Forums of the Megaverse®

Does anyone know what book has any form of list or rules of power armor modifications like sensors, weapons, or combat computers?

There are none listed anywhere specifically for that. (Unless it's in a gamebook that came out in the last three years.)

Now, you can use ether the bionics guide, the RSB1 robot building guide to source your options and approximate costs.

Then looking in the HU2 game there is the Robotics power cat. which you ether build a Bot/PA for your char or an android char. Other than that you can use the AU sourcebook to price a PA to be built. The AU:GG gamebook has some PAs in it.

There really aren't any. The closest might be found in Source Book 1 (original or Revised) when they talk about repairs or the Robot RCC section (adapted from HU Power Category).

There are a few power armor built with standardized modular features being available, books with Add-ons (mostly hand-held weapons): WB2, WB5, WB8, WB10 (possibly, the Body Armor section might have something I don't have the book handy) WB11, WB31, MercOps SB, Mercenaries SB, and DB8 (possibly). Some of them might be obscured during a quick scan.

Avionics (Sensors and Combat Computers) are less likely to be found as add-ons and would have to be salvaged from specific units with non-standard features as Palladium tends to have a cookie-cutter approach here.

bossinater101 wrote:Does anyone know what book has any form of list or rules of power armor modifications like sensors, weapons, or combat computers?

Basically it is up to the GM.

Theoretically many cybernetic and robot features could be added to PA.
You could also add on armor but reduce speed and mobility.

Most infantry weapons can be carried by or in some cases mounted to PA.
The original rifts book and the book of magic have common TW features for armor.

bossinater101 wrote:Does anyone know what book has any form of list or rules of power armor modifications like sensors, weapons, or combat computers?

Rifter 85 has an article on mods for the Glitter Boy. While it's focused on the G-10 specifically, some of the mods could be applicable to other power armors, and the article's central principle (mods should involve tradeoffs) is applicable across the board.

Mercenaries has some mods that could be added to any power armor, such as the Naruni force field and some camouflage stuff.
Northern Gun has some features that can get added to power armor, such as the cable that can power handheld weapons in lieu of an E-clip.

Full disclosure: I wrote the Rifter 85 article.

as a general guideline I can think of some basica:
increase /change capabilities such as sensors IE adding a new kind of sensor or upgrading existing sensors range resolution or similar
increasing "stats" strength speed or similar.
changing armor levels (typically increasing armor)
adding "virtual armor" such as shields or upgrading existing
adding weapons or other systems

guardiandashi wrote:as a general guideline I can think of some basics:
increase /change capabilities such as sensors IE adding a new kind of sensor or upgrading existing sensors range resolution or similar
increasing "stats" strength speed or similar.
changing armor levels (typically increasing armor)
adding "virtual armor" such as shields or upgrading existing
adding weapons or other systems

With any improvements, I'd also recommend some give-and-take.

Modifying sensors to make them more effective will make any repairs more expensive, more so if the modifications are customized to that suit, and custom modifications risk unintended side-effects. You might have superior range and resolution, but have issues in rain or dust storms, and reliability could be a problem.

Large, complex mechanical systems usually have safety margins in the control systems that keep the system from breaking itself. Increasing the strength or speed of an armor suit either requires replacing these mechanical parts or adjusting the limits of its control systems to reduce the suit's safety margins. Larger/stronger mechanical systems may interfere with suit operations (it's stronger, but slower, or maybe it's stronger and faster, but the suit's combat bonuses are reduced). Modifications that push the existing systems closer to their limits bypass these problems, but may reduce the operational life of the suit, require "cool-down" intervals, or risk breaking the suit's systems at or near the limits of its performance.

Adding armor is likely to decrease mobility and introduce melee combat penalties.

Adding shields generally doesn't decrease performance, but since Naruni is the only player in the shield modification department, everyone who hates Naruni is going to be very leery of you when they find out that you have built-in shields.

