Operator vehicles

[Rifter11]

The operator o.c.c. says the character starts with "Two commercial vehicles." What do you consider reasonable for them to choose? I mean, without parameters they could choose two Big Berthas, sell them at just 10-20% of their 69 million credit value (apiece) and the whole party could retire.

[taalismn]

A truck/wrecker and a motorcycle or light automobile/jeep come to mind immediately.
I don't know if a trailer would count as a 'commercial vehicle' or not, as it's unpowered. Maybe a light payload like a CAT?

[Warshield73]

A standard, unarmed, vehicle with either electric or gas engine would be what I would say fits.

Big Boos ATV or Mountaineer ATV from the original book or something like a Road King or Road Buster from World Book 34.

Truthfully starting vehicles are always a bit of a negotiation. What vehicle does a CS deserter start with? Did he really escape with a Deaths Head transport or maybe just a hover cycle. Unless you are something like a Glitterboy the GM and players (whole group is best) needs to sit down and figure it out.

The last two operators I had in a player group I said if they would take just one vehicle I would give them a Reloader vehicle from the Free Quebec book with just a few broken or missing parts. Both jumped at it instantly as it is the perfect for an operator.

What I have done for most groups is during session zero, once everyone has chosen their OCC, we consider vehicles and some players will group up to get a bigger, usually better armed, vehicle.

One of my most recent groups had an Operator, Rogue Scientist, and I think a Merc Soldier got together and took a large, fairly well armed hover vehicle (I think it was Naruni).

Just be prepared to negotiate.

[Blue_Lion]

Northern gun 2 has a construction/commercial vehicle with a crane will help for hoisting and dragging vehicles to be repaired the Rino pg 215, or a cargonaut pg 210 configured as a recovery vehicle. -those would make good operator vehicles while not high combat models. The Cargonaut is cargo vehicle with different load outs, kind of like a deuce and half or LMTV. The rino is a construction vehicle.

[Killer Cyborg]

The operator o.c.c. says the character starts with "Two commercial vehicles." What do you consider reasonable for them to choose? I mean, without parameters they could choose two Big Berthas, sell them at just 10-20% of their 69 million credit value (apiece) and the whole party could retire.

Any non-military vehicle designed for carrying goods or fare-paying passengers is reasonable depending on the adventure/campaign, and so forth.
They could start with a rickshaw, or a Behemoth Explorer.

[glitterboy2098]

generally i would default to 1 larger vehicle capable of carrying the Operator's equipment, including the other vehicle, and one smaller vehicle used mainly for getting around (motorcycle, ATV, etc). basically you could set yourself up a truck or RV or equivalent as a mobile basecamp, and then a personal transport for day to day use.

[Fenris2020]

I generally start them with a nuke-powered Mountaineer.

[Rifter11]

Thanks for the input guys!

[Warshield73]

Thanks for the input guys!

Hope it helps. Let us know what you end up doing. Always like to hear how others run these things.

[Curbludgeon]

It totally depends on the relative power level of the group and what sort of game it is going to be. If the Operator is the mundane tech person running around with godlings and superhumans then a Behemoth Super Explorer might be fitting. If it's a hardscrabble Burbs game then a gas-powered motorcycle and semi-functional jetpack might be best. I'd say the middle of the road for the games in which I've found myself would be in the 2-5 million range, where a character could have Grease Monkey power armor and a souped-up Solid Oxide hovercycle, or with one decent score could pay off that APT Repair Station & Garage Trailer they plan on hitching to their hover Cargonaut. That said the advice about what roles need to be filled is accurate: a character needs something half rugged to explore in, it's useful to have something light (and potentially street legal within cities), and a storage place for equipment is essential.

[Orin J.]

i think the last time this came up for me, i read commercial as "an SDC vehicle, and not military stuff" and they ended up with some kind of tow truck.

[Warshield73]

i think the last time this came up for me, i read commercial as "an SDC vehicle, and not military stuff" and they ended up with some kind of tow truck.

SDC vehicle? In Rifts? That sounds almost like a punishment, I don't thin I've ever had a player that would have run a character with an SDC vehicle in Rifts. But commercial vehicle is a weird description I just read it as "commercially available" which is the description for several OCCs like the Robot Pilot.

The vehicle descriptions for OCCs in RUE are weird for several OCCs, and some OCCs have no vehicle at all like the Headhunter. It can be very hard to adventure with a group when everyone has a vehicle and you are running to keep up.

[glitterboy2098]

i would read' commercial' as being 'not meant for military use'.. so the mountineer, the various cargo transports, many of the hovercycles, etc. SDC trucks and such could be used if the player wants it too. though i think i personally would throw a GAW style mdc conversion onto it just to make things a little easier on them. (i also tend to make such conversions available outside of GAW, albeit with varying degrees of quality.. GAW can make it look liek the original vehicle. other places might alter the visual design or use external modular armor panels, or end up looking like technicals and mad max stuff with scrap metal bolted on.)
while i don't see SDC as automatically being dead meat, as an adventurer they are going to run into mdc threats more often than your typical villager, so having some MDC armor added seems like a reasonable thing.

