nukes in tne Rifts

[Defender_X]

the question was a simple one. should nukes be used in the game? I have used them in a game that i ran before i went to iraq. But it was a stop the bad guys from setting them off not a massive assault on any one target.
but if i were to hit a target with ICBMs remember this, ICBMS have to go into space to hit there target and i dont think they can last against the defenses in space


there is no second place

Awwww... And I wanna to vape a few places of the face of Rifts Earth too.. I think I'll go sulk until I think of a fool proof way of delievering a multi-magaton warhead in Rifts.

[Drakenred®™©]

Actualy they recently used computer modleing to show that 8 20 Kt nukes will do far more damage to a city than a 1 megaton nuke if both atacks were set to go off at the optimar Airburst altitude. the trick is to get all 8 to go off at the same or nearly the same time

[Drakenred®™©]

man,we're hitting this thread topic out of the rules ball park and into the physics 101 park..

which means we are in serious danger of geting into the Lets make the game unfun catagory

[LunarYoma]

I would say that a 200kt Nuke has a "ground zero" (within 10 mt)yeild of 2D4X10,000,000 with the efective damage droping by 90% every doubling of the blasst radius from their if you want to be technical about it

so Impact-10 m 2D4X 10millionMDC(Efectivly vaping anything their
10-20 2D4X1,000,000
20-40 2D4X100,000
40-80 2D4X10,000
80-160 2D4X1000
160-320 2D4X100
320-640 2D4X10
640-1280m 2D4
1280-2560 2D4X100 SDC(Only, True MDC structures will handle the blast, I know this may sound like a odd glitch but this was to "pad" the table a bit and my assumtion is that a true MDC structure is hardend to deal with things like huricains)
2560-5120 2D4X10 SDC
5k-10k 2D4 SDC


hmm this table seems to seriously reduce the efective blast radius of a typical nuke.

now this is more realistic of what nuclear weapons/missles would do

[Drakenred®™©]

I would say that a 200kt Nuke has a "ground zero" (within 10 mt)yeild of 2D4X10,000,000 with the efective damage droping by 90% every doubling of the blasst radius from their if you want to be technical about it

so Impact-10 m 2D4X 10millionMDC(Efectivly vaping anything their
10-20 2D4X1,000,000
20-40 2D4X100,000
40-80 2D4X10,000
80-160 2D4X1000
160-320 2D4X100
320-640 2D4X10
640-1280m 2D4
1280-2560 2D4X100 SDC(Only, True MDC structures will handle the blast, I know this may sound like a odd glitch but this was to "pad" the table a bit and my assumtion is that a true MDC structure is hardend to deal with things like huricains)
2560-5120 2D4X10 SDC
5k-10k 2D4 SDC


hmm this table seems to seriously reduce the efective blast radius of a typical nuke.

now this is more realistic of what nuclear weapons/missles would do

actualy Y/(r^2) is more realistic if you use the 1D4X100,000 per Kt figure= Y and r = Range from point of detonation in meters(wich incidentaly on a 200kt yeild nuke gets you roughly the same damage at 1000 ft as is listed in CWC (more accuratly 1D4X215 instead of 3D4X100, but close enough when it comes to nukes)

[Mech-Viper Prime]

I would say that a 200kt Nuke has a "ground zero" (within 10 mt)yeild of 2D4X10,000,000 with the efective damage droping by 90% every doubling of the blasst radius from their if you want to be technical about it

so Impact-10 m 2D4X 10millionMDC(Efectivly vaping anything their
10-20 2D4X1,000,000
20-40 2D4X100,000
40-80 2D4X10,000
80-160 2D4X1000
160-320 2D4X100
320-640 2D4X10
640-1280m 2D4
1280-2560 2D4X100 SDC(Only, True MDC structures will handle the blast, I know this may sound like a odd glitch but this was to "pad" the table a bit and my assumtion is that a true MDC structure is hardend to deal with things like huricains)
2560-5120 2D4X10 SDC
5k-10k 2D4 SDC


hmm this table seems to seriously reduce the efective blast radius of a typical nuke.

now this is more realistic of what nuclear weapons/missles would do

actualy Y/(r^2) is more realistic if you use the 1D4X100,000 per Kt figure= Y and r = Range from point of detonation in meters(wich incidentaly on a 200kt yeild nuke gets you roughly the same damage at 1000 ft as is listed in CWC (more accuratly 1D4X215 instead of 3D4X100, but close enough when it comes to nukes)

so tolkeen field force defense field wouldnt stand a chance against the coalition nukes

[Sentinel]

you want to hijack a nuke, fine,

their must be 50 ways to keep them out of a players hand...

