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eliakon wrote:3) I am not sure why you feel the need to make this personal ("this is a scary concept...") nor why you seem to feel that those who do not share your opinion that this sort of thing is 'logical' are some how 'wrong'. Nor do I accept that 'something that can fry tech is bound to happen sooner or later.

HWalsh wrote:

eliakon wrote:3) I am not sure why you feel the need to make this personal ("this is a scary concept...") nor why you seem to feel that those who do not share your opinion that this sort of thing is 'logical' are some how 'wrong'. Nor do I accept that 'something that can fry tech is bound to happen sooner or later.

Eliakon - Logic isn't something that is up for debate.

HWalsh wrote:Is it logical that a massive, extremely threatening, superpower on a continent who absolutely poses a threat to every kingdom that isn't human supremist and shuns magic, wouldn't have their enemies look for the only way to potentially win against them? No, of course not.

HWalsh wrote:The only way anyone *could* beat the CS is:
1. A weapon that takes out the main advantage of the CS. (Numbers. You have to neutralize large numbers.)
2. Having large enough numbers to stand up to their numeric advantage. (I'm not even sure there are enough people in North America Rifts to do that.)

So, in North America, you have ARCHIE Three, who could do it, simply because he can match their numbers. You also have the bugs, which, lets be honest, would get steamrolled like everything else by the millions on top of millions on top of millions of CS troops. Heck they even have a guy who lead a squad through bug country relatively unharmed.

Tolkeen is gone... From what we can extrapolate even the demon armies can't stand up to the CS... What is left?

HWalsh wrote:To me, at least, North America Rifts would be much more interesting if the CS had actual competition. So there were 3+ super powers of near equal capability to keep the tension. As it is, really, it feels like the CS owns all, can beat anyone they want, and the only things that potentially pose a threat to them are either not moving on them (Atlantis) or most likely would lose (The bugs.)

flatline wrote:[In my own setting my solution was to turn each fortress city into its own city-state. The CS is a loose alliance of city-states who don't necessarily like each other or trust each other and are constantly trying to gain advantage over each other. Lots of intrigue, no unified army of fantastic proportions. Prosek is trying to unifiy the city-states, but hasn't gotten more than token commitments from any of the others.

--flatline

flatline wrote:

HWalsh wrote:To me, at least, North America Rifts would be much more interesting if the CS had actual competition. So there were 3+ super powers of near equal capability to keep the tension. As it is, really, it feels like the CS owns all, can beat anyone they want, and the only things that potentially pose a threat to them are either not moving on them (Atlantis) or most likely would lose (The bugs.)

In my own setting my solution was to turn each fortress city into its own city-state. The CS is a loose alliance of city-states who don't necessarily like each other or trust each other and are constantly trying to gain advantage over each other. Lots of intrigue, no unified army of fantastic proportions. Prosek is trying to unifiy the city-states, but hasn't gotten more than token commitments from any of the others.

--flatline

HWalsh wrote:You also have the bugs, which, lets be honest, would get steamrolled like everything else by the millions on top of millions on top of millions of CS troops. Heck they even have a guy who lead a squad through bug country relatively unharmed.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Hystrix wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:I calculated the number of bugs at about 1.2 billion total.
I mentioned the number to Kevin once, and he said "That sounds about right."

Granted, it was an off-hand, informal comment, but I take it to mean that I was in the ballpark.

I'd love to see your figures. I'm going off of WB 23.

If Kevin said it its hard to argue, but id love to see something more in writing. The Xiticix home world talks about hives having 500 million, but they dominate the whole planet. Rifts Earth bugs are in Northern Minnesota , Manitoba, and North and South Dakota. I'm not sure where they all fit.

Hey I reserve the right to be wrong about this, I'm just going off the book. Not everyone gets there info directly from KS.

Ask and ye shall receive!