[Zer0 Kay]

I've had groups that started with:
a mountaineer
one started with one of the Naruni hover "RVs"
one started with a Explorer kitted out as a mobile garage
the last one started with a the hover semi with the short trailer option and several smaller "bike" vehicles
The operator was the last one and the Explorer was a HU Hardware Vehicle/Weapons

A couple times people have negotiated big on their first and tried to get a second. I often come back with, yeah... you left the other one at home; especially when they escaped their home during some invasion.

[Warshield73]

I've had groups that started with:
a mountaineer
one started with one of the Naruni hover "RVs"
one started with a Explorer kitted out as a mobile garage
the last one started with a the hover semi with the short trailer option and several smaller "bike" vehicles
The operator was the last one and the Explorer was a HU Hardware Vehicle/Weapons

A couple times people have negotiated big on their first and tried to get a second. I often come back with, yeah... you left the other one at home; especially when they escaped their home during some invasion.

What hover semi?

[Shark_Force]

What hover semi?

this mirrors my thoughts.

so far as I can tell, not a single company in rifts has ever thought about making a hover utility van. if there is one, I'm curious to hear where it is =S

[Curbludgeon]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

[Warshield73]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

OK, never thought of those as semis but I can see it. Also forgot the Cargonaut could come in hover variant that is something I may use, wish there was artwork for it.

[Killer Cyborg]

What hover semi?

this mirrors my thoughts.

so far as I can tell, not a single company in rifts has ever thought about making a hover utility van. if there is one, I'm curious to hear where it is =S

One of the most crucial and frustrating things to keep in mind in Rifts is this:

Most Things On The Planet Are NOT Statted Out Anywhere Because Palladium Thinks They'd Be Too Boring

So we're left to intuit a frustrating amount of stuff, including the common existence of hover trucks.

In the RMB, the Juicer starting gear says they commonly use "hover vehicles." NOT "Hover Cycles," even though the only hover vehicles in the book are cycles.
The starting gear for the Rogue Scientist (RMB 79) is even more specific:
The vehicle can be any non-military type ground vehicle. Often a hover truck or conventional rough terrain pickup or jeep.

Rogue scholars have the same text for vehicles, including hover trucks mentioned specifically.

Wilderness Scouts can have "hover vehicles," as can line walkers.
Mystics mention a fondness for "motorcycles, dune buggies, and ground hover vehicles," as do Techno-Wizards.

So Hover Vans most likely exist on Rifts Earth, are most likely common, and are most likely NOT combat-oriented or combat-friendly enough to warrant Palladium's interest in describing them.
It's probably something where we're supposed to "use common sense" and just KNOW what hover trucks are like.

[drewkitty ~..~]

"Two commercial vehicles."

In the USA, full sized trucks, semi-truck& trailers (18 wheelers) and vans (1980's chevy vans) are commercial vehicles.
And this is the environment the writer (KS) grew up in.

Since it is two of them, I would guess one would have to fit inside the other or just taking one on an adventure.


At the extreme end....
Behemoth Explorer.....<Descriptive Adverb> No. this is a Hiring NPC or a group co-op level of transport.
(As a GM I might ask for the character sheet and rip it up if there was not a very good reason for the char to have it.)

So I would look at the reasons for having whatever vehicles are chosen are, if they are seminingly a munchkin's choice.

There are two other things to look at: can the chi pilot said transport and the regional avalibilty of the transport. (like if the char is based in NA and they want to choose a TRIAX or japanese vehicle.

[Warshield73]

What hover semi?

this mirrors my thoughts.

so far as I can tell, not a single company in rifts has ever thought about making a hover utility van. if there is one, I'm curious to hear where it is =S

One of the most crucial and frustrating things to keep in mind in Rifts is this:

Most Things On The Planet Are NOT Statted Out Anywhere Because Palladium Thinks They'd Be Too Boring

So we're left to intuit a frustrating amount of stuff, including the common existence of hover trucks.

In the RMB, the Juicer starting gear says they commonly use "hover vehicles." NOT "Hover Cycles," even though the only hover vehicles in the book are cycles.
The starting gear for the Rogue Scientist (RMB 79) is even more specific:
The vehicle can be any non-military type ground vehicle. Often a hover truck or conventional rough terrain pickup or jeep.

Rogue scholars have the same text for vehicles, including hover trucks mentioned specifically.

Wilderness Scouts can have "hover vehicles," as can line walkers.
Mystics mention a fondness for "motorcycles, dune buggies, and ground hover vehicles," as do Techno-Wizards.

