large sized buildings/megastructures

[glitterboy2098]

so, given the description of Golden Age America in the main book (which presumbly carries over to a fair bit of the civilized world, not just NA), i figure that massive sized public housing projects would exist in the more urban areas. that is, single buildings able to house thousands, tens of thousands, or even more apartment style, probably with basic shopping and other commercial sections included closer to street level.

while something as massive as the "Mega-Blocks" from the movie Dredd would likely have been fairly rare (perhaps in cities that already had residential skyscrapers, like say New York), i could see massive housing complexes as something the world turns to to deal with the problem of urban sprawl.. try to build up not out. (the other option, going underground, i suspect was less common.. digging tunnels would be harder and more expensive even with advanced tech, and getting lots of people to live somewhere you can't look out a window would be a tough sell. though i suspect that there was a lot of underground transit and infrastructure growth.. pedestrian walkways, subways, utility tunnels, etc.)
(note that the Fortress Cities of the Coalition, like Chi-Town, are not examples of such things, as those didn't start being built until after the PA calendar per the Rifts books.)

use of such structures would, on the surface, seem fairly straight forward. they are just big buildings after all. but IMO they'd offer some interesting dynamics.. being so large they'd be made with a degree of reinforced construction, making them less likely to be collapsed by the heavy ashfall and snows of those first few months. as such they'd be buildings survivors likely would flock to to get out of the hostile weather. while they'd probably lack their own powerplants, you should be able to keep the inside somewhat warmer, thanks to all the insulating walls and being out of the wind and snow. though ventilation issues might make using fires to stay warm tricky.
i could see NEMA turnign to such buildings as well.. they'd be good places to set up aid centers and field camps in.. for many of the same reasons the survivors would flock there. plus NEMA would likely be able to provide portable power systems that could run the heat and lights for at least part of the building. the buildings would also provide some degree of protection from attack, and ought to be easier to secure against enemies than more open terrain.
the downside of course is that they'd be operating in very close quarters, a world of hallways, doors, rooms, and maybe at best a few atriums. not to mention ventilation shafts, access corridors, dropped ceilings.. so if an enemy did get inside it might be really hard to stop them (especially the more melee focused monsters) or even find them if they went into hiding.

of course the enemies likely would find them attractive for the same reasons.. they'd make ideal fortresses for an army of Demons or bandits to operate out of, or to squat in as a den while they hunt the area, in the case of more animalistic monsters. especially if they were filled with refugees to start with.

even if one isn't held by a large group, you could see all sorts of stories revolving around them.. they could be a microcosm setting.. groups of survivors scrounging around inside the building to survive, dodging monsters which stalk the halls and other survivors gangs going after the same resources for example. even a largely empty one could be home to several interesting sessions as the players navigate through the place looking for resources or dealing with some threat.. or just passing through to somewhere else.


anyone else agree? and is there anything i missed in this analysis?

[glitterboy2098]

to help clarify the kinds of structures i'm talking about, here are a few examples of the kinds of buildings i mean from the real world, real world proposals (most never built), and a selection of fiction..

proposal for vertical city blocks from 1977 (would make for a very interesting set of terrain for CE)
18 Kowloon East, Hong Kong (actually an office building, but similar architecture as some of their newer housing complexes)
Older Housing complex in Hong Kong (and a shot from inside a courtyard in a similar structure in Hong Kong)
Entrepôt Macdonald Housing, Paris (a converted warehouse complex turned into a one building mix of housing, shops, and various civic functions.. effectively a large town all in one large building. some images of the scale model used to display the project for financing: pic 1, pic 2, pic 3, pic 4, pic 5)
Halo ODST New Mombasa concept art, OSDT pic 2, Halo Reach 1,

[Warshield73]

This is something that I have wanted information on since Rifts first came out. How much of the average American, Canadian, or Mexican City is new MDC vs old SDC buildings. Back in the early '90's I had players exploring the ruins of Phoenix (this was before any of the Western books) and during a firefight we had stop and think/come up with some rules for how much MDC cover there was.

