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Ok, I noticed something about almost all of the Kittani small arms (Not counting the undersea ones); Just about all of the Kittani weapons listed in the Atlantis book are knock-offs of some other manufacturer (Wilks, Coalition, Triax, Juicer rifles). Now I can understand the Kittani not wanting to sell their frontline small arms on the Market, but what do the Kittani in the Three Galaxies use? Klynncryth, Desslyth, Rynncryyl (lol) and the others don't generally even likely know about Rifts earth manufacturers.

Do 3G Kittani just use a Kittani manufactured version of say the HI lasers? (It mentions the HI's were "Adopted by many armies")

Another option is the Kreeghor/TGE Energy Pulse weapons. These seem to be a similar style weapon to some of the Kittani items and they could well be Kreeghor copies of the weapons they saw when they were minions. Either of these sound legit, or maybe both. (The EP weapons are really short range)

What do people think? It just seems implausible that the actual Kittani raiders/conquerors would use basically second line gear from a pre-FTL world.

Postscript: Another thing came to mind considering the Kittani thing for plasma. Maybe the Kittani reverse-engineered the Thinman plasma rifle used by the Mechanoids? (1d4x10 M.D./4,000' range (!) ) Would make some sense considering they fought the Mechanoids for so long.

I'm good with all that.

I'm leaning towards The Energy Pulse weapons for close-quarters combat units, Ship's Troops, security etc. Then the HI lasers (K-80?) for frontline infantry, and lastly the K-15 reverse engineered mechanoid rifle for Power armor troops and as a designated marksman rifle.

One thing the K-4 has going for it, is its range of 3,000 feet vs the HI-80's 2,000 feet.

I look at the Kittani having a different focus weapons wise to most powers in the 3Gs. For example, take the plasma melee weapons. They are multi-purpose(melee and ranged), and often make good sidearms. Some self recharge like the Plasma Lance, which also has really good range, if meh damage. Even the more standard rifles often have grenade launchers and all as standard.

What I would like to see is a bit more expansion....another railgun/GG type option would make sense to me.

Most likely Naruni.

A good direction to take Kittani weapon development would be to start with the question, "What would do the most damage to the Mechanoids'?

taalismn wrote:A good direction to take Kittani weapon development would be to start with the question, "What would do the most damage to the Mechanoids'?

Oh son.....

I just found my new campaign!

What you have to remember is that, and I know it says this in Atlantis, is that the Splugorth limit Kittani weapons development.

taalismn wrote:A good direction to take Kittani weapon development would be to start with the question, "What would do the most damage to the Mechanoids'?

This is the wrong question given the Kittani's place in Spugorth society.

The correct question is "do superior weapons make the Kittani better minions, or more dangerous in terms of revolt."

To me the weapons they have are likely to be good enough. Remember they do not go into battle alone so where you and I look at the weapons mix and say "oh they need projectile weapons for supernatural creatures that are resistant to energy and fire" the Splugorth thinks "that's what I have Power Lords and tattooed men for". IMO

MidnightNova wrote:What do people think? It just seems implausible that the actual Kittani raiders/conquerors would use basically second line gear from a pre-FTL world.

Are you factoring this bit from WB2 (pg35) "Advanced Kittani Energy Weapons (all the usual) are typically 20% lighter, have an increased range of 20% and inflict an additional 1d6 M.D., but also cost twice as much as their more common counter parts." 3G based Kittani factions could be using this, with the mass market models more comparable to "Earth" standard.

I would also point out that the 3G is only really at best 100years head of them in terms of Rifts Earth Human factions in weapons development (and some of them like Triax and the CS by a few decades), which has supposedly stagnated in the 3G(per DB3 pg114).

In addition, in terms of performance, the man-portable laser/ion weapons of the Kittani aren't too dissimilar to the HI-Rifles in DB3, and that is w/o considering the above buried note.

Warshield73 wrote:
The correct question is "do superior weapons make the Kittani better minions, or more dangerous in terms of revolt."

To me the weapons they have are likely to be good enough. Remember they do not go into battle alone so where you and I look at the weapons mix and say "oh they need projectile weapons for supernatural creatures that are resistant to energy and fire" the Splugorth thinks "that's what I have Power Lords and tattooed men for". IMO

True...THe Splugorth likely are avoiding the Mechanoids whenever possible because they may be one of the few non-god-tier forces the Splugorth may fear. No need to develop weapons against a foe we're putting multiple universes between when we got so many other more immediate foes to fight now, boys?

But, and here we venture into adventure hook territory, either a secret cabal of Kittani are researching and developing anti-Mechanoid weapons just in case, or the Splugorth may occasionally sequester some Kittani to develop them, again, just in case, then wipe the researchers and store away the plans....The Sunaj learn of this(provided they aren't put in charge of 'sanitizing' the projects in the first place) or some other party gets wind of the weaponry and sets out to acquire them.