M.D.C. Bunkers

[IGNG]

My party has recently liberated a stretch of coast along the Gulf of Mexico. We are looking to fortify the population centers in the area so that we can go back to murder hoboeing. Unfortunately most of the fortifications in rifts aren't priced and the ones that are priced, are either outside of our ability to build or are horribly outside of our price range (looking at you megacrete). We are looking for rules regarding the construction of MDC town walls and WW1 style pillboxes.

[ShadowLogan]

I don't think you'll find any rules for walls/pillboxes per say.

MercOps does have construction material costs, but it seems to be out of your price range as you stated. Can you get a price discount for buying in bulk from the GM?

Depending on the skills/abilities of your party (or how deep your pockets run to hire an NPC), you could use magic to make permanent MDC walls cheaply (Iron Wood) or to give an "idea" of how much protection stone walls provide. Or a TW could do it (with right materials and spell knowledge, and I'm pretty sure they have the spell knowledge covered), etc.

Alternatively if you have RMB or SDC settings, check out the SDC tables for generic items. While not true MDC, they can addup and soak minor damage. Which you can repair and might be "cheaper" (Prices in Palladium don't always make much sense).

[IGNG]

We have a TW and a line walker so an iron wood TW item is a possibility. Does anyone know what the sdc of a cubic foot/meter of wood is? The door in the description is listed as 170 SDC. Is this normal?

[ShadowLogan]

Yes the SDC door is "normal" for an exterior wood door (interior wood door is less). It should be noted that a normal exterior wood wall has more than an interior wood door, but less than an exterior wood door. At least going off of the basic S.D.C. Table in RMB (pg36), why such a table isn't in Rifts Ulimate Edition I don't know. If you want to avoid overlap, similar tables can be found in S.D.C. setting main books (Heroes Unlimited, Palladium Fantasy, etc) or even the old MDC Robotech (1E) or Macross 2 books IIRC.

With a Technowizard in the party, their devices don't necessarily have to result in a permanent wall, you could use them to create a structure as needed, it just depends on the spells available. They could make the device ley line powered, PPE fed powered, PPE-clip powered, ISP powered. Some of which increase the number of people who can make use of the device.

[IGNG]

RMB (pg36),

Thank you! I've been using the Ultimate Edition for this game (over a year) so it never occurred to me to take the older book off the shelf.

Iron wood is doable, unfortunately getting our hands on that spell may be time consuming and annoying. I doubt mexico city sells that spell. I don't suppose there is anything more explicit on how Tolkeen made the earth bunkers and stone spires than the vague description about enslaved elementals that I found?

[ShadowLogan]

Keep in mind though that "Ironwood" spell use is just an option, though including it in a TW device might be more PPE efficient to construct wood walls that trying to do it via regular spell casting.

A TW has other options they could attempt though with the spells they have as a base. They could use Armor of Ithan, Magic Shield, or Energy Field to enchant/protect a regular wall, even temporarily. So don't get to hung up on the idea of a single spell use when it comes to Technowizards, they can essentially bend notions on how a spell is to be used and even alter parameters to a certain extent (in RUE they use Carpet of Adhesion for increase traction on tires, they reduce the strength for increased duration), especially if you combine it with other spells (ex in RUE uses the Flaming Sword and how the spells work together).

As far as Tolken goes, no I don't know off hand of any further information. You might try the Rifts forum directly, more people frequent it than the Q&A section and someone might know something more, but I don't think hard rules for construction are going to be easy to come by if they exist at all for this type of thing.

[guardiandashi]

another "trick" to get the cost down would be to manufacture your own stuff (similar to the ironwood idea) use "salvaged materials" and or just say the bunkers and pillboxes don't "need" to be MDC.

build them out of SDC materials and especially if you are planning to leave and not come back... LIE about how good the defensive works are.. IE its "really all sdc" except for the "command bunker" the party was intending to use, but tell them its all made out of the same MDC materials, or the reinforcing metal plates in the (poured concrete) walls is MDC material, when its really just SDC sheet metal, or salvaged SDC plating, or its just a single 10MDC sheet of MDC armor, but you tell them it should (based on what the supplier told you) stop a glitterboy boomgun blast (ya right)

If on the other hand you are planning to stick around I know there was information somewhere on SDC construction and fortification materials like sandbags and the like I also seem to remember that there was also "mdc" sandbags IE the bag has around 1-4 MDC but you fill it with sand and it works "fairly well" I mean it won't really stop a railgun or other heavy weapon (for more than a shot or 2) but its still better than nothing.