I'm going off of WB23, but also off of Aftermath.
viewtopic.php?p=1909305#p1909305

Killer Cyborg wrote:Xiticix Invasion, p. 22-23:
When a xiticix colony reaches 300 million members, it splits into 1d6 new colonies, each of roughly the same size. Each of those colonies will keep growing until it exceeds 200 million in population.
The Duluth Hive is the largest hive colony on Rifts Earth, and it spawned the other five, which were each 4-6 years old in 105 PA.
This would imply that there are at least 300 million Xiticix on Rifts Earth, since the original Duluth colony got large enough to split into 6 equally populated hives, and then each hive had 4-6 years to grow.
Also, the Duluth Hive is once again large enough that it is still producing queens and seeking to establish new colonies (though the other colonies are still too small).
300 million originally, split 6 ways = 50 million per colony.
If the Duluth Hive is seeking to make new colonies because it's reached the 200 Million mark, then that's another +150 million bugs, not counting the growth the other colonies have achieved in that time (it's save to assume the Duluth Hive grew faster due to better infrastructure and resources).
So that's at least 450 million bugs.

P. 85 paints a much less chilling picture, estimating that there are (as of 105 PA) 3-4 million xiticix. The projected rate of growth would put their total population at 50 million by 110 PA.
These estimates, however, are in-game estimations made by the Coalition States; they only show what the CS believes to be the truth.
They do not over-ride the previous population numbers that come from the writers themselves.

And remember that the 450 million Xiticix estimate is based on the information in Xiticix Invasion, which took place in 105 PA.
In Aftermath, set 109 PA, (p. 69), it mentions:
"Left unchecked for these past four or five years, the Xiticix population has continued to explode, not quite at a geometric rate, but close to it. Soon, swarms from each hive will go forth with a new, young queen to start their own hive and increase the current Hivelands range by 33%."
Which means that as of 109 PA, each of the six Xiticix colonies has reached at least the 200 million population mark, making their total numbers a minimum of 1.2 Billion.

Alrik Vas wrote:

flatline wrote:

HWalsh wrote:To me, at least, North America Rifts would be much more interesting if the CS had actual competition. So there were 3+ super powers of near equal capability to keep the tension. As it is, really, it feels like the CS owns all, can beat anyone they want, and the only things that potentially pose a threat to them are either not moving on them (Atlantis) or most likely would lose (The bugs.)

In my own setting my solution was to turn each fortress city into its own city-state. The CS is a loose alliance of city-states who don't necessarily like each other or trust each other and are constantly trying to gain advantage over each other. Lots of intrigue, no unified army of fantastic proportions. Prosek is trying to unifiy the city-states, but hasn't gotten more than token commitments from any of the others.

--flatline

Is it still a human supremacist group? I don't see how the separated pieces of the CS could exist if they weren't friendlier. Without strong unification, no one is going to take them seriously and it would be expected that they'd have died off years ago.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Although I think somebody mentioned that 50k demons went after the xiticix, reducing the bug numbers by half somehow.
I don't have that book yet, so I can't really say if/how that went down.

HWalsh wrote:The computer created a nano-virus that made it so that any metal infected humans come into contact with becomes a hostile robot.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Splicers is also a precedent for an entire planet where magic doesn't really work, IIRC.

Nox Equites wrote:Each campaign breaks canon by existing.

Nox Equites wrote:I use the books I have as idea mines, not incontrovertible gospel

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Nightmask wrote:It was time for it to lose one when it went after Tolkeen. Everyone who should have gotten involved didn't, including bitter enemies of the CS who should have promptly attacked while it was busy with Tolkeen but instead bizarrely sat back and said 'gee I hate the CS for its history of persecuting and killing my kind and to show that hate I'm going to sit back and watch while they kill even more people like myself and do nothing else'.

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, and there's no sense wasting good blood after bad.
Tolkeen did get a LOT of support from enemies of the Coalition... it's just that that support didn't matter much in the long run.
More support still wouldn't have mattered much, except there'd be more dead bodies scattered around the smoking ruins of Tolkeen, and perhaps some more smoking ruins of other citystates that decided to get directly involved.

Again, the CS has more guys in SAMAS than most places have in their entire population.
They have more Dog Boys than the entire population of Tolkeen AND all the people who rushed to Tolkeen's aid.