Adding in weapon systems can add bulk to a suit (check strength requirements) and a significant power drain depending on its power requirements (I think NG has a guideline that anything over 1D6x10 generally causes problems for power armor systems; I'd caveat that any add-on energy weapon should not exceed half the damage of the suit's primary weapon, or else incur penalties). Using handheld systems with their own power source negates the power problems and may incur no penalties, but that means that one of the suit's hands is not free.

I would think if modifying the sensors causes problems in rain or dust storms something is wrong and the person did not know what he was doing. Thant kind of sounds like they jerry rigged the sensors, and not work done by a some one with the correct skill.

If their is a reason for a restriction or penalty that is one thing but adding a penalty for the sake of a penalty seams wrong. (an upgrade by itself is not always sufficient reason.)
Adding sensors to the head should might reasonably add to the cost of damage to the head/sensors but no reason for it to add to the cost of repairing the main body.
Adding to the weight slowing down a unit by adding armor or heavy weapons does make kind of make sense.

Hotrod wrote:

guardiandashi wrote:as a general guideline I can think of some basics:
increase /change capabilities such as sensors IE adding a new kind of sensor or upgrading existing sensors range resolution or similar
increasing "stats" strength speed or similar.
changing armor levels (typically increasing armor)
adding "virtual armor" such as shields or upgrading existing
adding weapons or other systems

With any improvements, I'd also recommend some give-and-take.

Modifying sensors to make them more effective will make any repairs more expensive, more so if the modifications are customized to that suit, and custom modifications risk unintended side-effects. You might have superior range and resolution, but have issues in rain or dust storms, and reliability could be a problem.

Large, complex mechanical systems usually have safety margins in the control systems that keep the system from breaking itself. Increasing the strength or speed of an armor suit either requires replacing these mechanical parts or adjusting the limits of its control systems to reduce the suit's safety margins. Larger/stronger mechanical systems may interfere with suit operations (it's stronger, but slower, or maybe it's stronger and faster, but the suit's combat bonuses are reduced). Modifications that push the existing systems closer to their limits bypass these problems, but may reduce the operational life of the suit, require "cool-down" intervals, or risk breaking the suit's systems at or near the limits of its performance.

Adding armor is likely to decrease mobility and introduce melee combat penalties.

Adding shields generally doesn't decrease performance, but since Naruni is the only player in the shield modification department, everyone who hates Naruni is going to be very leery of you when they find out that you have built-in shields.

Adding in weapon systems can add bulk to a suit (check strength requirements) and a significant power drain depending on its power requirements (I think NG has a guideline that anything over 1D6x10 generally causes problems for power armor systems; I'd caveat that any add-on energy weapon should not exceed half the damage of the suit's primary weapon, or else incur penalties). Using handheld systems with their own power source negates the power problems and may incur no penalties, but that means that one of the suit's hands is not free.

all of your arguments as far as they go are legitimate, especially when you are dealing with a zero sum system.
upgrades and changes mean you have to give up something in order to get the new stuff.for example if you are taking a sensor system that only has visual light optics/systems then in order to add infared, or UV sensors you have to give up something like volume, weight power etc but palladium is NOT detailed enough (in the construction systems) to be a zero sum system IE you can pull out the existing sensors and replace them with another set that the only difference is they cost more
with other aspects stats (strength, acility (pp) or speed) they never give tradeoffs.
as far as adding armor you can also change materials which means you may be able to add more armor (damage capacity) and potentially reduce weight, bulk or similar.

When I say tradeoffs, I don't mean a zero-sum system per se. I just mean that major upgrades with no tradeoffs are both uninteresting and unrealistic. That said, a tradeoff need not be reflected in the functional stats of a system.

A good example of this is in The Mandalorian. When he gets his armor upgraded to pure beskar, people notice. Enemies tend to target him more, and allies tend to use him as a blaster fire sponge. Of course, it also makes him much harder to kill and able to go hand-to-hand against lightsabers and gen 3 dark troopers. When he gets his jet pack, that makes carrying his disintegration rifle impractical, so he loses firepower but gains mobility. When he gets the whispering birds upgrade, it's a powerful weapon, but hard to get ammo for, so he has to use it sparingly and only does so at great need. These tradeoffs and limitations in upgrades make the armor an interesting and integral part of the character, and applying that approach to power armor in Rifts can make armor development interesting.