So Hover Vans most likely exist on Rifts Earth, are most likely common, and are most likely NOT combat-oriented or combat-friendly enough to warrant Palladium's interest in describing them.
It's probably something where we're supposed to "use common sense" and just KNOW what hover trucks are like.

They include plenty of boring vehicles like mountaineers and big boss ATVs and the 2 motorcycles in RMB come to mind. I honestly think you give them too much credit for thinking about it, they just never did. Whenever someone has an idea for hover vehicles the end up in books, with several in WB2 and WB 5, but they never gave a full description for really common ones which is frustrating.

I will say of all the stuff I had to add to Rifts this was the easiest, I created a hover version of the mountaineer before the original SB1 came out. Other things like how much of a city is MDC vs SDC and all that was much much harder even after we got some MDC values for these things in CB1.

Also for a long time in this game, and I think this comes from Robotech 1e, there was a focus on power armors and robot vehicles. I was like 5 years in with Rifts before a non-mage took a vehicle other that a robot or power armor and that player was running a cyber-horseman. As a matter of fact I remember having at least 3 players who wanted to run a dog boy and then changed there minds because they couldn't pilot a robot. So I sort of understand why they focused on those types but still more conventional hover vehicles from the start would have been nice.

[Curbludgeon]

For those wanting a utility van or basic truck less sturdy than the Cargonaut (which, please note, is described as coming in a variety of styles including the above) consider checking out the Triax B-Type Hover Vehicles from WB31 pg 82. These also come in a variety of styles, but are SDC, with a Main Body measured in the low thousands. When adapting it for use as a base for models available in North America, note the difference in prices. While the B-Type's nuclear version is about a quarter the price of the Cargonaut, the electric is nearly half. This could be argued to speak to increased ubiquity of nuclear power sources or hover technology in Germany over North American sources, if you don't want to instead see it as an inconsistency.

[Zer0 Kay]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

OK, never thought of those as semis but I can see it. Also forgot the Cargonaut could come in hover variant that is something I may use, wish there was artwork for it.

How is the Big Bertha not a hover semi?
You have a detachable cab with a variety of cargo containers? Do you consider it more a hover train? Even though it can't tow a... train of the containers behind it.

[Killer Cyborg]

What hover semi?

this mirrors my thoughts.

so far as I can tell, not a single company in rifts has ever thought about making a hover utility van. if there is one, I'm curious to hear where it is =S

One of the most crucial and frustrating things to keep in mind in Rifts is this:

Most Things On The Planet Are NOT Statted Out Anywhere Because Palladium Thinks They'd Be Too Boring

So we're left to intuit a frustrating amount of stuff, including the common existence of hover trucks.

In the RMB, the Juicer starting gear says they commonly use "hover vehicles." NOT "Hover Cycles," even though the only hover vehicles in the book are cycles.
The starting gear for the Rogue Scientist (RMB 79) is even more specific:
The vehicle can be any non-military type ground vehicle. Often a hover truck or conventional rough terrain pickup or jeep.

Rogue scholars have the same text for vehicles, including hover trucks mentioned specifically.

Wilderness Scouts can have "hover vehicles," as can line walkers.
Mystics mention a fondness for "motorcycles, dune buggies, and ground hover vehicles," as do Techno-Wizards.

So Hover Vans most likely exist on Rifts Earth, are most likely common, and are most likely NOT combat-oriented or combat-friendly enough to warrant Palladium's interest in describing them.
It's probably something where we're supposed to "use common sense" and just KNOW what hover trucks are like.

They include plenty of boring vehicles like mountaineers and big boss ATVs and the 2 motorcycles in RMB come to mind.

You mean the MDC vehicles with either built-in weapons or weapon mounts?

I honestly think you give them too much credit for thinking about it, they just never did. Whenever someone has an idea for hover vehicles the end up in books, with several in WB2 and WB 5, but they never gave a full description for really common ones which is frustrating.

Common apparently equals Boring.

I will say of all the stuff I had to add to Rifts this was the easiest, I created a hover version of the mountaineer before the original SB1 came out. Other things like how much of a city is MDC vs SDC and all that was much much harder even after we got some MDC values for these things in CB1.

Yeah, SB1 was a godsend just for vehicle creation using the robot rules.
It didn't always make sense, but it helped a LOT!

Also for a long time in this game, and I think this comes from Robotech 1e, there was a focus on power armors and robot vehicles. I was like 5 years in with Rifts before a non-mage took a vehicle other that a robot or power armor and that player was running a cyber-horseman. As a matter of fact I remember having at least 3 players who wanted to run a dog boy and then changed there minds because they couldn't pilot a robot. So I sort of understand why they focused on those types but still more conventional hover vehicles from the start would have been nice.

I think there might actually be some hover trucks in Robotech. I haven't looked in a long while, but some of the sourcebooks had a lot of stuff like repair vehicles, according to my memory.

