't need to envelop the entire planet, as i've already said, which dramatically reduces the amount you need. particularly since the debris ring is not the only line of defense.

[ShadowLogan]

can't find the description of the counter-orbital ring, but unless someone screwed up the damage values badly it should tear things to shreds pretty easily. being counter-orbital, it will typically have a velocity of its own that will be quite high combined with the velocity of the ships coming up out of orbit, which should also be quite high (modern shuttles reach about 29000 km/h, and in order to remain in orbit the debris ring will need to have similar velocity... in the opposite direction, because it is *counter* orbital, and people aren't likely to try counter-orbital launches into space because it's already horrendously expensive in terms of energy to get into orbit and you'd need to add over 3,000 km/h to go counter-orbital). something like the equivalent of a mach 40+ projectile when combined.

There isn't a damage rating for the COR, but it is listed as 90% effective at destroying anything that enters it (MIO pg61) with the remaining 10% left to the Killer Satellites and patrols.

The closest I could find to a COR was on a random table for encounters (pg109-10): Debris, Meteoroid Storm (exploding dice), Comet Tail (pass through) and maybe the Sandcaster defense system (pg84). None of them though are for the minutes (being generous) duration that is likely to be spend in the COR.

The main contributor to damage would be time producing more "hits" so the damage would add up. How thick the ring is and the density of particles would also influence things.

Given that I think they said even mars has some ley line activity it is pretty clear if the splugorth really wanted to there are dimensional ways of bypassing the barrier but breaking out from the planets surface with ships would still be problematic and overall the splurgorth may even like the debris fields. keeps riff raff out so they can enjoy their island retreat.

It isn't just Mars, the Moon also is cited to have Ley Lines. But neither is very habitable for the majority (if not all) of the Minions, so they would have to bring their own support structure (and likely a heavy reliance on the Kittani). But yeah, Atlantis can easily by-pass the COR. Pop into the Astral Plane to cut the material plane distance to physically travel (since some options require a familiarity and telescopic viewing might not count) and they could Rift/Teleport past it to the Moon, Mars or just deep space (and given Mars has Ley Lines it stands to reason other bodies in the Solar System do to).

[lather]

so sure, someone probably wrote a stupid damage value somewhere. that just means you should change the stuff that makes absolutely no sense at all, like the stupidly low damage value that makes no sense for a mach 40+ hail of projectiles. if you haven't figured out how to do that by now, i'm not sure how you even play rifts at all, because it is loaded with stuff that directly contradicts itself all over the place.

Yes you can rewrite the entire game to make the debris ring work. That is an option I suppose

I know when I write a house rule, I rewrite the entire game, including the parts I haven't used in literally thousands of hours of playing.

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

If we accept that the speed determines the height of the orbit, then the speed of a retrograde orbit equals the speed of a direct orbit. I think what you are talking about is the point of the collison where two objects have the same speed. It's an interesting frame of reference problem.

In regards to the OP.

I'm curious, do Syplynncryth's forces have access to spaceships on Rifts Earth? If so, why haven't they moved into orbit, yet?

I think that, originally anyway, the setting was organized so that all Rifts is local. It was deliberately not global even though plenty of technology exists to make it global. Using magic to that end is rare and even still the world remains local. So space was sealed off with the same nonchalance. It is somewhat tautological, but, hey, this is Rifts, that nobody is in space because they're not supposed to be in space.

[Shark_Force]

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

If we accept that the speed determines the height of the orbit, then the speed of a retrograde orbit equals the speed of a direct orbit. I think what you are talking about is the point of the collison where two objects have the same speed. It's an interesting frame of reference problem.

basically i mean it's a head-on collision, and both objects will be moving with similar speeds before the collision, which will have as much energy as if either of them were going twice as fast and hit a static object.

[eliakon]

1) which other mach 40+ projectiles are you comparing to that allows you to determine how mach 40+ projectiles scale, exactly?