Another good example is the Rocinante from The Expanse. The ship starts out as a badass gunship, but her status is disputed: a major government wants her back, and this becomes a significant aspect of the ship with consequences for her crew. She takes a beating and ages a lot over the series. She gets upgrades that help her punch above her weight at times, but these upgrades are costly to acquire and repair/restock, and the crew puts a lot of time, money, effort, and story/plot time into her. The ship is almost a character unto itself.

In both cases, we see lots of objective upgrades without major performance downsides, but with consequences and implications for the character(s)/plot. This is how straight-up upgrades can become interesting to me.

I could swear the Robotech Books, old ones had tables for Modifications just ignore protoculture and Mecha terms. Mercenaries and Sourcebook one.(I think I just used the Repair tables in Sentinels RDF Manual and Invid invasion.)

I even had it worked out how much time and M.D.C. it was. But if you have the right skills you can get a +1 to dodge or other GM Approved modifications if you keep Power Armor or Any Robot or vehicle in tip top shape.

Ah I just remembered that Heroes Unlimited has robot options in it like SB one so you can look it over( Sometimes One book doesn't have everything you Need.)

Tigerman543 wrote:I could swear the Robotech Books, old ones had tables for Modifications just ignore protoculture and Mecha terms.

They do not. What you are thinking of are the repair tables form the Bio-Maintenance Engineer OCC (Bk5 pg11-12 and Sent. pg20-1), Bk5 (pg63) has limited rules for modifying motorcycles, but nothing for mecha out right. They do have modified mecha/vehicles in several of the books (BK2, BK3, Bk6r, Bk7, Bk8, and most of the adventure modules) which is what you might be thinking of.

Tigerman543 wrote:But if you have the right skills you can get a +1 to dodge or other GM Approved modifications if you keep Power Armor or Any Robot or vehicle in tip top shape.

There is actually some precedent for this in 1E RT in the NPC writeups, specifically Max Sterling (Bk1 pg106 "Max personally ses to it that his Veritech is at peak efficiency. He's also made some 'special' adjustments which makes his Veritech Fighter a little more versatile and maneuverable (+1 to parry, dodge, and roll).")

There isn't anything in the books, but your player character or NPC Operator could do some R&D during downtime; prototypes will eventually do what you want the upgrade to do, it just takes research and resources. You can also reverse-engineer stuff; my party did that when we fought the Mechanoids (and later, ARCHIE III).

ShadowLogan wrote:

Tigerman543 wrote:I could swear the Robotech Books, old ones had tables for Modifications just ignore protoculture and Mecha terms.

They do not. What you are thinking of are the repair tables form the Bio-Maintenance Engineer OCC (Bk5 pg11-12 and Sent. pg20-1), Bk5 (pg63) has limited rules for modifying motorcycles, but nothing for mecha out right. They do have modified mecha/vehicles in several of the books (BK2, BK3, Bk6r, Bk7, Bk8, and most of the adventure modules) which is what you might be thinking of.

Tigerman543 wrote:But if you have the right skills you can get a +1 to dodge or other GM Approved modifications if you keep Power Armor or Any Robot or vehicle in tip top shape.

There is actually some precedent for this in 1E RT in the NPC writeups, specifically Max Sterling (Bk1 pg106 "Max personally ses to it that his Veritech is at peak efficiency. He's also made some 'special' adjustments which makes his Veritech Fighter a little more versatile and maneuverable (+1 to parry, dodge, and roll).")

Most Likely,I feel really old when talking about Robotech. I remember some of those modules had Experimental weapon/tech and Different Mecha.

I'll have to rummage through my books but if it was a knock off or copy of a weapon or part I'd find it in a book and extrapolate from there. GMs guide has a great deal of equipment if you don't have the specific world books.

Equipment you might have to scour the books but a G.M. will figue out something.