[glitterboy2098]

personally i suspect that totally MDC material buildings were fairly rare outside military bases. unlike the post-rifts world, you don't have a lot of obvious MDC threats to defend against, and anything not expected to be attacked by MDC weaponry probably wouldn't bother with things like armored walls or the like. but i could see MDC material being used for structural supports, which would make the buildings sturdier and safer in general. though IMO such things would only apply to new builds.. girders and concrete aren't exactly something you can swap out inside a current building after all. not without tearing the building down and rebuilding it completely. so odds are you'd have a lot of SDC buildings with a few MDC-reinforced buildings (like say, skyscrapers) mixed in as the new materials become affordable. that said MDC structural materials would also allow for even more massive buildings than current skyscraper engineering does.. while i doubt most would go in for ever taller buildings (after a point it just becomes more about ego than practical design), you'd probably see skyscrapers that are wider and bulkier than current.. not to mention more variety in shapes than the current crop. though ultimately "tall box/tube" would still dominate for practicality reasons.

i doubt you'd get much in the way of true Arcologies though, where such a buildings is an entire self contained city.. those would require serious financial risks to build, given the costs, and one you'd not be sure would turn a profit until well after it was completed.. if it turns into a ghost town, well that is billions and billions lost. nor can i see such things being built inside existing cities. too much red tape and backlash from the thousands of people you displaced from their homes to build it. so i doubt you'd get the full "bladerunner" experience.. though i suppose that if Detroit continues to follow current trends, you might see some Robocop Delta City going on.. given the prevalence of megacorps in the setting.

[guardiandashi]

Thinking about it i would mostly agree with glitterboy.
With that said, i could see potentially some combination and hybrid buildings.

1st i could see several types of buildings being built.

A sdc skyscraper building.
A sdc core building with mdc retrofits like the outside walls and Windows
A mdc building with sdc modules
A fully mdc building
A reinforced mdc building

So with the mdc building with sdc modules, i think of that as another hybrid structure.
Basically the load bearing frame is all mdc, but the building is sub devided into modules say 5 to 10 floors worth. So lets say you have a 50 story building and 10 story modules. So the ground floor floor is mdc, and the load bearing structures, then the 10th or 11th floor is again mdc, and so on. The floors and walls in between the mdc dividers, is all sdc materials to save cost. But the mdc stuff both reinforces, and contains stuff into the individual modules.

[Warshield73]

Thinking about it i would mostly agree with glitterboy.

I go back and forth on this. First I think that it would be uncommon because it is new technology, but then I think what kind of break through it would be. Do you know how faster and smaller/thinner you could build a highway overpass with MDC materials? Do you know how much faster you could build and how much more effective it would be if a sea wall used to keep back rising oceans was made of MDC materials? How much safer would a 100 year old building be in an earthquake prone area like San Francisco if it was retrofitted with MDC materials?

I just have to imagine that as messed up as the world is when the Golden Age starts they would need to use this technology to create the Golden Age.

With that said, i could see potentially some combination and hybrid buildings.

1st i could see several types of buildings being built.

A sdc skyscraper building.
A sdc core building with mdc retrofits like the outside walls and Windows
A mdc building with sdc modules
A fully mdc building
A reinforced mdc building

So with the mdc building with sdc modules, i think of that as another hybrid structure.
Basically the load bearing frame is all mdc, but the building is sub devided into modules say 5 to 10 floors worth. So lets say you have a 50 story building and 10 story modules. So the ground floor floor is mdc, and the load bearing structures, then the 10th or 11th floor is again mdc, and so on. The floors and walls in between the mdc dividers, is all sdc materials to save cost. But the mdc stuff both reinforces, and contains stuff into the individual modules.

These are the types of buildings I have always thought of. My biggest question is how much MDC does it have and how long they would remain standing after the Apocalypse.

I do like the idea of new cities being modeled along the lines of the cities in Halo Reach. I also have to think that with the increasing population and loss of coastal cities there might be a few Archologies along the coasts to house all the displaced people.

[glitterboy2098]

faster is debatable.. it would depend on how easy it is to use MDC materials vs SDC ones.
and MDC is only relatively new.. it debuted, IIRC triax 2's history section correctly, in the 2070's, but apparently spread fairly rapidly.


as far as loss of coastal cities goes, that would depend on whether global warming continued unabated.. the switch to non-fossil fuels across so much of the 1st and 2nd world would offset it some. and there may have been systems put in place to help remove carbon from the air. (genetically engineered algae that absorbs carbon and converts it into forms that aren't in the carbon cycle perhaps?)