*sigh*
Because damage in Rifts does NOT scale to speed or size. Thus trying to make one specific one scale is obviously *not* in keeping with the rules as written

2) real life impacts with orbital debris are not collisions with COUNTER-orbital debris, because we launch everything in the same direction. mostly because you need to compensate for 2,000 mph difference in velocity (going with the earth's rotation, you start off with around 1,000 mph velocity... going against it, you need to first get rid of your 1,000 mph in the wrong direction, and then build up to 1,000 mph to get to the same starting point, so we don't do it).

If x2 speed was sufficient to make it ultra high damage MDC then half of that would still be high levels of MDC. its not. It is sdc scuffing.

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

Your right... the rail gun actually is plausible and will have far more energy than some sand in orbit.
The only way your going to get significant damage is if you have fairly large objects so that the object can impart sufficient kinetic energy. And that means that they bump and tumble and knock each other out of orbit and shoot each other down.
This field is some how predicated on uniform densities of large objects that do not interfere with each other in any way at ultra low altitudes... aka it isn't plausible in the least, and its damage is going to be insignificant.

4) debris can stay in orbit for quite a long time. depending on how high the orbit is, hundreds of years even (though it would certainly seem that aircraft start getting destroyed much lower than the ranges where things stay up there for centuries) without anything to provide added energy. furthermore, because sane people launch things from near the equator rather than near the poles (to enjoy the benefits of that added velocity i mentioned earlier, which is greater at the equator), you don't need to envelop the entire planet, as i've already said, which dramatically reduces the amount you need. particularly since the debris ring is not the only line of defense.

The debris field is FAR below the orbit level because all the satellites are above it. All of them. That sort of gives us a rather limited range of places it could be... Oh yes, and in canon it is not a few rings. It gets everyone everywhere, even the people launching from Germany, or Norway.
House rule piled on house rule doesn't make it legal... it just makes your version of the setting one based on house rules

[eliakon]

Given that I think they said even mars has some ley line activity it is pretty clear if the splugorth really wanted to there are dimensional ways of bypassing the barrier but breaking out from the planets surface with ships would still be problematic and overall the splurgorth may even like the debris fields. keeps riff raff out so they can enjoy their island retreat.

It isn't just Mars, the Moon also is cited to have Ley Lines. But neither is very habitable for the majority (if not all) of the Minions, so they would have to bring their own support structure (and likely a heavy reliance on the Kittani). But yeah, Atlantis can easily by-pass the COR. Pop into the Astral Plane to cut the material plane distance to physically travel (since some options require a familiarity and telescopic viewing might not count) and they could Rift/Teleport past it to the Moon, Mars or just deep space (and given Mars has Ley Lines it stands to reason other bodies in the Solar System do to).

Forget Mars and Luna. There are ley lines in space. The L4 area around the Shino-Japanese station is said to have ley line and rift activity.
And if there are Ley Lines there, then there are likely ley lines elsewhere in the solar system that you could use as an end point for rifting in a ship or twenty.

[shadrak]

1) which other mach 40+ projectiles are you comparing to that allows you to determine how mach 40+ projectiles scale, exactly?

*sigh*
Because damage in Rifts does NOT scale to speed or size. Thus trying to make one specific one scale is obviously *not* in keeping with the rules as written

2) real life impacts with orbital debris are not collisions with COUNTER-orbital debris, because we launch everything in the same direction. mostly because you need to compensate for 2,000 mph difference in velocity (going with the earth's rotation, you start off with around 1,000 mph velocity... going against it, you need to first get rid of your 1,000 mph in the wrong direction, and then build up to 1,000 mph to get to the same starting point, so we don't do it).

If x2 speed was sufficient to make it ultra high damage MDC then half of that would still be high levels of MDC. its not. It is sdc scuffing.

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

Your right... the rail gun actually is plausible and will have far more energy than some sand in orbit.
The only way your going to get significant damage is if you have fairly large objects so that the object can impart sufficient kinetic energy. And that means that they bump and tumble and knock each other out of orbit and shoot each other down.
This field is some how predicated on uniform densities of large objects that do not interfere with each other in any way at ultra low altitudes... aka it isn't plausible in the least, and its damage is going to be insignificant.