Look at it like the US's recent activities in the Middle East.
Like the CS, we went to war with two nations at once.
Like the CS, we have many enemies who hate us.
Like the CS, we saw the people we were attacking bolstered by enemy forces from all around.
Like the CS, we pretty much crushed all hard opposition anyway.
Because, like the CS, we have a large and powerful enough nation, with enough high technology, that even the combined forces of our enemies aren't really going to stop us.

Do the math.
Look at the CS populations and their military numbers.
Look at the populations of their enemies.
Look at the technology differences.

As we're told from the outset (RMB 191):
The Coalition has the most powerful army in the known world. Their level of technology is unsurpassed in the Americas.
And that's NOT by a small margin.

The City of Dweomer has about 50k people as of 105 PA (FoM 17)
The Kingdom of Dunscon has about 31,500 people (FoM 32)
Magestar has <2k people (FoM 53)
Stormspire has <20k people (FoM 59)

So the Federations of Magic, even if they decided to all work together to chip in, and even if ever man/woman/child/creature decided to fight and was capable of it, could bring about 103,500 more bodies to the war.
That's a drop in the bucket.

New Lazlo (RUE 31) has a population of 86k today, but 34k of that are Tolkeen refugees, so their entire population was only about 50k before the SoT.

The city of Lazlo is one of the relative big-boys, boasting a population of 1.25 million people (RUE 21).

So let's just say that every man/woman/child/critter in these areas banded together. They'd have an army of 1,403,500 or so troops.
The Coalition States, back in 100-101 PA, had a minimum of 1,400,000 Dog Boys alone (SB1 12-13), and that's going off of the conservative numbers.
The numbers more likely were as high as 2.4 million Dog Boys, and "that number is growing by the day."

They also have around 3.2 million SAMAS pilots.
They also have at the very least least 1.6 million ISS Peacekeepers.
God only knows how many grunts they have, but (iirc) most of the million grunts used in the SoT were new recruits that didn't even really dip into the CS' regular numbers.

Do the math.
The CS has more disposable cannon fodder troops than they have enemies.
They have the overall best technology in North America.
They have the most resources.

And NOT by anything resembling small amount.

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Nightmask wrote:It was time for it to lose one when it went after Tolkeen. Everyone who should have gotten involved didn't, including bitter enemies of the CS who should have promptly attacked while it was busy with Tolkeen but instead bizarrely sat back and said 'gee I hate the CS for its history of persecuting and killing my kind and to show that hate I'm going to sit back and watch while they kill even more people like myself and do nothing else'.

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, and there's no sense wasting good blood after bad.
Tolkeen did get a LOT of support from enemies of the Coalition... it's just that that support didn't matter much in the long run.
More support still wouldn't have mattered much, except there'd be more dead bodies scattered around the smoking ruins of Tolkeen, and perhaps some more smoking ruins of other citystates that decided to get directly involved.

Again, the CS has more guys in SAMAS than most places have in their entire population.
They have more Dog Boys than the entire population of Tolkeen AND all the people who rushed to Tolkeen's aid.

Look at it like the US's recent activities in the Middle East.
Like the CS, we went to war with two nations at once.
Like the CS, we have many enemies who hate us.
Like the CS, we saw the people we were attacking bolstered by enemy forces from all around.
Like the CS, we pretty much crushed all hard opposition anyway.
Because, like the CS, we have a large and powerful enough nation, with enough high technology, that even the combined forces of our enemies aren't really going to stop us.

Do the math.
Look at the CS populations and their military numbers.
Look at the populations of their enemies.
Look at the technology differences.

As we're told from the outset (RMB 191):
The Coalition has the most powerful army in the known world. Their level of technology is unsurpassed in the Americas.
And that's NOT by a small margin.

The City of Dweomer has about 50k people as of 105 PA (FoM 17)
The Kingdom of Dunscon has about 31,500 people (FoM 32)
Magestar has <2k people (FoM 53)
Stormspire has <20k people (FoM 59)

So the Federations of Magic, even if they decided to all work together to chip in, and even if ever man/woman/child/creature decided to fight and was capable of it, could bring about 103,500 more bodies to the war.
That's a drop in the bucket.

New Lazlo (RUE 31) has a population of 86k today, but 34k of that are Tolkeen refugees, so their entire population was only about 50k before the SoT.