The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to stop your PCs

She said it’s really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to keep your nukes
Fifty ways to stop your PCs

Just stab 'em in the back, jack
Make a new plan, stan
You don’t give 'em their toy, roy
You don't give 'em for free
Blow up their bus, gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Don't give 'em the key, lee
Just stop your PCs...

Apologies to Simon & Garfunkel.
(But never to the players)

I'm sorry I missed this the first time.
Uproarously funny KC.

[cornholioprime]

I would say that a 200kt Nuke has a "ground zero" (within 10 mt)yeild of 2D4X10,000,000 with the efective damage droping by 90% every doubling of the blasst radius from their if you want to be technical about it

so Impact-10 m 2D4X 10millionMDC(Efectivly vaping anything their
10-20 2D4X1,000,000
20-40 2D4X100,000
40-80 2D4X10,000
80-160 2D4X1000
160-320 2D4X100
320-640 2D4X10
640-1280m 2D4
1280-2560 2D4X100 SDC(Only, True MDC structures will handle the blast, I know this may sound like a odd glitch but this was to "pad" the table a bit and my assumtion is that a true MDC structure is hardend to deal with things like huricains)
2560-5120 2D4X10 SDC
5k-10k 2D4 SDC


hmm this table seems to seriously reduce the efective blast radius of a typical nuke.

now this is more realistic of what nuclear weapons/missles would do

actualy Y/(r^2) is more realistic if you use the 1D4X100,000 per Kt figure= Y and r = Range from point of detonation in meters(wich incidentaly on a 200kt yeild nuke gets you roughly the same damage at 1000 ft as is listed in CWC (more accuratly 1D4X215 instead of 3D4X100, but close enough when it comes to nukes)

so tolkeen field force defense field wouldnt stand a chance against the coalition nukes

Depends on the magical energy used. Remeber that the Tolkeenites often deployed such Magicks as Swallowing Rifts and Impervious to Energy Types. Against those, Not even Nukes stand a chance against that....

[Kelorin]

Hey, just be glad Palladium has never put in rules for Neutron Weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_Bomb#Neutron_bomb_tactics

I would rule that at close range, depending on the yield of the weapon, even regular MDC body armor, light PA's, and some robots and tanks would be insufficient to adequately protect SDC beings against lethal radiation.

[cornholioprime]

Hey, just be glad Palladium has never put in rules for Neutron Weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_Bomb#Neutron_bomb_tactics

I would rule that at close range, depending on the yield of the weapon, even regular MDC body armor, light PA's, and some robots and tanks would be insufficient to adequately protect SDC beings against lethal radiation.

No doubt about that.

IRL, they say that you could hide in a protected, lead and concrete lined Bunker with walls several feet thick and you'll STILL get Radiation Poisoning if you're near Ground Zero with our RL, modern Weps....

[glitterboy2098]

so tolkeen field force defense field wouldnt stand a chance against the coalition nukes

Depends on the magical energy used. Remeber that the Tolkeenites often deployed such Magicks as Swallowing Rifts and Impervious to Energy Types. Against those, Not even Nukes stand a chance against that....

by itself not a chance in hades.
but the swallowing rift would make it go bye-bye if missile went through before detonation..

a Swallowing rift however does not effect air or water, so the shockwave from an airburst would ignore the existance of a rift. now, the forcefeild may defend against the shockwave, but the region would be heavily irradiated, and unless Tolkeen had a contingency plan to keep the sheild up for several decades at the least, the radiation would make the city unliveable.

To me, roleplaying includes NOT GIVING YOUR CHARACTERS NUKES....
Especially not a whole lot of them.

If they exist in the game, characters will eventually find a way to get them, so you either have to power them down or not have them in the game.

Sorry, but no. Just because they exist in the game world doesn't mean the players can get ahold of them. If they do, it's the result of bad GMing.