4) debris can stay in orbit for quite a long time. depending on how high the orbit is, hundreds of years even (though it would certainly seem that aircraft start getting destroyed much lower than the ranges where things stay up there for centuries) without anything to provide added energy. furthermore, because sane people launch things from near the equator rather than near the poles (to enjoy the benefits of that added velocity i mentioned earlier, which is greater at the equator), you don't need to envelop the entire planet, as i've already said, which dramatically reduces the amount you need. particularly since the debris ring is not the only line of defense.

The debris field is FAR below the orbit level because all the satellites are above it. All of them. That sort of gives us a rather limited range of places it could be... Oh yes, and in canon it is not a few rings. It gets everyone everywhere, even the people launching from Germany, or Norway.
House rule piled on house rule doesn't make it legal... it just makes your version of the setting one based on house rules

Didn't Palladium essentially RETCON the debris field?

I thought they re-imagined it in a recent publication...

It may have been a Rifter, but I thought it was a revised Worldbook or Sourcebook.

[Shark_Force]

1) which other mach 40+ projectiles are you comparing to that allows you to determine how mach 40+ projectiles scale, exactly?

*sigh*
Because damage in Rifts does NOT scale to speed or size. Thus trying to make one specific one scale is obviously *not* in keeping with the rules as written

2) real life impacts with orbital debris are not collisions with COUNTER-orbital debris, because we launch everything in the same direction. mostly because you need to compensate for 2,000 mph difference in velocity (going with the earth's rotation, you start off with around 1,000 mph velocity... going against it, you need to first get rid of your 1,000 mph in the wrong direction, and then build up to 1,000 mph to get to the same starting point, so we don't do it).

If x2 speed was sufficient to make it ultra high damage MDC then half of that would still be high levels of MDC. its not. It is sdc scuffing.

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

Your right... the rail gun actually is plausible and will have far more energy than some sand in orbit.
The only way your going to get significant damage is if you have fairly large objects so that the object can impart sufficient kinetic energy. And that means that they bump and tumble and knock each other out of orbit and shoot each other down.
This field is some how predicated on uniform densities of large objects that do not interfere with each other in any way at ultra low altitudes... aka it isn't plausible in the least, and its damage is going to be insignificant.

4) debris can stay in orbit for quite a long time. depending on how high the orbit is, hundreds of years even (though it would certainly seem that aircraft start getting destroyed much lower than the ranges where things stay up there for centuries) without anything to provide added energy. furthermore, because sane people launch things from near the equator rather than near the poles (to enjoy the benefits of that added velocity i mentioned earlier, which is greater at the equator), you don't need to envelop the entire planet, as i've already said, which dramatically reduces the amount you need. particularly since the debris ring is not the only line of defense.

The debris field is FAR below the orbit level because all the satellites are above it. All of them. That sort of gives us a rather limited range of places it could be... Oh yes, and in canon it is not a few rings. It gets everyone everywhere, even the people launching from Germany, or Norway.
House rule piled on house rule doesn't make it legal... it just makes your version of the setting one based on house rules

1) damage doesn't scale perfectly to size (or rather, mass) in most cases in rifts (there are exceptions, like super telekinesis), but generally does scale to some extent. i have no idea how you've determined it doesn't relate to speed. which makes that first point irrelevant; we don't know how fast stuff is moving most of the time, so we don't know how much kinetic energy they have. but certainly, damage increases with speed in most cases; rams that deal damage do more damage if you go faster, the most powerful railguns in the game are noted for having more velocity than other railguns, falling damage increases with height (and resulting speed), etc.

2) we're talking 8 times as fast as a boom gun. that's 64 times as much kinetic energy per unit mass compared to a boom gun. sounds like it's got everything it needs to justify doing absolutely stupid amounts of damage to me. as for compared to modern collisions in orbit, it isn't double, it's considerably more, because the stuff you crash into is also orbiting (more or less) in the same direction. yes, it has plenty of velocity, but a very large portion of that is going towards *reducing* the relative velocity, not increasing it. it's the difference between a car pulling up from behind and sideswiping another car as it passes, and a car hitting another car in a head-on collision. the argument you're making is like saying that since a very small firecracker only does SDC, it is impossible for a very large explosive using the exact same energy source to do large amounts of MD.