The city of Lazlo is one of the relative big-boys, boasting a population of 1.25 million people (RUE 21).

So let's just say that every man/woman/child/critter in these areas banded together. They'd have an army of 1,403,500 or so troops.
The Coalition States, back in 100-101 PA, had a minimum of 1,400,000 Dog Boys alone (SB1 12-13), and that's going off of the conservative numbers.
The numbers more likely were as high as 2.4 million Dog Boys, and "that number is growing by the day."

They also have around 3.2 million SAMAS pilots.
They also have at the very least least 1.6 million ISS Peacekeepers.
God only knows how many grunts they have, but (iirc) most of the million grunts used in the SoT were new recruits that didn't even really dip into the CS' regular numbers.

Do the math.
The CS has more disposable cannon fodder troops than they have enemies.
They have the overall best technology in North America.
They have the most resources.

And NOT by anything resembling small amount.

I agree. The Coalition is damn near unstoppable within the North American theater. I read your later post about the Xiticix and the Vamps, but even then, both creature types have limitations that Coalition science can exploit. Chemical weapons for the bugs, and manufactured monsoons for the Vamps.

Blue_Lion wrote:

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Nightmask wrote:It was time for it to lose one when it went after Tolkeen. Everyone who should have gotten involved didn't, including bitter enemies of the CS who should have promptly attacked while it was busy with Tolkeen but instead bizarrely sat back and said 'gee I hate the CS for its history of persecuting and killing my kind and to show that hate I'm going to sit back and watch while they kill even more people like myself and do nothing else'.

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, and there's no sense wasting good blood after bad.
Tolkeen did get a LOT of support from enemies of the Coalition... it's just that that support didn't matter much in the long run.
More support still wouldn't have mattered much, except there'd be more dead bodies scattered around the smoking ruins of Tolkeen, and perhaps some more smoking ruins of other citystates that decided to get directly involved.

Again, the CS has more guys in SAMAS than most places have in their entire population.
They have more Dog Boys than the entire population of Tolkeen AND all the people who rushed to Tolkeen's aid.

Look at it like the US's recent activities in the Middle East.
Like the CS, we went to war with two nations at once.
Like the CS, we have many enemies who hate us.
Like the CS, we saw the people we were attacking bolstered by enemy forces from all around.
Like the CS, we pretty much crushed all hard opposition anyway.
Because, like the CS, we have a large and powerful enough nation, with enough high technology, that even the combined forces of our enemies aren't really going to stop us.

Do the math.
Look at the CS populations and their military numbers.
Look at the populations of their enemies.
Look at the technology differences.

As we're told from the outset (RMB 191):
The Coalition has the most powerful army in the known world. Their level of technology is unsurpassed in the Americas.
And that's NOT by a small margin.

The City of Dweomer has about 50k people as of 105 PA (FoM 17)
The Kingdom of Dunscon has about 31,500 people (FoM 32)
Magestar has <2k people (FoM 53)
Stormspire has <20k people (FoM 59)

So the Federations of Magic, even if they decided to all work together to chip in, and even if ever man/woman/child/creature decided to fight and was capable of it, could bring about 103,500 more bodies to the war.
That's a drop in the bucket.

New Lazlo (RUE 31) has a population of 86k today, but 34k of that are Tolkeen refugees, so their entire population was only about 50k before the SoT.

The city of Lazlo is one of the relative big-boys, boasting a population of 1.25 million people (RUE 21).

So let's just say that every man/woman/child/critter in these areas banded together. They'd have an army of 1,403,500 or so troops.
The Coalition States, back in 100-101 PA, had a minimum of 1,400,000 Dog Boys alone (SB1 12-13), and that's going off of the conservative numbers.
The numbers more likely were as high as 2.4 million Dog Boys, and "that number is growing by the day."

They also have around 3.2 million SAMAS pilots.
They also have at the very least least 1.6 million ISS Peacekeepers.
God only knows how many grunts they have, but (iirc) most of the million grunts used in the SoT were new recruits that didn't even really dip into the CS' regular numbers.