If the PCs can say, find a CS sub, board it and kill the entire crew and steal the nukes, then the GM is either being too easy on them and not playing the CS well, or he let the PCs get too powerful and is paying the price for it. either way it's bad GMing.

i don't know, given the amount of enriched uranium available for PA and bots, PC's could make their own 1 KT device.
Popular Science, Can Terrorists build the bomb?
(for the record, i am disgusted that they had that much detail, and i offer this article only to illustrate a point.)

the advent of mdc would most likely mean the resurgence of the megaton yield weapon, but still anything higher than 5Mt is still useless when you can achieve better with a couple single megaton weapons..

the united states is way ahead of ya..... we've had some really interesting discussions on nukes over at the Classicbattletech.com boards. whose rules are realistic. in effect: first, remove all terrain features in a 1 Km radius of hex of impact. second, remove all units for 4 Km radius of hex of impact. next page, Strategic Orbital bombardment.

[Dead Boy]

Holy CRAP!!!!

The Dead One REALLY does know his $h!+ when it comes to Nukes.

I may be a bit of a conservative blow-hard at times, but that doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about, (well... most the time ). My Dad was in the Air Force in the good ol' days, serving directly under the legendary Curtis LeMay, patron deity of nuclear proliferation. Consequently, I've picked up a thing or two.

Hey Dead Boy!!!


Just so we can have a little fun with a Real World Rifts Equivalent, just HOW MUCH MDC do you think happened to Hiroshima at Ground Zero, RL???

Considering that the Damage was probably fairly Uniform over a limited Area, but SDC Girders STILL survived, do you even think that the Airburst's damage was even MegaDamage in the first place????

Well, lets see here. The Hiroshima Bomb was a 15 Kiloton "gun bomb", detonated at 1,980 feet, and flattened several square miles of city for the most part, (silly Japanese and their paper walls). If we go by Palladium's figures as the basis, using the nukes from CS Navy as a guide line for progression, we would get a whole whopping 5D6x10 MD at the point of impact and logically from the starting radius of the Mock Stem on out, (half damage to everything inside that radius of 2,800 feet on the ground). As we geeks know, the large area effect aside, that's the punch of a big Medium Range Missile in Rifts, and therefore can't be realistically right.

So if I were to guess the blast power of Little Boy on my own, ignoring the books' big scale nukes, I'd base it off of something small, and something we can precisely gauge. I', looking in the RGMG. pg. 129, at the 40mm Grenade Launcher. It's listed as 6D6 SDC explosive blast (we specifically want an explosive weapon, not just any old gun will do) and that happens to be something that exists in reality. Specifically the The M203 Grenade Launcher, and since we want to use a blasting type of ammo only and not add any other factors like shrapnel into the equation, let's assume the round in the book is the The 40mm M406 HE Grenade which weighs half a pound (0.23 kg) has has a charge equivalent to 35 grams of TNT (from different source than the link).

So, if we use that basis of 35 g of TNT doing 6D6 SDC, then we can do a little math and see what's up.
The maximum roll of 6D6 = 36
36 SDC / 35 g or TNT = 1.02857 SDC per gram of TNT
15 kilotons = 15,000,000,000 grams
15 Billion grams * 1.02857 SDC = 15,428,550,000 SDC
15,428,550,000 SDC / 100 = 15,428,550 MDC

And for the sake of the point of diminishing returns and convenience, lets round that 15,428,550 MDC to a nice even 12 Million MDC. So based on all that, to simulate the force of the 15KT Hiroshima "Little Boy" Bomb, I would roll 2D6xOne Million MDC which if I'm thinking right, is on a par with some of Robotech's big guns, making this sound about right. In mixing reality with game mechanics, everything inside a 2,800' radius directly above the air-burst at 1,980 feet would take half damage, while every thing out from there, where the Mock-Stem converges and doubles in strenght (offsetting the halving of the normal Palladium blast radius) would take full damage. Every thousand feet (1,000') from there out, knock off a Million MDC from the damage till you get to nothing, and then tack on another 3D6x10 MD to another mile form all the debris.

That work for ya?

While exploring this idea, I came across this site. www.nukefix.org Lots of cool stuff there including that idea of what 8 bombs would do simultaneously.

[Jefffar]

You want fun nukes, try Armageddon 2089. There are only 2 levels of nuke available to the PCs, but it's more or les expected that they will use one if they survive a campaign. The big nuke is 2 KT and will kill any human out in the open at a range of 1.3 km.

[Killer Cyborg]

To me, roleplaying includes NOT GIVING YOUR CHARACTERS NUKES....
Especially not a whole lot of them.