3) or, you know, 64 times the kinetic energy per unit mass as compared to a boom gun. that could also provide some kinetic energy. just a little, you know.

4) you have a list of every location people have attempted to launch things into orbit from for the past few hundred years in rifts? if not, then all we know is that the places they've tried (so far) have had stuff to destroy them (not even necessarily the debris field, technically, i don't believe it specifies exactly what destroyed everything). and yes, it has to avoid satellites... those satellites don't necessarily need to be in the same band as the counter-orbital debris ring though, so that means we don't know for sure that it is, in fact, any lower than the satellites at all. for all we know, they might even be deploying the ring specifically in places where they see significant evidence of developed areas that might be able to support attempts to get into space.

they could be using weapons that are not detailed in the book as well, launched from satellites of a type not listed, because the book doesn't focus on getting through the ring at all (in fact, quite the opposite, it just says it isn't happening and then moves on). for all we know, the 50,000 foot ceiling is when some satellite starts deploying flechettes to create a targeted "debris field" with all the added punch of an object dropped from orbit into the projected trajectory of whatever it detects, and there would be no particular need to detail it, because again: the book wasn't focused on that aspect. it left the entire setting incredibly vague, there's around 11 pages describing the rifts portion of the setting, and given that they obviously weren't planning on connecting rifts space to rifts not-space it isn't surprising that they neglected to detail the majority of what goes into keeping the two separated. all we need to know is that when you go too high, bad things happen.

[Hotrod]

Mutants in Orbit is a difficult book to interpret even without all the After The Bomb material. The isolation of Rifts Earth seems to be driven by game design rather than by any practical considerations, and MiO wasn't written by well-studied authors (I still cringe when I see things like "maximum speed is XXX miles per hour in space") for the purpose of entertainment, not practical consistency.

There are many ways in which the Splugorth could get into space. Off the top of my head: Rift over to Mars, rift onto the Moon, teleport past the satellites and debris field, use a Child of Light (Rifts England), or use a phase field to deflect incoming attacks or render a ship/flying power armor intangible.

[ShadowLogan]

1) damage doesn't scale perfectly to size (or rather, mass) in most cases in rifts (there are exceptions, like super telekinesis), but generally does scale to some extent. i have no idea how you've determined it doesn't relate to speed. which makes that first point irrelevant; we don't know how fast stuff is moving most of the time, so we don't know how much kinetic energy they have. but certainly, damage increases with speed in most cases; rams that deal damage do more damage if you go faster, the most powerful railguns in the game are noted for having more velocity than other railguns, falling damage increases with height (and resulting speed), etc.

No damage doesn't scale at all really the vast majority of the time. Armor/protective values has better scaling than attack/damage.

However, if you want an idea of how damaging the COR can be... If we apply the collision damage on pg345 of RUE (IIRC RMB was slightly different) of 2d4SDC per 10mph, that works out to 3600d4 SDC (or 36d4 MD: 36-144 MD) per collision for orbital velocity (assuming 18000mph) never mind something in a retrograde orbit (72-288 MD). And if we assume that Counter Orbital Ring is densely packed to provide multiple hits...

[eliakon]

1) damage doesn't scale perfectly to size (or rather, mass) in most cases in rifts (there are exceptions, like super telekinesis), but generally does scale to some extent. i have no idea how you've determined it doesn't relate to speed. which makes that first point irrelevant; we don't know how fast stuff is moving most of the time, so we don't know how much kinetic energy they have. but certainly, damage increases with speed in most cases; rams that deal damage do more damage if you go faster, the most powerful railguns in the game are noted for having more velocity than other railguns, falling damage increases with height (and resulting speed), etc.

