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The Mining Borgs and the areas specifically mentioned as being rifted in such as the now bigger, and higher in elevation Rockies.

Of course, there's also magical solutions. There was a discussion in the Magic & Psionics board regarding a [url]http://palladiumbooks.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=149564&sid=7952b7273b300def9384d5dab23b5b77]TW Lumbermill[/url], using Create Wood.

While that one ALSO fisked itself into uselessness, a ley-line-driven TW Lumbermill churning out MDC wood would chuck all this discussion out the window. MDC wood would be a fantastic building material, either on its own or as a means of containing fill (for fortifications), and on a ley-line, you could produce fantastic amounts of the stuff from essentially nothing.

a TW smelter (using the "create metal" spell to turn old scraps into good quality stuff) would be real handy too.

kinda ironic the easiest ways to rebuild tech infrastructure involve going non-technological

glitterboy2098 wrote:a TW smelter (using the "create metal" spell to turn old scraps into good quality stuff) would be real handy too.

kinda ironic the easiest ways to rebuild tech infrastructure involve going non-technological

I had an even more insidious thought: What about a TW device using a Create Stone effect that, when hooked up to a ley line or nexus, simply crapped out a pyramid? Keep it running for a full moon cycle and you've got a pyramid, or something like that.

Doesn't creating a Pyramid require a Stone Master specifically?

Mark Hall wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:a TW smelter (using the "create metal" spell to turn old scraps into good quality stuff) would be real handy too.

kinda ironic the easiest ways to rebuild tech infrastructure involve going non-technological

I had an even more insidious thought: What about a TW device using a Create Stone effect that, when hooked up to a ley line or nexus, simply crapped out a pyramid? Keep it running for a full moon cycle and you've got a pyramid, or something like that.

Mark Hall, best pyramid building idea

Marcethus wrote:Doesn't creating a Pyramid require a Stone Master specifically?

The answer is unclear.

Page 104 of Atlantis:
"Placing those stones into the shape of a giant pyramid instills the sorcerer with even greater power and control."

That implies that the sorcerer placing those stones creates the power, without saying it.

"For reasons unknown to even the stone masters, the pyramids provide human beings and the stone masters in particular, with increased magic power and control over potential psychic energy (P.P.E.), magic, ley lines and rifts."

That states that stone masters don't know why it works, and says nothing about whether or not they are required.

On page 100, we find "They also know exactly how stone magic works and how to build pyramids." So they can build pyramids.

One page 16, we find " All Atlanteans are seasoned dimensional travelers who know how to operate the pyramids created by the stone masters for the purposes of healing, communication, teleportation, and dimensional teleportation. ... Note that the average Atlantean does not know exactly how stone magic works or how to build pyramids."

That quote leans us heavily towards "Stone masters must be involved in the creation of a pyramid."

But, even then, imagine taking your Rock Machine and setting a Stone master there. The Rock machine will create the rock, the Stone Master can then put it into shape he needs/

Mark Hall wrote:

Marcethus wrote:Doesn't creating a Pyramid require a Stone Master specifically?

*snip*

But, even then, imagine taking your Rock Machine and setting a Stone master there. The Rock machine will create the rock, the Stone Master can then put it into shape he needs/

Now this I could see being done, and makes complete sense.

since we know that the builders of the Pyramids of egypt, central america, etc used a lot of manual labor to actually do the quarrying, shaping, and building, i'd say that the powers of a pyramid are the result of it's precise shapes, alignment, and composition, and that Stone Master's are required to plan out the structure to achieve the right shapes, alignment, and composition (including any adjustments to accommodate cosmetic stuff and internal rooms).
but once the plans are drawn up anyone who follows them exactly enough could actually build it.

Except for in Rifts aren't all of the pyramids hinted to have been built by exiled Atlanteans or those taught by such?

I would argue that its a combination.
simply building the pyramid works sort of like an amplifier/battery on the ley line.
but the stone masters are needed for other and additional effects.

the lock it down and "password protect" the ley line is something a stone master HAS to be involved in.
creating a "healing room" requires the stone master to essentially build a permanent spell into that portion of the pyramid. things like that.

have they even updated pyramids to not be garbage yet? since the new RUE rules came out, pyramids don't give you increased access to PPE, they massively reduce it. they're good for preventing ley line storms, and if you desperately need to make sure nobody else can use the ley line (so if you're planning on building a city on a ley line, useful... except that the main reason to build a city on a ley line is to have access to increased magical energy, which the pyramid drastically reduces).