[Warshield73]

faster is debatable.. it would depend on how easy it is to use MDC materials vs SDC ones.
and MDC is only relatively new.. it debuted, IIRC triax 2's history section correctly, in the 2070's, but apparently spread fairly rapidly.

I only meant new relative to us. As for MDC being faster, given the strength of MDC material and it's incredibly low weight it would have to be faster. Gieven how durable MDC materials are in smaller sizes it would be easier to work with. Also by the 2080's they would probably have construction robot vehicles.

as far as loss of coastal cities goes, that would depend on whether global warming continued unabated.. the switch to non-fossil fuels across so much of the 1st and 2nd world would offset it some. and there may have been systems put in place to help remove carbon from the air. (genetically engineered algae that absorbs carbon and converts it into forms that aren't in the carbon cycle perhaps?)

In terms of real world chances for this, I will believe it when I see it. The first time I heard about these amazing carbon reducing tech was almost 20 years ago and it was supposed to be out within the decade.

As for the world of Rifts, I have posted before that we need to know what the world was like at the dawn of the Golden Age. For me I have always, I mean since I first started playing in 1990, had the world as bad as possible. Population out of control, failing ecosystems, rampant plagues, wars, failing crops/famine, dogs and cats living together the whole nine yards.

To me this makes the end of the Golden Age and the beginning of the New Cold War all the more terrifying. Just 15 years or so period to slap a high-tech "band-aid" on all this crap and then it starts to fall apart.

[glitterboy2098]

the problem with "the world is crap" takes is it would run counter to the official details that the world was relatively peaceful until only a decade or two before the cataclysm, when the nations started getting warlike again.

a world dying from global warming, overpopulation, plagues, wars, etc.. isn't exactly peaceful.

[Warshield73]

the problem with "the world is crap" takes is it would run counter to the official details that the world was relatively peaceful until only a decade or two before the cataclysm, when the nations started getting warlike again.

a world dying from global warming, overpopulation, plagues, wars, etc.. isn't exactly peaceful.

Yes for a Decade or two, that is the 2070's and 2080's, what were the 2050'sand 2060's like?

The Golden Age was supposed to be that decade or two, again the 2070's and 2080's from what little is in the books the New Cold War was only going on about a decade when the Rifts come in 2098 so this makes sense.

If the the New Cold War began before 2088-ish then the Golden Age would begin before 2070, but not much more since the first of the MDC tech is in 2064.

Like I said I make the world before the Golden Age as a hellscape because it seems to fit and makes the New Cold War little more dangerous.

[glitterboy2098]

the problem with "the world is crap" takes is it would run counter to the official details that the world was relatively peaceful until only a decade or two before the cataclysm, when the nations started getting warlike again.

a world dying from global warming, overpopulation, plagues, wars, etc.. isn't exactly peaceful.

Yes for a Decade or two, that is the 2070's and 2080's, what were the 2050'sand 2060's like?

The Golden Age was supposed to be that decade or two, again the 2070's and 2080's from what little is in the books the New Cold War was only going on about a decade when the Rifts come in 2098 so this makes sense.

If the the New Cold War began before 2088-ish then the Golden Age would begin before 2070, but not much more since the first of the MDC tech is in 2064.

Like I said I make the world before the Golden Age as a hellscape because it seems to fit and makes the New Cold War little more dangerous.

Actually per page 8 of the chaos earth main book, the 'age of peace' began in 2028.
So that is nearly half a century where advancing technology allowed the civilized world to live peacefully and address a lot of social issues.

The same page says that poverty, injustice, and war still existed.. But were mostly found in the 'third world' nations.