No damage doesn't scale at all really the vast majority of the time. Armor/protective values has better scaling than attack/damage.

However, if you want an idea of how damaging the COR can be... If we apply the collision damage on pg345 of RUE (IIRC RMB was slightly different) of 2d4SDC per 10mph, that works out to 3600d4 SDC (or 36d4 MD: 36-144 MD) per collision for orbital velocity (assuming 18000mph) never mind something in a retrograde orbit (72-288 MD). And if we assume that Counter Orbital Ring is densely packed to provide multiple hits...

the collision damage rules have never worked for tiny impacts. This is why a bullet or missile does not do hundreds or thousands of points of damage. Nor is it imagining small items like bullets, or sand, or debris.

They work, barely, for what they are intended for. Figuring out the damage if a vehicle crashes or the like. Not how much damage a bullet will do.

[Curbludgeon]

In past games I've dismissed a counter orbital debris field as being a bit silly. I went instead with Earth's troposphere being bisected with a layer that, while invisible from beneath, is readily apparent to people in orbit: a ley line maestrom mixed with entity influence as bad as the worst of Madhaven. This gives the orbital community a reason to not want to go to Earth, discourages larger aircraft, and helps foster the relative lack of international commerce Rifts handwaves.

As for groups in space, I like aspects of the article in Rifter 56, although the Kithian mothership, being just a shade below 3G stats, is a bit much by comparison.

[Mlp7029]

Number one thing that is not available in orbit the Splugorth use heavily, P.P.E. so why bother? Same reason the early Atlanteans started exploring dimensionally instead of going to space.

[lather]

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

If we accept that the speed determines the height of the orbit, then the speed of a retrograde orbit equals the speed of a direct orbit. I think what you are talking about is the point of the collison where two objects have the same speed. It's an interesting frame of reference problem.

basically i mean it's a head-on collision, and both objects will be moving with similar speeds before the collision, which will have as much energy as if either of them were going twice as fast and hit a static object.

Not to veer too far off course, but do you mind quickly working an example and sharing?
It seems to me the debris strikes the moving object and the static object with the same kinetic energy.
I may be missing something as I'm not sure what you mean when you say a collision has energy.

[ShadowLogan]

Number one thing that is not available in orbit the Splugorth use heavily, P.P.E. so why bother? Same reason the early Atlanteans started exploring dimensionally instead of going to space.

And yet in Phaseworld the Splugorth are known to have a space fleet. Even the history of Splyn's contact with the Kittani shows that the Splugorth have some presence in space (WB2 pg52), though Fot3G implies their approach to space travel is different until contact with 3G sort of pushed them to adopt more "traditional" notions of space power with the Kittani taking the lead.

And that is incorrect. There are Ley Lines on the Moon and Mars (specifically called out), and other Ley Lines are also mentioned at other locations (including space IIRC). So they have PPE.

The Orbitals would also provide a population of slave stock (PPE). Technology wise they might even have technology they could exploit (Kittani are overall more advanced than Triax, but there are areas where humans have some advantages over them like in genetic engineering).

[Shark_Force]

3) practically speaking, a massive field of projectiles traveling at double orbital velocity is not the same thing as a railgun. the amount of kinetic energy involved is just not even close to comparable.

If we accept that the speed determines the height of the orbit, then the speed of a retrograde orbit equals the speed of a direct orbit. I think what you are talking about is the point of the collison where two objects have the same speed. It's an interesting frame of reference problem.

basically i mean it's a head-on collision, and both objects will be moving with similar speeds before the collision, which will have as much energy as if either of them were going twice as fast and hit a static object.