If they exist in the game, characters will eventually find a way to get them, so you either have to power them down or not have them in the game.

Sorry, but no. Just because they exist in the game world doesn't mean the players can get ahold of them. If they do, it's the result of bad GMing.

If the PCs can say, find a CS sub, board it and kill the entire crew and steal the nukes, then the GM is either being too easy on them and not playing the CS well, or he let the PCs get too powerful and is paying the price for it. either way it's bad GMing.

i don't know, given the amount of enriched uranium available for PA and bots, PC's could make their own 1 KT device.
Popular Science, Can Terrorists build the bomb?
(for the record, i am disgusted that they had that much detail, and i offer this article only to illustrate a point.)

Getting the materials would be the easiest part, but the rest wouldn't be likely to happen. Unless the GM gives the PCs the plans for a Nuclear Bomb/Missile, they'd have to invent one from scratch... and in order to invent one from scratch they'd need the right skills.
And they would need to know about nuclear missiles in the first place (big ones, not the mini-nukes in long range missiles and such, which are unlikely to be actual nuclear missiles).

In short, it's technically possible but only if the GM allows it for some reason... like having your PFRPG characters invent gunpowder.

[glitterboy2098]

Getting the materials would be the easiest part, but the rest wouldn't be likely to happen. Unless the GM gives the PCs the plans for a Nuclear Bomb/Missile, they'd have to invent one from scratch... and in order to invent one from scratch they'd need the right skills.

check any illustrated history book of WW2. most have cut aways of the nukes used. between that and demolition skills, you can make a crude nuke. and if its a dud, you've got yourself a dirty bomb.

[Jefffar]

Yeah, with computer controleld detonators making a nuke is ridiculously easy - I know enough about it to design one and I don't have any university trainign in physics.

[Killer Cyborg]

Getting the materials would be the easiest part, but the rest wouldn't be likely to happen. Unless the GM gives the PCs the plans for a Nuclear Bomb/Missile, they'd have to invent one from scratch... and in order to invent one from scratch they'd need the right skills.

check any illustrated history book of WW2. most have cut aways of the nukes used. between that and demolition skills, you can make a crude nuke. and if its a dud, you've got yourself a dirty bomb.

Yes.
Good luck finding a history book of WWII on Rifts Earth...

[glitterboy2098]

Getting the materials would be the easiest part, but the rest wouldn't be likely to happen. Unless the GM gives the PCs the plans for a Nuclear Bomb/Missile, they'd have to invent one from scratch... and in order to invent one from scratch they'd need the right skills.

check any illustrated history book of WW2. most have cut aways of the nukes used. between that and demolition skills, you can make a crude nuke. and if its a dud, you've got yourself a dirty bomb.

Yes.
Good luck finding a history book of WWII on Rifts Earth...

hmm.....tolkeen, lazlo, NGR, japanese republic, last i knew these places had freedom of information and public libraries. i'd say my luck is holding out.

[Drakenred®™©]

Basicaly while I am a bit biased to my 1D4X100,000Md per Kt at point of detonation figure, its largly irelivant, After all, realisticaly, how many items out their have 100,000 MD, let alone the 10,000,000+ MDC they would need to survive the shock of a 100Kt yeild warhead going off on impact with that item. (the short anser is next to none)

Generaly, you just need to figure out roughly where the damage starts being realisticaly survivable for a structure, mecha or body armor, or anyone inside of that structure. Anything else in reality is just flavor text. It will not matter if it was a 20kt nuke 300m away or a 20Mt nuke 2okm away, if your group was suposed to survive it but with their kit trashed, then thats what you set up for, if they are suposed to walk away with just minor damage, thats the damage you roll, if they are suposed to just get their paint skuffed by the wind of a over the horizon detonation or see the glow from an false dawn in the north, then their paint will be skuffed or the sun will rise in the far north, if they were not able to get away for whatever reason, well you have a choice, either the instant death, or the slow death of being traped in a half melted, half crushed, radioactive hulk whos walls are glowing white hot from the traped heat that comes to rest after being picked up and thrown through the fireball and bounced for a couple of klicks before it comes to rest.