Do the math.
The CS has more disposable cannon fodder troops than they have enemies.
They have the overall best technology in North America.
They have the most resources.

And NOT by anything resembling small amount.

I agree. The Coalition is damn near unstoppable within the North American theater. I read your later post about the Xiticix and the Vamps, but even then, both creature types have limitations that Coalition science can exploit. Chemical weapons for the bugs, and manufactured monsoons for the Vamps.

How does the CS manufacture monsoons? I did not think they had climate control, and to think they can do better than a rain god.

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Blue_Lion wrote:

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Nightmask wrote:It was time for it to lose one when it went after Tolkeen. Everyone who should have gotten involved didn't, including bitter enemies of the CS who should have promptly attacked while it was busy with Tolkeen but instead bizarrely sat back and said 'gee I hate the CS for its history of persecuting and killing my kind and to show that hate I'm going to sit back and watch while they kill even more people like myself and do nothing else'.

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, and there's no sense wasting good blood after bad.
Tolkeen did get a LOT of support from enemies of the Coalition... it's just that that support didn't matter much in the long run.
More support still wouldn't have mattered much, except there'd be more dead bodies scattered around the smoking ruins of Tolkeen, and perhaps some more smoking ruins of other citystates that decided to get directly involved.

Again, the CS has more guys in SAMAS than most places have in their entire population.
They have more Dog Boys than the entire population of Tolkeen AND all the people who rushed to Tolkeen's aid.

Look at it like the US's recent activities in the Middle East.
Like the CS, we went to war with two nations at once.
Like the CS, we have many enemies who hate us.
Like the CS, we saw the people we were attacking bolstered by enemy forces from all around.
Like the CS, we pretty much crushed all hard opposition anyway.
Because, like the CS, we have a large and powerful enough nation, with enough high technology, that even the combined forces of our enemies aren't really going to stop us.

Do the math.
Look at the CS populations and their military numbers.
Look at the populations of their enemies.
Look at the technology differences.

As we're told from the outset (RMB 191):
The Coalition has the most powerful army in the known world. Their level of technology is unsurpassed in the Americas.
And that's NOT by a small margin.

The City of Dweomer has about 50k people as of 105 PA (FoM 17)
The Kingdom of Dunscon has about 31,500 people (FoM 32)
Magestar has <2k people (FoM 53)
Stormspire has <20k people (FoM 59)

So the Federations of Magic, even if they decided to all work together to chip in, and even if ever man/woman/child/creature decided to fight and was capable of it, could bring about 103,500 more bodies to the war.
That's a drop in the bucket.

New Lazlo (RUE 31) has a population of 86k today, but 34k of that are Tolkeen refugees, so their entire population was only about 50k before the SoT.

The city of Lazlo is one of the relative big-boys, boasting a population of 1.25 million people (RUE 21).

So let's just say that every man/woman/child/critter in these areas banded together. They'd have an army of 1,403,500 or so troops.
The Coalition States, back in 100-101 PA, had a minimum of 1,400,000 Dog Boys alone (SB1 12-13), and that's going off of the conservative numbers.
The numbers more likely were as high as 2.4 million Dog Boys, and "that number is growing by the day."

They also have around 3.2 million SAMAS pilots.
They also have at the very least least 1.6 million ISS Peacekeepers.
God only knows how many grunts they have, but (iirc) most of the million grunts used in the SoT were new recruits that didn't even really dip into the CS' regular numbers.

Do the math.
The CS has more disposable cannon fodder troops than they have enemies.
They have the overall best technology in North America.
They have the most resources.

And NOT by anything resembling small amount.

I agree. The Coalition is damn near unstoppable within the North American theater. I read your later post about the Xiticix and the Vamps, but even then, both creature types have limitations that Coalition science can exploit. Chemical weapons for the bugs, and manufactured monsoons for the Vamps.

How does the CS manufacture monsoons? I did not think they had climate control, and to think they can do better than a rain god.

Use tech to make steam. Plasma weapons, lasers, burn coal, whatever. Steam is clouds in potential, followed by regular cloud seeding. The big limiter is access to power, something the golden age of man didn't want for. Once you've solved that, everything else is about wind patterns and just brute force over powering any of the problems that might arise.