And here's what it comes down to:
They need to ground the setting. All they show is the extraordinary stuff, so 90%* of players assume that it's the ordinary stuff, and that the ordinary stuff doesn't exist.
If you don't include the ordinary, then the extraordinary doesn't get full appreciation.
In D&D 3.x (and hopefully later editions) you can appreciate the Fighter class when you look at the common Warrior and see the differences. Same with Rogues vs Experts, and so forth. It puts your characters above the peasantry, the Commoners and such (unless you want to play somebody ordinary just for fun).
It makes your character special.
In Rifts, after the first fistful of books, every bartender was a Wilderness Scout or something, every town militia was equivalent to CS Grunts, and so forth.
The average person is above average, like in Lake Wobegon.

*made up number

[Warshield73]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

OK, never thought of those as semis but I can see it. Also forgot the Cargonaut could come in hover variant that is something I may use, wish there was artwork for it.

How is the Big Bertha not a hover semi?
You have a detachable cab with a variety of cargo containers? Do you consider it more a hover train? Even though it can't tow a... train of the containers behind it.

Like I said I never thought of Big Bertha that way but I can totally see it. Cargonaut, while it can be hover and tow a trailer, is depicted as a half-track so again didn't think of it that way but could fit. Salamander is definitely more to be more of a hover train but yes could work for this. Its even cheaper than Big Bertha.

They include plenty of boring vehicles like mountaineers and big boss ATVs and the 2 motorcycles in RMB come to mind.

You mean the MDC vehicles with either built-in weapons or weapon mounts?

I already gave my opinion on SDC vehicles in Rifts. With GAW modifications you could do some but I've never seen a player want something like that and there are plenty of complaints about GM trying to force a player to take SDC gear.

For myself when Rifts came out I was driving a van IRL, wasn't looking for one in my SF/F game. And, you can mount a gun on anything so not really making it less boring especially when those are hand guns or weapons less capable than the average energy rifle.

I honestly think you give them too much credit for thinking about it, they just never did. Whenever someone has an idea for hover vehicles the end up in books, with several in WB2 and WB 5, but they never gave a full description for really common ones which is frustrating.

Common apparently equals Boring.

Well commonplace is a synonym for boring so yes. Compared to GB, SAMAS or Hunter Mobile Gun the four I mentioned are boring AF.

I will say of all the stuff I had to add to Rifts this was the easiest, I created a hover version of the mountaineer before the original SB1 came out. Other things like how much of a city is MDC vs SDC and all that was much much harder even after we got some MDC values for these things in CB1.

Yeah, SB1 was a godsend just for vehicle creation using the robot rules.
It didn't always make sense, but it helped a LOT!

I only ran 6 or 7 sessions before SB1 came out and I was glad I did. The vehicles and gear were one thing but the monsters were a game changer and ARCHIE my favorite antagonist and sometimes ally of necessity. And yes the robot creation was great even though I got rid of most of my personal creations by the time WB 5 came out. Just no need for them at that point.

Also for a long time in this game, and I think this comes from Robotech 1e, there was a focus on power armors and robot vehicles. I was like 5 years in with Rifts before a non-mage took a vehicle other that a robot or power armor and that player was running a cyber-horseman. As a matter of fact I remember having at least 3 players who wanted to run a dog boy and then changed there minds because they couldn't pilot a robot. So I sort of understand why they focused on those types but still more conventional hover vehicles from the start would have been nice.

I think there might actually be some hover trucks in Robotech. I haven't looked in a long while, but some of the sourcebooks had a lot of stuff like repair vehicles, according to my memory.

Yes the original Southern Cross book had loads of conventional vehicles that I used in my original campaign for more than 20 years. Even used some of the jets and helicopters from Macross and RDF Manual as pre-rifts military models. Those 3 books helped a lot. Some of the later Robotech SBs had more but they came out later and by then there was enough rifts books to fill in the niches.

And here's what it comes down to:
They need to ground the setting. All they show is the extraordinary stuff, so 90%* of players assume that it's the ordinary stuff, and that the ordinary stuff doesn't exist.
If you don't include the ordinary, then the extraordinary doesn't get full appreciation.

I disagree that players don't think it exists but I fully agree with your last point. It would have been so easy to slip in 3 or 4 pages to SB1 and just give new takes on the stuff they did in Southern Cross with new artwork.

In D&D 3.x (and hopefully later editions) you can appreciate the Fighter class when you look at the common Warrior and see the differences. Same with Rogues vs Experts, and so forth. It puts your characters above the peasantry, the Commoners and such (unless you want to play somebody ordinary just for fun).
It makes your character special.
In Rifts, after the first fistful of books, every bartender was a Wilderness Scout or something, every town militia was equivalent to CS Grunts, and so forth.
The average person is above average, like in Lake Wobegon.