[keir451]

On the topic of mega structures I have this image in my head of there essentially be king three large "mega cities"; the first ne encompasses the entirety of the East Coast megalopolis (or at least from Rhode Island/Connecticut down to Ft. Lauderdale), the next is Denver megalopolis in Colorado. It would encompass the entirety of the front range (the eastern base of the Rocky Mt.) extending north post Loveland and Fort Collins and south, past Colorado Springs to nearly the Oklahoma\Co. border. The Colorado baronies would be farther east by about 50+ miles or more.
The third and last would be the California megalopolis, extending from the U.S./Mexico border up through Oregon into Washington State eventually linking up with Seattle, WA.
I imagine a resurgence of the rail system, rebuilt to allow better (and safer) rail travel, using maglev trains running the length of the cities with smaller electric rail systems and electric buses branching out from central hubs into the cities and the newer suburbs, similar to Denver's T-Rex light rail system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Expansion_Project, or Chicago and Boston's commuter rail systems. In Denver the maglev system also runs west through the Rockies, stopping at the (as of CE) major tourist spots of Frisco, Co, Vail, Co. and Grand Junction, Co. where you would transfer to the California bound rail lines (similar to the Japan bullet train).
There would be a mix of MDC and SDC buildings throughout all three mega cities as there would be historical buildings as well as the average citizen's residence. The MDC buildings would be mega skyscrapers and apt. complexes and some factory arcologies, too.
There would be parking areas/landing pads for hover vehicles on many buildings to help avoid ground level traffic congestion. I imagine a sort of Back to the Future II situation of hover cars that can also be ground cars for short range travel, just long enough to pull into a local parking area/garage at ground level.

[Warshield73]

Actually per page 8 of the chaos earth main book, the 'age of peace' began in 2028. So that is nearly half a century where advancing technology allowed the civilized world to live peacefully and address a lot of social issues.

The same page says that poverty, injustice, and war still existed.. But were mostly found in the 'third world' nations.

Thanks, I completely missed that. It does unfortunately make Chaos Earth even more boring, IMHO.

[Warshield73]

On the topic of mega structures I have this image in my head of there essentially be king three large "mega cities"; the first ne encompasses the entirety of the East Coast megalopolis (or at least from Rhode Island/Connecticut down to Ft. Lauderdale), the next is Denver megalopolis in Colorado. It would encompass the entirety of the front range (the eastern base of the Rocky Mt.) extending north post Loveland and Fort Collins and south, past Colorado Springs to nearly the Oklahoma\Co. border. The Colorado baronies would be farther east by about 50+ miles or more.
The third and last would be the California megalopolis, extending from the U.S./Mexico border up through Oregon into Washington State eventually linking up with Seattle, WA.
I imagine a resurgence of the rail system, rebuilt to allow better (and safer) rail travel, using maglev trains running the length of the cities with smaller electric rail systems and electric buses branching out from central hubs into the cities and the newer suburbs, similar to Denver's T-Rex light rail system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Expansion_Project, or Chicago and Boston's commuter rail systems. In Denver the maglev system also runs west through the Rockies, stopping at the (as of CE) major tourist spots of Frisco, Co, Vail, Co. and Grand Junction, Co. where you would transfer to the California bound rail lines (similar to the Japan bullet train).
There would be a mix of MDC and SDC buildings throughout all three mega cities as there would be historical buildings as well as the average citizen's residence. The MDC buildings would be mega skyscrapers and apt. complexes and some factory arcologies, too.
There would be parking areas/landing pads for hover vehicles on many buildings to help avoid ground level traffic congestion. I imagine a sort of Back to the Future II situation of hover cars that can also be ground cars for short range travel, just long enough to pull into a local parking area/garage at ground level.

This would make sense but it doesn't seem to line up with what we see in Rifts, i.e. the ruins of cities like Dallas, Washington D.C., and especially New York/Mad Haven.

[keir451]