Not to veer too far off course, but do you mind quickly working an example and sharing?
It seems to me the debris strikes the moving object and the static object with the same kinetic energy.
I may be missing something as I'm not sure what you mean when you say a collision has energy.

they both have energy. it's just that in one case, the relative velocity is different; if i am driving 5 mph and you are parked, if i crash into you, the relative velocity is 5 mph. if i am going 5 mph and you are going 4 mph and i come up behind you and hit you, then it is equivalent to me bumping into you at 1 mph had you been standing still. if i drive into you head on while driving at 5 mph and you are at 4 mph then the collision has a total of 9 mph to it, even though the speed either of us is traveling at is identical.

since almost everything in orbit is going mostly in the same direction (the great majority of it having been placed there by us and deliberately all sent in approximately the same direction), it works more like that situation where i am driving slightly faster, come up behind you, and hit you (except, of course, that not everything is in a perfectly straight line, so there is more energy transferred as a result of the "sideways" portion of the energy which the projectiles possess, which still leaves quite a bit). so while the objects may have a tremendous speed relative to, say, the earth, they have a much lower speed relative to each other.

and agreed that there is PPE (and other resources) to be had in space. the key is that those resources are much less densely packed in space than they are in other places. there are slaves to be had in space... but they're not really dramatically superior to slaves that can be had elsewhere, and they're few and far between. the splugorth didn't even come to rifts earth for the slaves (they just do that since they're already here, so why not?). they came for the marketplace. if there was something they prized highly, they could and most likely would go there, but it's the same amount of work to go there as it is to go to a bunch of other places that are just more valuable, so until they run out of more valuable places to go to there simply isn't any need.

[Hotrod]

Here's an odd thought I had: the CS nuclear arsenal seems to be tied up in ballistic missiles, but ballistic missiles fly through space; if the CS let fly, would these weapons actually work, or would the anti-orbit cloud and killer satellites stop them?

[Shark_Force]

the CS are almost certainly aware of the limitation on flying high. and we know that they launched nukes at tolkeen and that it was stopped by the triangle rift defense thingy, not anything else. this suggests that however their nukes work, they probably don't fly excessively high.

[ShadowLogan]

Here's an odd thought I had: the CS nuclear arsenal seems to be tied up in ballistic missiles, but ballistic missiles fly through space; if the CS let fly, would these weapons actually work, or would the anti-orbit cloud and killer satellites stop them?

The only known delivery platforms for the CS Strategic Nuclear Arsenal are cruise missiles and torpedoes not ballistic missiles. Neither of which would have to contend with anything the orbitals deploy. This is per SB4.

The CS inventory of mini-tactical nuclear devices using long range missile would in ballistic missile terms would qualify as Medium Range Ballistic Missile (and theater class of ballistic missile). This might prevent them from normally reaching the ODR or KS zone, or being in the zones long enough to matter. Though WB5's SST Triax uses seems to suggest a 100,000ft flight ceiling before you have to worry about the orbitals.

the CS are almost certainly aware of the limitation on flying high. and we know that they launched nukes at tolkeen and that it was stopped by the triangle rift defense thingy, not anything else. this suggests that however their nukes work, they probably don't fly excessively high.

Lets keep in mind several things:
A. this was likely an attack with mini-tactical nuclear missiles
B. SB4 specifically states the CS would not use Strategic Nuclear weapons on Tolkeen
C. Triax's SST for NA-Europe trade use gives us an idea of how high you can fly, and Triax is a trade partner with the CS (the CS also has given up on a space program further supporting the idea they might have knowledge of altitude)
D. CS Long Range Missiles qualify as Theater Class Ballistic Missiles (if they are ballistic missiles), which might not (normally) fly as high as an ICBM
E. Given the ranges for CS territory to Tolkeen, those missiles if they do fly to high could be up there for to short a period to actually engage
F. Palladium Missile Tables are generic and multi-role, so we don't what type of trajectory the missiles normally fly (or if they all use the same trajectory or not)

[Shark_Force]

Here's an odd thought I had: the CS nuclear arsenal seems to be tied up in ballistic missiles, but ballistic missiles fly through space; if the CS let fly, would these weapons actually work, or would the anti-orbit cloud and killer satellites stop them?

The only known delivery platforms for the CS Strategic Nuclear Arsenal are cruise missiles and torpedoes not ballistic missiles. Neither of which would have to contend with anything the orbitals deploy. This is per SB4.