*made up number

I have always felt that Rifts NPCs needed sort of a common soldier or civilian OCC for that. But, some OCCs are above others. GB, headhunter, cyber-knight are all superior to a CS grunt so there is a hierarchy within the OCCs. Attributes, additional abilities and equipment do a lot to separate the high end from the average in Rifts.

Yes your militia may be equal in skills to CS grunts but my actual CS grunt has a C-12 and a Sky Cycle, the militia has plastic man armor and a 2D6 rifle.

[Zer0 Kay]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

OK, never thought of those as semis but I can see it. Also forgot the Cargonaut could come in hover variant that is something I may use, wish there was artwork for it.

How is the Big Bertha not a hover semi?
You have a detachable cab with a variety of cargo containers? Do you consider it more a hover train? Even though it can't tow a... train of the containers behind it.

Like I said I never thought of Big Bertha that way but I can totally see it. Cargonaut, while it can be hover and tow a trailer, is depicted as a half-track so again didn't think of it that way but could fit. Salamander is definitely more to be more of a hover train but yes could work for this. Its even cheaper than Big Bertha.

Oh... okay. I have no clue about the cargonaut or just didn't make a big enough impact for me to remember it.

[Killer Cyborg]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

OK, never thought of those as semis but I can see it. Also forgot the Cargonaut could come in hover variant that is something I may use, wish there was artwork for it.

How is the Big Bertha not a hover semi?
You have a detachable cab with a variety of cargo containers? Do you consider it more a hover train? Even though it can't tow a... train of the containers behind it.

Like I said I never thought of Big Bertha that way but I can totally see it. Cargonaut, while it can be hover and tow a trailer, is depicted as a half-track so again didn't think of it that way but could fit. Salamander is definitely more to be more of a hover train but yes could work for this. Its even cheaper than Big Bertha.

They include plenty of boring vehicles like mountaineers and big boss ATVs and the 2 motorcycles in RMB come to mind.

You mean the MDC vehicles with either built-in weapons or weapon mounts?

I already gave my opinion on SDC vehicles in Rifts. With GAW modifications you could do some but I've never seen a player want something like that and there are plenty of complaints about GM trying to force a player to take SDC gear.

Okay, but your opinion doesn't seem to change the fact that there are SDC vehicles in Rifts, and that since most Hover Vehicles aren't statted out, we can probably assume a lot of hover vans and such are SDC vehicles.

I honestly think you give them too much credit for thinking about it, they just never did. Whenever someone has an idea for hover vehicles the end up in books, with several in WB2 and WB 5, but they never gave a full description for really common ones which is frustrating.

Common apparently equals Boring.

Well commonplace is a synonym for boring so yes. Compared to GB, SAMAS or Hunter Mobile Gun the four I mentioned are boring AF.[/quote]

Compared to armor and bots that aren't really in the same class of vehicle, sure.
Not sure why one would want to go that way with comparison, though. It's apples and oranges. Or like comparing power armor to spaceships, and calling power armor boring/common in comparison.
Stuff like the Mountaineer and Big Boss are basically post-apocalypse cars, and when the RMB came out they were hundreds of times better than the standard, which were SDC vehicles.
(Really, the standard for the planet is STILL SDC vehicles, SDC horses, etc.)

And here's what it comes down to:
They need to ground the setting. All they show is the extraordinary stuff, so 90%* of players assume that it's the ordinary stuff, and that the ordinary stuff doesn't exist.
If you don't include the ordinary, then the extraordinary doesn't get full appreciation.

I disagree that players don't think it exists but I fully agree with your last point. It would have been so easy to slip in 3 or 4 pages to SB1 and just give new takes on the stuff they did in Southern Cross with new artwork.

Agreed.

In D&D 3.x (and hopefully later editions) you can appreciate the Fighter class when you look at the common Warrior and see the differences. Same with Rogues vs Experts, and so forth. It puts your characters above the peasantry, the Commoners and such (unless you want to play somebody ordinary just for fun).
It makes your character special.
In Rifts, after the first fistful of books, every bartender was a Wilderness Scout or something, every town militia was equivalent to CS Grunts, and so forth.
The average person is above average, like in Lake Wobegon.

*made up number

I have always felt that Rifts NPCs needed sort of a common soldier or civilian OCC for that. [/quote]

The early books have NPCs that are like "10th level Shopkeep" and such, which was an okay way to go about it, even if that kind of class wasn't ever described, just because it (along with the character's stats) let you know they were mundane compared to the PCs.
But they moved away from that pretty quickly, for some reason.

But, some OCCs are above others. GB, headhunter, cyber-knight are all superior to a CS grunt so there is a hierarchy within the OCCs. Attributes, additional abilities and equipment do a lot to separate the high end from the average in Rifts.

