Forums of the Megaverse®

Posted: **Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:00 am**

I've been GMing Rifts since '90 and have just about every Rifts World Book, Source Book and Dimensional Book, but for some reason can't find any information on any type of Planet Destroyer weapons. I know they've actually mentioned something about them in AU with the Atorian Empire, but I can't find any stats on these weapons.

Any help on finding these or what others have created themselves would be appreciated.

Thans in advance.

Posted: **Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:33 pm**

Well that would explain why I couldn't find anything.

Does anyone have any that they've created themselves?

Posted: **Wed Dec 20, 2006 6:59 pm**

Weapons of Planetary Mass Destruction (WPMDs) are used as intriguing HLS hooks or giant guillotine blades that are held over PCs' heads in super- high-stakes games with the survival of worlds hanging in the balance. In which case, calculating damage is useless....Instead, ominous long recharge times, radiation spikes, wicked ships sporting really HUMUNGOUS BFGs, deceptively innocent-looking objects that can be held in the hand(and juggled for effect), or other exotic effects to make PCs sweat are what you're looking for.

Darkmax's big Draco Mechanized Destroyer(or the old Chimaera images) MIGHT be a visual basis for a BFG weapon if you're planning on hunting Demon Planets, but finding some magical artifact(the Holy Handgrenade of Bayonne) could also be used....

Typically, though, big antimatter weapons, black holes, supernovae, stellar pulsar cannons, sterilizing radiation beams, planetary gravitational dampeners, Expanding Overlaying Dimension bombs, and relativistic velocity asteroid-bombs are examples of super-planet killers, or just swarm the planet with dirty nukes....

Posted: **Wed Dec 20, 2006 7:17 pm**

GreenGhost wrote:Well that would explain why I couldn't find anything.

Does anyone have any that they've created themselves?

what'd be the point of statting it out?

Damage: however much is needed.

Wee...there ya go :roll:

Seriously, what kind of stats CAN go with it?

Posted: **Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:22 pm**

Nekira Sudacne wrote:
GreenGhost wrote:Well that would explain why I couldn't find anything.

Does anyone have any that they've created themselves?

what'd be the point of statting it out?

Damage: however much is needed.

Wee...there ya go

Seriously, what kind of stats CAN go with it?

Range: Long enough to get you unless you got some way of a) leaving the planet immediately, or b) moving the entire planet immediately

Damage: Do you believe in reincarnation? More importantly, does the GM believe in reincarnation?

Rate of Fire: Once is enough, thank you...any more is wasted overkill.

Payload: Just how many planets are you aiming to take out today, anyways?

Posted: **Wed Dec 20, 2006 9:27 pm**

It would actaully be much easier to destroy all life on a planet, rather than destroy the planet itself.

For example, seeding some kind of super virus or radiation into the air that kills off the population with no hope of cure or inoculation.

in Krawford Killian's books, an orbital laser is fired at the surface of the Earth, and stays on for 17 days. As the planet rotates below it, the beam boils off the atmosphere, killing every one. The people die, but the Earth abides...

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:34 am**

Hi there!

I hope that I will not violate any copyrights...

...so, long-long ago in a galaxy far-far away,
there were planet destroyer weapons, at least
two of them.

Now, in that galaxy, those aforementioned
superweapons were statted by an RPG (d6 SW,
by West End) - and without details they were a bit taxed
to take out dreadnoughts. I mean if it hit it could take
out one or two per day, but then there was a lenghty
recharge time.

Now, given the fact, that the warships in the Megaverzum
are less enviromental friendly (you know: MD), I would
take and educated guess, and say, that a battleship
(or a dreadnought for that matter) which is stated to
be able to "shatter a small moon" and can withstand several
hits from its own main weapons is able

a, to penetrate a planet's crust, and
b, maybe survive a glancing blow from a planet-destroyer
superweapon (survive? yes, crippled? positively).

Thats all, IMO. And this gives you a rought guideline for stats.

Adios
KLM

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:27 am**

Hi there!

Mind you, that the Protectors and the Doombringers are already
capable to "devastate a planet"... While this might not mean
"blast to pieces" or "make it uninhabitable for carbon-based
lifeforms", just a post WWII Dresden-like state... Who cares?

So, Pandora's Box is creaking open.

On the other hand... After WWI humanity was capable to
wipe itself from the planet (via chemical warfare - there
were enough weapons to make the planet uninhabitable
according to some source). Did it stop wars?

Adios
KLM

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:21 am**

Mr. Pook wrote:Instead of a variety of factions waging more or less conventional warfare, it would become more of a Cold War 'Mutually Assured Destruction' environment.

But that's exactly what's going on.

Both the TGE and the CCW are quite capable of destroying each others planets. If the Kreeghor send 20 Berserkers into orbit, and each fire one maximum volley, thats 400 antimatter torpedos going off (with each one of those being equal in explosive power to 1 megaton and having the exact same effects in an atmosphere as a real world nuke.) That world is now pretty much uninhabitable for a long time.

So obviously, you need to either have a fleet or some kind of planetary defense in orbit to stop such a "slagging". So the CCW builds a big protective fleet, and the Kreeghor, because they see enemies everywhere and generally have a real inferiority complex, simply have to build a bigger fleet.

Now its an arms race. Its been stated in one of the books (PW Sourcebook maybe?) that the Kreeghor Emperor knows that total war against the CCW will destroy the Empire in the process. And the CCW is so afraid of going into full-out conflict with the TGE that they will do pretty much anything to avoid it. Both sides have stalemated each other for the time being, leaving lots of opportunity for Player Characters to get involved in Tom Clancy-esque adventures in the Corkscrew Galaxy.