GMs call, realy

[Jefffar]

Listed damage for a nuke is 1d4x100 MDC to a 3 mile radius (ignoring the increased damage to the center of effect)?
On average about 250 MDC - that's enough to vaporize "conventional" tanks, destroy buildings, and basically leave nothing that we've got in our modern world standing...sounds pretty much like the effects of a nuke to me. I don't see a problem here.

Start bringing super-high tech MD body armor into and "realism" kind of goes out the window. Obviously, they can make MDC armor so it can withstand the blast radius of a nuke.

Unfortunately, we're stuck on a game mechanic here.

In the real world, there are allready what are MDC structures. This list includes (but is not limited to):

Tanks and other Armoured Fighting Vehicles
Warships
Bunkers

I find a real convieint way to tell if something is MDC or no is the .50 test. I consider the .50 heavy machinegun the highest powered direct fire SDC weapon out there. Anything that gets hit by a .50 and suffers no more than superficial damage (ie dented armour, scratched paint - basically the round does not penetrate the outer protective layer) is MDC. Anythign that suffers significant damage (outer protective layer is penetrated or even worse) is SDC.

There are also MDC weapons in existance today. This includes but is not limited to:

Anti-tank weapons
Anti-ship weapons
Anti-bunker weapons
Large quantities of conventional explosives
Nuclear weapons

So what does this mean? Those "conventional" tanks in the Modern Weapons Compendium with 1200 SDC aren't SDC at all. they are MDC, and probably have a few hundred MDC anyway (300 to 600).

[PigLickJF]

Unfortunately, we're stuck on a game mechanic here.

In the real world, there are allready what are MDC structures. This list includes (but is not limited to):

Tanks and other Armoured Fighting Vehicles
Warships
Bunkers

Well, despite the tank being used in the "flavor text" as an example of an MDC structuer, if I'm not mistaken by the rules (ie stats listed in books), modern vehicles and weapons are not actually MDC. Some vehicles have massive enough amounts of SDC that they are effectively minor MDC constructs, and some weapons do high enough damage that they are effectively low MD capable weapons, but they are still not technically MDC.

I don't think that changes things a whole lot, and I think Drak's last point is probably the most important and useful in this thread anyway.

PigLick

[Killer Cyborg]

Getting the materials would be the easiest part, but the rest wouldn't be likely to happen. Unless the GM gives the PCs the plans for a Nuclear Bomb/Missile, they'd have to invent one from scratch... and in order to invent one from scratch they'd need the right skills.

check any illustrated history book of WW2. most have cut aways of the nukes used. between that and demolition skills, you can make a crude nuke. and if its a dud, you've got yourself a dirty bomb.

Yes.
Good luck finding a history book of WWII on Rifts Earth...

hmm.....tolkeen, lazlo, NGR, japanese republic, last i knew these places had freedom of information and public libraries. i'd say my luck is holding out.

"public libraries" doesn't mean that they have any decent info from pre-rifts times.

[Subjugator]

But wimpy nukes aren't necessary to game balance, so there's no real point in not giving them the power they deserve.
I mean, 3d4x100 MD for a nuke in the kiloton range!?
A Glitterboy or full conversion Borg could take a direct hit and survive!

A good point. But would 3d4x1000 be too much? Or more along the lines of 5d6x100

Shoot...I'd give it 3d4x1000 per kiloton to a half mile radius. The nukes in Coalition Navy are just sissified. I mean, most of our MIRVs are only in the 5-6KT range these days, aren't they?

As I recall they figured out some time back that, while we can make the big 50 megaton bombs, there's really no need to do so, since there's a serious diminishing return.

As far as the superpowers using nukes, I think the only ones to really consider it would be the demons that were immune to radiation. I mean, humanity has pretty much learned it's lesson about mass amounts of death and destruction.


That said, ever wonder why other planets that have been destroyed haven't caused the same problem? I mean, the Dominators have done it a few times, as have a few other starfaring races, right?

I mean, all you need is few nukes to go off on the solstice during a planetary alignment and a lunar eclipse...and have 'em land at super nexus points, and you have a BIG boom and lots of rifts opening...

...don't you?

[Subjugator]

It gets better.

MOST of our current weapons IRL are up to 10-20 MEGATONS of Damage........

Actualy most of thoes have been dismantled, let me find the yeild chart back,

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Wea ... ngall.html

So the biggest we have is nine megatons, and the smaller ones are in the .3 range. Most of what we have is in the few hundred kiloton range.

Sounds about right.