On the topic of mega structures I have this image in my head of there essentially be king three large "mega cities"; the first ne encompasses the entirety of the East Coast megalopolis (or at least from Rhode Island/Connecticut down to Ft. Lauderdale), the next is Denver megalopolis in Colorado. It would encompass the entirety of the front range (the eastern base of the Rocky Mt.) extending north post Loveland and Fort Collins and south, past Colorado Springs to nearly the Oklahoma\Co. border. The Colorado baronies would be farther east by about 50+ miles or more.
The third and last would be the California megalopolis, extending from the U.S./Mexico border up through Oregon into Washington State eventually linking up with Seattle, WA.
I imagine a resurgence of the rail system, rebuilt to allow better (and safer) rail travel, using maglev trains running the length of the cities with smaller electric rail systems and electric buses branching out from central hubs into the cities and the newer suburbs, similar to Denver's T-Rex light rail system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Expansion_Project, or Chicago and Boston's commuter rail systems. In Denver the maglev system also runs west through the Rockies, stopping at the (as of CE) major tourist spots of Frisco, Co, Vail, Co. and Grand Junction, Co. where you would transfer to the California bound rail lines (similar to the Japan bullet train).
There would be a mix of MDC and SDC buildings throughout all three mega cities as there would be historical buildings as well as the average citizen's residence. The MDC buildings would be mega skyscrapers and apt. complexes and some factory arcologies, too.
There would be parking areas/landing pads for hover vehicles on many buildings to help avoid ground level traffic congestion. I imagine a sort of Back to the Future II situation of hover cars that can also be ground cars for short range travel, just long enough to pull into a local parking area/garage at ground level.

This would make sense but it doesn't seem to line up with what we see in Rifts, i.e. the ruins of cities like Dallas, Washington D.C., and especially New York/Mad Haven.

Agreed. In some areas the setting doesn't go far enough. Imagine, if you will, instead of the ruins of individual cities on the East coast, a line of submerged/half submerged buildings sticking up out of the water like teeth, that make coastal navigation near impossible. You could have the CS Navy and the New Navy hunting the Splugorth in and among the wreckage using small boats with shallow drafts. It would also make an excellent pirate haven and a doubly excellent place for treasure hunting adventures.

[Warshield73]

This would make sense but it doesn't seem to line up with what we see in Rifts, i.e. the ruins of cities like Dallas, Washington D.C., and especially New York/Mad Haven.

Agreed. In some areas the setting doesn't go far enough. Imagine, if you will, instead of the ruins of individual cities on the East coast, a line of submerged/half submerged buildings sticking up out of the water like teeth, that make coastal navigation near impossible. You could have the CS Navy and the New Navy hunting the Splugorth in and among the wreckage using small boats with shallow drafts. It would also make an excellent pirate haven and a doubly excellent place for treasure hunting adventures.[/quote]
I think this is an artifact of of when Rifts was written. The world of Rifts was basically created in the late 1980's, basically 110 years from the coming of the rifts. Now we are only 70 years away and our picture of the world has changed.

I have said in other discussions where people have talked about a Palladium 2.0 that if they started Rifts over again they should do a reset. Start with CE and create a semi-plausible North America with some basics on the rest of the world. Then you could see this very expansive vision of 2098 you are talking about.

[glitterboy2098]

well you have to figure that the 'suburban sprawl' that forms most of the east coast extended city zones IRL would still be mostly SDC.. and as shows like Life After People have demonstrated that normal materials wouldn't last 300 years.. and the various Tsunami's in recent decades have shown that smaller sdc buildings don't tend to fair well when hammered by a wall of water.

so it could be one big extended city.. but post-rifts 300 years later still be mostly empty wilderness with pockets of still standing ruins.

[Warshield73]

well you have to figure that the 'suburban sprawl' that forms most of the east coast extended city zones IRL would still be mostly SDC.. and as shows like Life After People have demonstrated that normal materials wouldn't last 300 years.. and the various Tsunami's in recent decades have shown that smaller sdc buildings don't tend to fair well when hammered by a wall of water.

so it could be one big extended city.. but post-rifts 300 years later still be mostly empty wilderness with pockets of still standing ruins.

That is a good point, and I've used Life After People as a source for Rifts before so that may be important to look at. But, I go back to saying that some infrastructure, like sea walls, would be MDC and even after 300 years there would be some, especially underground facilities left.

[keir451]

well you have to figure that the 'suburban sprawl' that forms most of the east coast extended city zones IRL would still be mostly SDC.. and as shows like Life After People have demonstrated that normal materials wouldn't last 300 years.. and the various Tsunami's in recent decades have shown that smaller sdc buildings don't tend to fair well when hammered by a wall of water.

so it could be one big extended city.. but post-rifts 300 years later still be mostly empty wilderness with pockets of still standing ruins.

That is a good point, and I've used Life After People as a source for Rifts before so that may be important to look at. But, I go back to saying that some infrastructure, like sea walls, would be MDC and even after 300 years there would be some, especially underground facilities left.