Yes your militia may be equal in skills to CS grunts but my actual CS grunt has a C-12 and a Sky Cycle, the militia has plastic man armor and a 2D6 rifle.

True.
In straight-up combat, yeah, gear matters a lot more, but the gameworld suffers when the CS can't provide better training than your average podunk city/kingdom.
That's one reason why it bugs me.

[Warshield73]

The NG Big Bertha, certain Cargonauts, and Salamander can all hover while hitched to trailers.

OK, never thought of those as semis but I can see it. Also forgot the Cargonaut could come in hover variant that is something I may use, wish there was artwork for it.

How is the Big Bertha not a hover semi?
You have a detachable cab with a variety of cargo containers? Do you consider it more a hover train? Even though it can't tow a... train of the containers behind it.

Like I said I never thought of Big Bertha that way but I can totally see it. Cargonaut, while it can be hover and tow a trailer, is depicted as a half-track so again didn't think of it that way but could fit. Salamander is definitely more to be more of a hover train but yes could work for this. Its even cheaper than Big Bertha.

They include plenty of boring vehicles like mountaineers and big boss ATVs and the 2 motorcycles in RMB come to mind.

You mean the MDC vehicles with either built-in weapons or weapon mounts?

I already gave my opinion on SDC vehicles in Rifts. With GAW modifications you could do some but I've never seen a player want something like that and there are plenty of complaints about GM trying to force a player to take SDC gear.

Okay, but your opinion doesn't seem to change the fact that there are SDC vehicles in Rifts, and that since most Hover Vehicles aren't statted out, we can probably assume a lot of hover vans and such are SDC vehicles.

My opinion was not on the existence or ubiquity of SDC hover vehicles, read my earlier post, it was just about if players would want them. Now I have no idea where you get the idea that just because so few hover vehicles have descriptions that they must all be MDC. We have examples in the Northern Gun Books but especially in Triax 2 WB that cars and trucks (both wheeled and hover) that are SDC are for use in towns and secure areas while anything for use in the wilderness are varying levels of MDC. This is especially explicate in Triax 2.

I honestly think you give them too much credit for thinking about it, they just never did. Whenever someone has an idea for hover vehicles the end up in books, with several in WB2 and WB 5, but they never gave a full description for really common ones which is frustrating.

Common apparently equals Boring.

Well commonplace is a synonym for boring so yes. Compared to GB, SAMAS or Hunter Mobile Gun the four I mentioned are boring AF.

Compared to armor and bots that aren't really in the same class of vehicle, sure.
Not sure why one would want to go that way with comparison, though. It's apples and oranges. Or like comparing power armor to spaceships, and calling power armor boring/common in comparison.

I'm sorry it might be apples and oranges but when you are trying to decide which fruit to eat comparing those two is perfectly valid. If a player is allowed a vehicle that runs the gambit from car to combat robot.

Stuff like the Mountaineer and Big Boss are basically post-apocalypse cars, and when the RMB came out they were hundreds of times better than the standard, which were SDC vehicles.

Still not sure where you get the standard being SDC vehicles. There wasn't a single SDC vehicle in like the first 10 Rifts books. I believe the first book that had any was in fact Mercenaries with GAW stuff.

Gaming is supposed to be a fantasy and driving a vehicle that looks like I could see it at a monster truck show is not much of a fantasy. But then my least favorite part of the Mass Effect and Halo games are all the wheeled vehicles in setting where we have FTL and magic gravity.

(Really, the standard for the planet is STILL SDC vehicles, SDC horses, etc.)

Again in towns and cities maybe, but the number of people who venture out into the wilderness with SDC armor ends up in monster droppings.

When I first ran Rifts in '90 I ran a Wilderness Scout and I gave him a horse. Now I came up with MDC barding but still I went through 3 horses in like no time. That is why in new west you have cyborg and robot horses. You have a bunch more in black market. The first MDC riding animal was in Rifts SB 1e for gods sake and there were lots more in Conversion 1. We see MDC riding animals in lots of books actually.

In D&D 3.x (and hopefully later editions) you can appreciate the Fighter class when you look at the common Warrior and see the differences. Same with Rogues vs Experts, and so forth. It puts your characters above the peasantry, the Commoners and such (unless you want to play somebody ordinary just for fun).
It makes your character special.
In Rifts, after the first fistful of books, every bartender was a Wilderness Scout or something, every town militia was equivalent to CS Grunts, and so forth.
The average person is above average, like in Lake Wobegon.

*made up number

I have always felt that Rifts NPCs needed sort of a common soldier or civilian OCC for that.

The early books have NPCs that are like "10th level Shopkeep" and such, which was an okay way to go about it, even if that kind of class wasn't ever described, just because it (along with the character's stats) let you know they were mundane compared to the PCs.
But they moved away from that pretty quickly, for some reason.