In one of the war on Tolkeen books, it mentions that the CS was using modified plasma weapons to burn bodies on mass. Same concept, just up sized.

Blue_Lion wrote:So you are assuming they have an ability that the books do not say they do. In addition A rain god is loosing ground to them he has more direct control over rain.
At the level of heat of plasma it might split the water it to hygiene on oxygen and not produce steam. To me this is to much speculation without any canon support.

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Blue_Lion wrote:So you are assuming they have an ability that the books do not say they do. In addition A rain god is loosing ground to them he has more direct control over rain.
At the level of heat of plasma it might split the water it to hygiene on oxygen and not produce steam. To me this is to much speculation without any canon support.

I'm pretty sure the CS has access to steam generation technology. Energy generation is the only trick. And if you want canon support for that bit, consider a bow that shoots laser bolts generated by pulling a string pump...thingy. Back of Rifts spirit west. It's a MDC bow and laser arrow system.

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Blue_Lion wrote:So you are assuming they have an ability that the books do not say they do. In addition A rain god is loosing ground to them he has more direct control over rain.
At the level of heat of plasma it might split the water it to hygiene on oxygen and not produce steam. To me this is to much speculation without any canon support.

I'm pretty sure the CS has access to steam generation technology.

The Artist Formerly wrote:

Blue_Lion wrote:So you are assuming they have an ability that the books do not say they do. In addition A rain god is loosing ground to them he has more direct control over rain.
At the level of heat of plasma it might split the water it to hygiene on oxygen and not produce steam. To me this is to much speculation without any canon support.

I'm pretty sure the CS has access to steam generation technology. Energy generation is the only trick. And if you want canon support for that bit, consider a bow that shoots laser bolts generated by pulling a string pump...thingy. Back of Rifts spirit west. It's a MDC bow and laser arrow system.

Killer Cyborg wrote:
Splicers is also a precedent for an entire planet where magic doesn't really work, IIRC.

The Artist Formerly wrote:
I'm pretty sure the CS has access to steam generation technology.

Killer Cyborg wrote:The CS retired 3.2 million old-style SAMAS when the new styles came out.
Which means that they have ~3.2 million SAMAS Pilots.

Kagashi wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:The CS retired 3.2 million old-style SAMAS when the new styles came out.
Which means that they have ~3.2 million SAMAS Pilots.

Not sure I agree with the logic here. Just because you have the hardware, does not mean you have the same number of bodies. While going up against things like dragons, that same pilot might go through 5 suits before either he is killed or the dragon is killed. The CS may have just cranked out suits knowing they would be damaged and replaced quickly, utilizing the same core of pilots.

Or you can look at it the same way the USAF uses aircraft where there are an overwhelming number of pilots than actual aircraft. Unlike the past, or like anime like Robotech, individual aircraft are not assigned to a pilot or crew. Rather a pilot or crew are assigned a particular tail for that specific mission. If this is the case of how the CS runs things, there might be 5 times the number of pilots than SAMAS (although based on the other canon numbers we have for other categories would suggest that having 16 million pilots is a bit ridiculous).

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Kagashi wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:The CS retired 3.2 million old-style SAMAS when the new styles came out.
Which means that they have ~3.2 million SAMAS Pilots.

Not sure I agree with the logic here. Just because you have the hardware, does not mean you have the same number of bodies. While going up against things like dragons, that same pilot might go through 5 suits before either he is killed or the dragon is killed. The CS may have just cranked out suits knowing they would be damaged and replaced quickly, utilizing the same core of pilots.

Possible, but not how any military I know of has worked at any time in history.
And the odds of one pilot living through multiple suit destructions seems pretty low... at least, low enough that the CS probably wouldn't base their logistics on the assumption that things would typically pan out that way.

Or you can look at it the same way the USAF uses aircraft where there are an overwhelming number of pilots than actual aircraft. Unlike the past, or like anime like Robotech, individual aircraft are not assigned to a pilot or crew. Rather a pilot or crew are assigned a particular tail for that specific mission. If this is the case of how the CS runs things, there might be 5 times the number of pilots than SAMAS (although based on the other canon numbers we have for other categories would suggest that having 16 million pilots is a bit ridiculous).