Sub

[Subjugator]

<snip>
And for the sake of the point of diminishing returns and convenience, lets round that 15,428,550 MDC to a nice even 12 Million MDC. So based on all that, to simulate the force of the 15KT Hiroshima "Little Boy" Bomb, I would roll 2D6xOne Million MDC which if I'm thinking right, is on a par with some of Robotech's big guns, making this sound about right. In mixing reality with game mechanics, everything inside a 2,800' radius directly above the air-burst at 1,980 feet would take half damage, while every thing out from there, where the Mock-Stem converges and doubles in strenght (offsetting the halving of the normal Palladium blast radius) would take full damage. Every thousand feet (1,000') from there out, knock off a Million MDC from the damage till you get to nothing, and then tack on another 3D6x10 MD to another mile form all the debris.

That work for ya?

I just thought I'd point something out in the rules here.

You could still roll with punch for half damage.

[Jefffar]

Which is why proper nuke damage should be divided up into blast, heat and radiation components.

[Jefffar]

Technically, it's possible.

There's more specific information on the internet.


Of course you still need to get you hands on the high explosives, enriched uranium and a proper fusing mechanism.

You'll also need a fair bit of equipment so your internal organs don't turn to jello while you're working.

[Drakenred®™©]

Wait a minute... I can make a nuclear weapon with information from my public library?

their are detailed enough skematics that you can make a workable Hbomb. the only real trick is to maximise the yeild from all accounts and, given the history of testshots, its obviouse that you can stunble on a better than expected design as to build a underyeilding squib.

[Drakenred®™©]

Incidentally, the current "Mass to yield ratio" of warhead (including all components and casing but for the most part not the Reentry Vehcile of ICBM warhead) of the US arsenal varies from 1.02-.21 Kt/pound of the actual Warhead weight, With bigger bombs usually being far more efficient due to the fact that for the most part, you only need a certain thickness of certain materials to generate the optimal effects

Code: Select all

     Wt        Yld   Ratio
     800       170   0.21
     716       170   0.24
     362       100   0.28
     800       350   0.44
   2,408     1,200   0.50
     290       150   0.52
     600       475   0.79
   8,850     9,000   1.02

Yld is in Kt, Weight is in US pounds

[Jefffar]

Actually, by the book, a 1200 SDC 20th Century battle tank has only 12 MDC in rifts - which I feel is wrong.

I've been working on hosue rules that allow massive damage to take out the target in one hit, even if it's not total depletion of SDC/MDC. I find that more realistic.

[Subjugator]

Wait a minute... I can make a nuclear weapon with information from my public library?

Pretty much, yes.

I was able to blueprint one for my science project in seventh grade. I got the idea from my English book. There was a story in it that talked about actually building one for a science project...and it actually listed the books used. Well, I took down the list and then went and read up on it. Rather than build anything (I was too chicken), I just drew up the plans and steps to build it.

I turned it in and the next thing I know I'm in the office talking to the principal, the teacher, and a couple of guys I'd never seen before. I didn't get in any real trouble, but was told that the next year I was only allowed to make an incubator.

That pissed me off, so the next year I talked to my brother's girlfriend's father (who was an entymologist), and had him help me make a Med Fly incubator (including some larval Med Flies). This thing was SWEET...gestation times listed, temperature and humidity regulated, and it was perfectly safe with almost zero chance of a Med Fly getting out. Oh yeah, if you don't know what the Med Fly is or does, you've never lived in Southern California....hehe...BILLIONS in crop damage.

Anyway, the incubator...it caused more trouble for me. Had I not shown them that I had gotten the larvae and design specs for the box from an entymologist, I'd probably have been expelled.

Sub

[Killer Cyborg]

Rifts Main Book pg12 3rd Printing
When in armour impact from an explosion does 1 SDC or Hit for every 10 MD points.

Within 1000ft 2D4x100 MD (CSN MK108 Firefly nuke) leads to 200 to 800 MDC. Divide by 10 equals 20 to 80 SDC to a guy in a suit of MDC armour.

I'm guessing a standard old school Samas is not any safer. It has 250 MDC. If the Samas took 200 MDC from the blast (friendly fire say) the pilot would take 20 SDC/hits. That wouldn't kill most 12 hit/12 SDC nobodies. Boy does this prove you guys right despite my hopes otherwise.

Uh, plus the blowthrough Mega-Damage...