But, some OCCs are above others. GB, headhunter, cyber-knight are all superior to a CS grunt so there is a hierarchy within the OCCs. Attributes, additional abilities and equipment do a lot to separate the high end from the average in Rifts.

Yes your militia may be equal in skills to CS grunts but my actual CS grunt has a C-12 and a Sky Cycle, the militia has plastic man armor and a 2D6 rifle.

True.
In straight-up combat, yeah, gear matters a lot more, but the gameworld suffers when the CS can't provide better training than your average podunk city/kingdom.
That's one reason why it bugs me.

The simple fact is by citing an existing OCC helps a GM understand what powers and skills those NPCs have without giving complete stats.

Also, the CS has a lot better than the grunt. If you have CS team with Techs, Mil Specs, Dog Boys, and power armor pilots you have a real advantage of militia that is just grunts. And that is just from RUE, add in the specials from CS world and SBs and you are way better than those grunts.

Back to the OP my feeling is that when a player gets a vehicle they should expect that it will survive at least a minor encounter and SDC vehicles won't.

[Killer Cyborg]

Now I have no idea where you get the idea that just because so few hover vehicles have descriptions that they must all be MDC.

I don't have that idea.
Hover trucks and such can have whatever stats the GM wants them to have. All I've said there is that the lack of stats indicates that they're usually going to be about on line with the other starting vehicles that are common, but not statted out, like horses, motorcycles, and cars and such.
Which means that SDC would be the most common, but not the exclusive case.

when you are trying to decide which fruit to eat comparing those two is perfectly valid. If a player is allowed a vehicle that runs the gambit from car to combat robot.

My stance is that Palladium statted out the most exciting car/motorcycle-vehicles, not the standard that most people have
Whether or not bots are more exciting than cars doesn't matter; it doesn't affect my point.

Stuff like the Mountaineer and Big Boss are basically post-apocalypse cars, and when the RMB came out they were hundreds of times better than the standard, which were SDC vehicles.

Still not sure where you get the standard being SDC vehicles. There wasn't a single SDC vehicle in like the first 10 Rifts books.[/quote]

I feel like we're going in circles.
When the RMB says that Vagabonds start with "an old, rusty junker of a car or motorcycle," are you picturing them starting out with an old, rusty junker of a Mountaineer ATV or Highwayman Motorcycle...?
I'm not.
I'm sticking with my central thesis, which is that Palladium doesn't stat out the "boring" stuff, like normal SDC vehicles that most people on Rifts Earth would be using.
I get the impression that SDC is the standard, because we're repeatedly told that Mega-Damage is rare, and we see stuff like RMB 36 listing stuff like:
Car, Compact: 250 SDC
Car, Luxury: 450 SDC
And we see stuff like RMB 38 describing a combat between a tank and a car, saying "The car has a Structural Damage Capacity of 300 and an AR of 6."

I believe the first book that had any was in fact Mercenaries with GAW stuff.

Gaming is supposed to be a fantasy and driving a vehicle that looks like I could see it at a monster truck show is not much of a fantasy. But then my least favorite part of the Mass Effect and Halo games are all the wheeled vehicles in setting where we have FTL and magic gravity.

Different fantasies for different folks.

(Really, the standard for the planet is STILL SDC vehicles, SDC horses, etc.)

Again in towns and cities maybe, but the number of people who venture out into the wilderness with SDC armor ends up in monster droppings.[/quote]

Not really.
People like to imagine that MDC encounters happen every 20' or every mile or whatever, but we're never told that in the books; it's head-canon.
If you'd like, I can dig through some of the old arguments about how common MDC monsters are, and find the place where I broke down based on the Random Encounter Tables from The Mechanoids book and the Xiticix adventure book (iirc), to get a decent guess at how common MDC encounters might be, BUT it'd probably be quicker if you turned to RUE 19 and read where Tarn clears things up a bit:
I have had city folk question how it can be with all the fabled towns, tribes, clans, D-Bees, and monsters they hear about, that one doesn't stumble over one hiding behind every tree. It doesn't work that way. The wildlife hides from intruders just like us, the innocent animals run to avoid becoming hunted, and the predators watch from a nervous distance at least until they are ready to strike. People hear there may be hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of a particular species, but they forget that number is spread across vast expanses of land, or that perhaps as few as one or two or a dozen may live in any given area. A predator like a mountain lion, for example, will consider one particular area that might cover 100 or 200 square miles as its domain or hunting ground, and only it and its mate prowl it (along with other species of predators). That's a large area that city dwellers can't adequately picture, and such a range is tiny compared to the sweeping wilderness that covers our land.