Now, as for the smaller power blocs... yes, people like the Golgan, the UWW, the FWC, and others are still fighting conventional wars. But the big boys cannot take much action against each other without plunging the Three Galaxies into total war again.

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 10:41 am**

You can effectively destroy a planet without literally breaking it apart. You can make it inhospitable (or at least the living conditions uninviting).

I want the players/characters to be able to go to a planet that was "destroyed" in this way so they can see the devastation and see, themselves what actual affects that it had on the terrain (craters, cleared and burnt vegitation and wilderness, possible bodies on the outskirts of the blast radius, etc.). I'm looking for the whole effect (drama, visualization and crater radiuses) of something like this.

I know a lot of gamers aren't into this kind of detail, but it's what my players are interested in- therefore I try and provide.

I don't want to sit and roll damage on an entire planet- :lol:

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:45 pm**

Another way of destroying a planet without DESTROYING the planet

Like in WH40k; use tailored fast-acting virus weapons, saturate the planet, and wait for all life to self destruct.

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:16 pm**

given the power of gravitic drives in phase world, if your looking for a planet killer, just strap a few dreadnought drives to a large asteroid and point it at the planet. push a few gigatons of rock at someone and not only will they not be able to stop it in time, but your guaranteed to do extinction level damage to the planet. sure, it'll be over time, and the planetary population can evacuate, but you've rendered the planet untenable for centuries.

and unless they are willing to pull their entire fleet to move people offworld, they can't even evacuate most worlds.

truely evil foes would be launching several rocks at each world, attacking multiple worlds at a time.

Posted: **Thu Dec 21, 2006 7:17 pm**

Mr. Pook wrote:Although all logic screams against there being no planet killers (we could destroy our own planet right now through nuclear or biological warfare), it would completely change the dynamic of the Phase World setting.

Instead of a variety of factions waging more or less conventional warfare, it would become more of a Cold War 'Mutually Assured Destruction' environment. In a setting so vast, there would be no real way to prevent any particular faction from obtaining these weapons and using them to achieve their goals.

It isn't that they logically shouldn't exist. It is simply that they would add a complexity to the game that players and GMs can't really account for.

Agreed....The CCW and TGE have the technology to construct planet-killers but not the motivation....the CCW wouldn't unless the TGE was clearly out of control, and the TGE wants to take over, not annihilate(or rather it wants, at the behest of the Lurker, to CONSUME)....THis doesn't rule out weapons of terror like radiation projectors or viruses that do the job slowly, so witnesses can report the consequences of messing with the TGE, but wholesale, sudden, planet-death doesn't appeal to them except in the most depraved Imperial fantasies....

The best known Palladium planet-killers are, of course, the Mechanoids, but they're slow and methodical, stripping and coring a planet like an apple and extracting as much as they can from it, before vaporizing it.

Posted: **Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:51 am**

taalismn wrote:
Mr. Pook wrote:Although all logic screams against there being no planet killers (we could destroy our own planet right now through nuclear or biological warfare), it would completely change the dynamic of the Phase World setting.

Instead of a variety of factions waging more or less conventional warfare, it would become more of a Cold War 'Mutually Assured Destruction' environment. In a setting so vast, there would be no real way to prevent any particular faction from obtaining these weapons and using them to achieve their goals.

It isn't that they logically shouldn't exist. It is simply that they would add a complexity to the game that players and GMs can't really account for.

The Atorian Empire are known to use "Planet Destroyers." I was just looking for information on possible crater sizes, not so much actual "Damage Rolled."

Agreed....The CCW and TGE have the technology to construct planet-killers but not the motivation....the CCW wouldn't unless the TGE was clearly out of control, and the TGE wants to take over, not annihilate(or rather it wants, at the behest of the Lurker, to CONSUME)....THis doesn't rule out weapons of terror like radiation projectors or viruses that do the job slowly, so witnesses can report the consequences of messing with the TGE, but wholesale, sudden, planet-death doesn't appeal to them except in the most depraved Imperial fantasies....

The best known Palladium planet-killers are, of course, the Mechanoids, but they're slow and methodical, stripping and coring a planet like an apple and extracting as much as they can from it, before vaporizing it.

Posted: **Fri Dec 22, 2006 2:23 pm**

I screwed up

Posted: **Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:18 pm**

If you're looking for crater sizes, the old Robotech books have some ideas for the craters in the wastelands left by orbital bombardment, and the Three Galaxies sourcebook has stats for craters left by the Massdriver weapon...For the 'Planet Killer' give it 5-10 times that size....Or look at the estimates for the ancient crater left by the 'Dinosaur Killer' that slammed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, or maybe the Yellowstone super-volcano would make a good comparison...

Of course, with a deep enough crater, you risk cracking the mantle, in which case figure on massive amounts of light-blocking gases and debris being thrown up into the atmosphere...Nuclear winter looks tame in comparison...

Posted: **Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:01 am**

I think another factor in lack of PW worldkiller weapons are the Promeathens. Who knows what there later stages are capable of(I kind of run them like asended beings) they might of at some point(early in the formation of the CCW and TGE) forced each side to sign a treaty preventing the creation of world killers.

Posted: **Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:14 pm**

They might have that ability, but that would be up to each Gm what sort of upper limits the 2nd stagers might have.

Posted: **Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:54 pm**

For those intending to lay waste to an eart sized planet: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

Posted: **Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:15 pm**

They'd have to get their hands on some serious on the edge technology.