The CS inventory of mini-tactical nuclear devices using long range missile would in ballistic missile terms would qualify as Medium Range Ballistic Missile (and theater class of ballistic missile). This might prevent them from normally reaching the ODR or KS zone, or being in the zones long enough to matter. Though WB5's SST Triax uses seems to suggest a 100,000ft flight ceiling before you have to worry about the orbitals.

the CS are almost certainly aware of the limitation on flying high. and we know that they launched nukes at tolkeen and that it was stopped by the triangle rift defense thingy, not anything else. this suggests that however their nukes work, they probably don't fly excessively high.

Lets keep in mind several things:
A. this was likely an attack with mini-tactical nuclear missiles
B. SB4 specifically states the CS would not use Strategic Nuclear weapons on Tolkeen
C. Triax's SST for NA-Europe trade use gives us an idea of how high you can fly, and Triax is a trade partner with the CS (the CS also has given up on a space program further supporting the idea they might have knowledge of altitude)
D. CS Long Range Missiles qualify as Theater Class Ballistic Missiles (if they are ballistic missiles), which might not (normally) fly as high as an ICBM
E. Given the ranges for CS territory to Tolkeen, those missiles if they do fly to high could be up there for to short a period to actually engage
F. Palladium Missile Tables are generic and multi-role, so we don't what type of trajectory the missiles normally fly (or if they all use the same trajectory or not)

iirc, the triax high-flying jet specifically notes that they don't take it to it's highest (theoretical) altitude because bad things happen when you go too high.

as to the CS not using strategic nukes on tolkeen, there's a bit about that which is unclear... the CS high command didn't give the order for those missiles to be fired, as i understand it. the guy in charge of the missiles pretty much decided to nuke tolkeen, and then the CS figured they were as ready as they were ever going to be to start a genocidal war anyways and sent in the troops. so the question isn't whether the CS would have used strategic nukes... it's whether the guy who decided to fire nukes without orders would have (and had access to them, i suppose... just because he controlled a bunch of missiles doesn't mean he necessarily had control of the strategic nuke sites, after all).

although iirc, the books say something more along the lines of the CS being very reluctant to use the nukes unless they get desperate, not so much that they wouldn't use them under any circumstances.

[taalismn]

Number one thing that is not available in orbit the Splugorth use heavily, P.P.E. so why bother? Same reason the early Atlanteans started exploring dimensionally instead of going to space.

And yet in Phaseworld the Splugorth are known to have a space fleet. Even the history of Splyn's contact with the Kittani shows that the Splugorth have some presence in space (WB2 pg52), though Fot3G implies their approach to space travel is different until contact with 3G sort of pushed them to adopt more "traditional" notions of space power with the Kittani taking the lead.

And that is incorrect. There are Ley Lines on the Moon and Mars (specifically called out), and other Ley Lines are also mentioned at other locations (including space IIRC). So they have PPE.

The Orbitals would also provide a population of slave stock (PPE). Technology wise they might even have technology they could exploit (Kittani are overall more advanced than Triax, but there are areas where humans have some advantages over them like in genetic engineering).

Except that MIO came out before PhaseWorld, and the mighty spacefaring Kittani were restricted to the DragonDreadnaught(which, by Three Galaxies' standards, makes a nice enough gunship or small destroyer, but which would be eaten for lunch by most capital ships(and I'm rather surprised not to see the Atlantis DDs showing up as parasite craft on the bigger Kittani vessels).
So, either Splynncryth restricts his Kittani more than the other Splugorth do theirs or he just doesn't see the need to deploy spacecraft. It could well be that trying to link the Three Galaxies Splugorth to Splynncryth is a mistake; the former group are far more used to dealing with deep space than Splynncryth, who may prefer to travel via magic and keep his operations planet bound, and may have developed a mental blind spot with regards to what's Up There. Without prior experience or upset to get him sufficiently motivated to develop a space presence, and those minions who might advise him otherwise being shouted down(or worse) by his yes-minions, Splynncryth is likely to give only the mildest of damns to the space dimension.