While it's certainly possible to get ambushed and killed by MDC critters, and while it's certainly not something that far from unheard of in most places, it's NOT necessarily the norm, especially in all areas of the wilderness.
Think of it like the show Naked and Afraid; they often travel through territory where they know there are dangerous predators, often hear sounds of predators that could probably kill them, and they hear them moving around at night sometimes, and they even spot the occasional predator during the day, but none of those things mean that they're actually going to get killed by one.
Something existing in a region doesn't mean you'll find it, or that it'll find you, nor that it'll be hungry when you do encounter it.

Remember that in the RMB, Vagabonds are described as "just ordinary people who get swept up in the flow of events or decide it is time they make a change in their life," and as "wilderness wanderers, peasants, and farmers."
Note that they don't have any Mega-Damage gear to start.
That's because they're the closest thing to the average person, the kind of person that Palladium thinks is the norm, and is therefore too boring to write about.
The average person wandering the wilderness doesn't have Mega-Damage gear.
They probably die pretty young pretty often, but that doesn't mean they can't travel around for years or decades surviving with SDC gear and their wits/skills.

When I first ran Rifts in '90 I ran a Wilderness Scout and I gave him a horse.

How could you? Horses weren't statted out in Rifts until New West or something.

Now I came up with MDC barding but still I went through 3 horses in like no time.

That's just how your GM ran things.
In roughly our first year of game play, NOBODY survived past second level in my gaming group. Not mages, not glitterboys, not borgs. Nobody.
But that's because we as a group took interpretations of the game that resulted in that, NOT because we were doing everything right and had the setting down correctly.

We see MDC riding animals in lots of books actually.

Because Palladium skips the mundane stuff.
Horses are much more commonly listed as starting transportation than MDC mounts.

Also, the CS has a lot better than the grunt.

Indeed.
But the Grunt--like other adventuring classes--is still supposed to be above average.

Back to the OP my feeling is that when a player gets a vehicle they should expect that it will survive at least a minor encounter and SDC vehicles won't.

That would definitely be preferable, but that's not how things always go. I've never had Vagabonds start with mega-damage vehicles, for example, because mega-damage isn't specified, and the description of what they get doesn't imply it.

Operators in the RMB had a much wider variety of vehicle options, including military stuff and power armor/bots.
In RUE, they're limited to "Commercial Vehicles," which certainly allows for MDC stuff like the Mountaineer, but doesn't mandate it.
As a player, I would definitely go for MDC vehicles, but for low-powered adventures and such, I can see GM's requiring one or both starting vehicles to be SDC.
And in the general game world, I wouldn't expect all Operators all the time to exclusively have MDC vehicles at level 1. Players getting a choice of vehicle doesn't mean that NPCs do.
If a player wanted to come up with stats for a MDC hover-truck, or a GM did, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
All I'm saying is that a) hover trucks and such do exist in canon, b) they're common enough to be listed as starting gear for multiple classes in the RMB, and c) they're probably usually SDC.

[Killer Cyborg]

When I first ran Rifts in '90 I ran a Wilderness Scout and I gave him a horse. Now I came up with MDC barding but still I went through 3 horses in like no time.

You likely already know this, but there were official stats for barding in Vampire Kingdoms (a year after you started running) on p. 87:
90 MDC
40 lbs
CR 32,000

I mention this simply for trivia, and for future reference for anybody who's interested.

[ShadowLogan]

Still not sure where you get the standard being SDC vehicles. There wasn't a single SDC vehicle in like the first 10 Rifts books. I believe the first book that had any was in fact Mercenaries with GAW stuff.

Not exactly. While complete stats for SDC vehicles are not available, the SDC of generic vehicles can be found in the Rifts Main Book (RMB Hardcover pg36, S.D.C. Table (Basic)). WB7 also had a host of SDC naval craft (I'm not sure if it qualifies as the first 10 Rifts Books).

[Hotrod]

In real-life a commercial vehicle can be anything from a rental bicycle to an enormous cruise or container ship
A reasonable commercial vehicle for someone who specializes in mechanical and electronic repair would be a wrecker/tow truck or a repair van, or maybe some kind of small salvage ship on the water

In Rifts, a commercial vehicle could be anything from a rental bicycle to a massive hover train, or even a huge space freighter if you're playing in the Orbital part of the setting. A reasonable choice would be some kind of vehicle capable of repairing salvaging or recovering power armor.

[slade2501]

I wrote up a black market reloader, just for such an occasion. good thinking lol.

[guardiandashi]

I was thinking of broad categories. A Commercial vehicle is going to be (likely) a civilian as opposed to a military vehicle.

to put it another way
a civilian /commercial vehicle today is going to be something like:
a sprinter van, a tow truck, a box truck, a rollback tow truck, a delivery truck/van, a semi tractor/trailer combination including doubles and triples, ETC.

a military vehicle would be a tank, an APC, a tank transport, a tank recovery vehicle, a militarized humvee etc.

that's not to say there isn't crossovers, or vehicles that can't fall into both categories depending on various factors but thats my take on the phrasing.