Let's not forget that the coast lines were altered pretty significantly due to the tsunamis and the rising sea levels, so I figure that the actual "cities" and the skyscrapers that fill many of those coastal cities are what are now partially under water or toppled over and now rise out of the water like broken teeth. The areas further inland where there was more generic urban sprawl and newer suburbs would certainly be SDC and be pretty much wiped out by natural disasters or just destroyed by 300 years of neglect and so would have gone back to nature and become wilderness.
As for rebooting Rifts or a Rifts 2.0, that's something that the next generation of writers and company managers would have to consider after Kevin. My friends and I have toyed with the idea of "What if..." What if we had enough money to buy out PB, etc., etc. And while I have repeatedly urged them to send in their ideas they prefer not to sell out their intellectual property and potentially have it wind up sitting on a shelf for a decade and then have it be rewritten with someone else's idea of "more wow and pizzaz".

[glitterboy2098]

not to mention, the areas not sunker under the rising ocean level would have experienced 300 years of ashfalls and general soil deposition from the vegetation that grey over it.
so yeah, you'd get a lot of stuff underground, but the surface would look largely untouched.

plus it is worth remembering that the east coast is largely unsettled.. human civilization in post-rifts north america is in the midwest, and to a lesser degree the great plains and southwest. most of the eastern coast is still pretty sparsely settled beyond frontier farmsteads. so we really don't have a lot to go on for it yet in the game, even with several books about it. and when you look at the ones we have, like the dinosaur swamp books, you do find the kind of "wilderness with pockets of ruins".. including underground structures.

[guardiandashi]

my point was that replacing SDC components of a structure with MDC equivalents is quite possible, but it might be more trouble than its worth depending on where and what it is.

lets say you have a 50 story building. and you want to replace the steel girders (beams) with MDC equivalents. its multi step process.
1st you have to install braces to take the loads off the existing piece.
2nd you replace the piece with the mdc replacement.
3rd you take out the bracing and let the new pieces do the work.

on the other hand replacing exterior walls and windows is dead easy. they are typically held in place by a number of bolts. so you back out the bolts and replace them with studs (one at a time) and slide the existing panel out, grab onto it and lift it away, put your replacement piece onto the studs and slide it back into position and replace the studs with the new bolts.

i'm not saying its a super fast and or cheap process but its pretty straightforward.

one reason I kind of know about this is that I read an article where they were looking into retro fitting skyscrapers with solar power windows. the way those work is there is a layer in the new glass that takes light that is hitting the window, and diverts most of it to the edges of the window where the solar units were, so in effect the window acts as a concentrator mirror.

[Fell]

Just my 2 cents: I see massive housing complexes happening, especially in larger cities. Could be some fun adventures revolving around them. Much like TV shows like Deadwood or Defiance where the Characters stay in the same town protecting it. A home base.

This next line is from Rifter 80 (this sentence is written by Kevin):
The vast majority of homes and buildings in 2098, worldwide, are still made of S.D.C. materials. It is only some of the big skyscrapers of the last 30 years, military compounds and bunkers that are made from M.D.C. concrete, steel and other materials.

Granted, its your game and you're the GM! Play to have fun.

[RockJock]

Sorry for the post resurrection, but I figured I would add this. I've put a "spray foam" version if MDC concrete as a retrofitting to a lot of a buildings structural members. Think of the foam insulation sprayed on the metal structure of many buildings to protect from rust/water and fire. The whole building doesn't become MDC, but it ups the integrity of the structure.

Coastal areas that would normally get hit with hurricanes would be a good early candidate for new built light MDC buildings or even retrofitting. Definitely things like fire and police stations, but also things like schools, or at least school gyms, convention centers and so on that are built to double as shelters, even if you don't go for houses and such getting the MDC treatment. These are also mostly underwater by the time of Rifts, so they won't be common. Same goes for places like California with earthquake issues. Places commonly hit with natural disasters make MDC more appealing by limiting destruction as well as rebuilding cost.

Page 73 of WB 8 talks about 50% of skyscrapers being MDC, and a bit about urban and suburban settings. Doesn't need to be the same in the US, but it is a starting point.