Marcethus wrote:Except for in Rifts aren't all of the pyramids hinted to have been built by exiled Atlanteans or those taught by such?

doesn't conflict though.

real world archeology has shown the methods used to quarry, shape, and move the stones, and construct the strucutre. we have a huge amount of info on how those thousands of people lived, worked, partied, slept, etc.
and since no where does it say to ignore all that, it is safe in assuming that pre-rifts earth had all that too.

but the archeological evidence doesn't preclude atlanteans from being part of the architects and foremen involved.

age is actually the trickier problem, since it is implied that the egyptian pyramids existed when atlantis fell, and that is thousands of years before archeology shows them to have been built. and the dating methods used IRL don't have that much margin of error.

not an insurmountable thing though.. perhaps the atlanteans built one set of pyramids on the site back then, and when the mega-rift disaster happened, that set got destroyed, and the current set were rebuilt thousands of years later by Egyptians, using atlantean guidance?

Yeah that does make sense.

Shark_Force wrote:have they even updated pyramids to not be garbage yet? since the new RUE rules came out, pyramids don't give you increased access to PPE, they massively reduce it. they're good for preventing ley line storms, and if you desperately need to make sure nobody else can use the ley line (so if you're planning on building a city on a ley line, useful... except that the main reason to build a city on a ley line is to have access to increased magical energy, which the pyramid drastically reduces).

The easy way to fix that is to compare the numbers for the PPE on ley lines and nexuses without pyramids from the RMB then look at the Pyramids and figure out the multiplier. Then apply it to the numbers given in RUE.

Marcethus wrote:

Shark_Force wrote:have they even updated pyramids to not be garbage yet? since the new RUE rules came out, pyramids don't give you increased access to PPE, they massively reduce it. they're good for preventing ley line storms, and if you desperately need to make sure nobody else can use the ley line (so if you're planning on building a city on a ley line, useful... except that the main reason to build a city on a ley line is to have access to increased magical energy, which the pyramid drastically reduces).

The easy way to fix that is to compare the numbers for the PPE on ley lines and nexuses without pyramids from the RMB then look at the Pyramids and figure out the multiplier. Then apply it to the numbers given in RUE.

not as easy as it sounds. in RMB we basically have amounts that you can draw, with no real indication of how often you can draw them. if you figure they intended for those amounts to be per-round (with the possible exception of the peak times), which is entirely possible and is also basically the only firm number they've ever given, you wind up with pyramids being just as bad. if you don't, then the first thing you have to figure out is just how often you're supposed to be able to draw on that PPE, because again, there are no guidelines whatsoever on it before RUE that i'm aware of. also, you'd have to account for the fact that in a city full of magic users, you could have dozens or even hundreds of people drawing on the ley line, which could still leave pyramids as being a terrible option for cultures where magic is widely used.

or, in other words, the people that should be doing research into pyramids are the CS. locking down ley lines so that they can only be used within a relatively small, easily-secured building? that sounds way more useful to the CS than it does to any magic nation i can think of.

Mark Hall wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:a TW smelter (using the "create metal" spell to turn old scraps into good quality stuff) would be real handy too.

kinda ironic the easiest ways to rebuild tech infrastructure involve going non-technological

I had an even more insidious thought: What about a TW device using a Create Stone effect that, when hooked up to a ley line or nexus, simply crapped out a pyramid? Keep it running for a full moon cycle and you've got a pyramid, or something like that.

Tie it to several golems...sort of an automated stone production line. The Golems can have their limbs shaped into basic stone-cutting tools.

I'm suddenly getting a vision of an Atlantean stone space probe that travels through normal space for centuries, homes in on magic-rich worlds, then comes down meteor-style, and starts laying out basic infrastructure for a magic-using society. Include a Magic Piortal, and colonists can start stepping through when the groundwork's been laid.

I had thought RMB said something like every 6 hours... maybe that was errata.

taalismn wrote:

Mark Hall wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:a TW smelter (using the "create metal" spell to turn old scraps into good quality stuff) would be real handy too.

kinda ironic the easiest ways to rebuild tech infrastructure involve going non-technological

I had an even more insidious thought: What about a TW device using a Create Stone effect that, when hooked up to a ley line or nexus, simply crapped out a pyramid? Keep it running for a full moon cycle and you've got a pyramid, or something like that.

Tie it to several golems...sort of an automated stone production line. The Golems can have their limbs shaped into basic stone-cutting tools.

I'm suddenly getting a vision of an Atlantean stone space probe that travels through normal space for centuries, homes in on magic-rich worlds, then comes down meteor-style, and starts laying out basic infrastructure for a magic-using society. Include a Magic Piortal, and colonists can start stepping through when the groundwork's been laid.

I could totally see this being how the UWW and the various Magic Using Star Nations in Phase World do things.

taalismn wrote:I'm suddenly getting a vision of an Atlantean stone space probe that travels through normal space for centuries, homes in on magic-rich worlds, then comes down meteor-style, and starts laying out basic infrastructure for a magic-using society. Include a Magic Piortal, and colonists can start stepping through when the groundwork's been laid.

Heck, if it can make a pyramid, you don't even need Magic Portal.

Maybe a stone golem containing a Stone Master's life essence?