Yes. That is also possible... but I'd assume that the ratio wouldn't be nearly that large with the military proper.


Edit
Keep in mind the following things:
1. CS Grunts can and do pilot SAMAS suits. So I was discussing pilots overall, not just the SAMAS Pilot OCC.
2. The SAMAS Pilot OCC also pilots Sky Cycles, Enforcers, and other stuff. So not all of them will actually be using SAMAS.

Blue_Lion wrote:To me the CS grunt piloting PA seams odd, and out of theme. Looking at the overall skills it appears they where building an 11M but gave them robot combat instead of weapon systems skill. They can pilot tanks and APC but lack the skill to shoot the main weapons, while they learned to fight in PA but do not have pilot skills for it.

flatline wrote:

Blue_Lion wrote:To me the CS grunt piloting PA seams odd, and out of theme. Looking at the overall skills it appears they where building an 11M but gave them robot combat instead of weapon systems skill. They can pilot tanks and APC but lack the skill to shoot the main weapons, while they learned to fight in PA but do not have pilot skills for it.

Perhaps a new thread to discuss how to reconcile the CS Grunt skills in a way that makes sense?

--flatline

flatline wrote:

The Artist Formerly wrote:
I'm pretty sure the CS has access to steam generation technology.

Converting millions of gallons of water into steam will make the local area pretty soggy, but the vast majority of that moisture will never make it high enough into the atmosphere to contribute to rainfall of any kind.

At best, the CS could try to "seed" clouds to encourage existing atmospheric moisture to become rain, but I do not see this being effective or reliable enough to be a useful weapon against the vampires.

--flatline

Blue_Lion wrote:What you are giving them is more than just a steam generation system. The bow you pointed out is something allot of people think as broken. The two alone do not give the CS control over weather, you are using your own logic to justify giving the CS power they do not have in any books.

So I say you have no Canon support for giving the CS the ability to manipulate weather this way. So I find your statement that the CS can do it is in error.

If it could be done easily Atlantis would have done it (they hate vampires.)

The south American nation fighting them would have done it. (Think it was the silver republic or something like that.)

The Smeging rain god that is loosing ground to them would have done it.

Use of such a weapon would violate Canon CS policy on the non use of environmentally damaging weapons. (apparently putting a nuke core in every peace of gear is ok but can't shoot weapons that might affect the environment.)

flatline wrote:

The Artist Formerly wrote:
I'm pretty sure the CS has access to steam generation technology.

Converting millions of gallons of water into steam will make the local area pretty soggy, but the vast majority of that moisture will never make it high enough into the atmosphere to contribute to rainfall of any kind.

At best, the CS could try to "seed" clouds to encourage existing atmospheric moisture to become rain, but I do not see this being effective or reliable enough to be a useful weapon against the vampires.

--flatline

Subjugator wrote:The problem I see the CS having to fight with this has nothing to do with steam and such and everything to do with the fact that the Vamps can have several hundred thousand new vampires fighting on their side in three days.

That was mentioned by Kev as an offhand comment at GenCon when the revised VK books came out.

/Sub

Kagashi wrote:

Subjugator wrote:The problem I see the CS having to fight with this has nothing to do with steam and such and everything to do with the fact that the Vamps can have several hundred thousand new vampires fighting on their side in three days.

That was mentioned by Kev as an offhand comment at GenCon when the revised VK books came out.

/Sub

VK?

flatline wrote:I don't care how much water you turn into steam, most of it will condense right there and turn back into liquid water. Very little of it will make it high enough into the atmosphere to become rain.

--flatline

eliakon wrote:Yes, it is theoretically possible for a specific GM to extrapolate that the CS has the ability to alter the weather sufficiently to cause rain on demand. However just because it could, in theory, be justified by extrapolation of existing canon technology does not mean that it is possible to argue that canon supports that the CS has the ability to do so. There are too many unknowns and variables that would require either a canon ruling or a GMs ruling before it is more than just a potential theoretical 'what if' exercise.