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jaymz wrote:IE Where are the really low end MDC combat vehicles and PA's that there were likely many of lying around in various National Guard depots etc?

Either used up and/or destroyed during the CotR/Dark Ages, or the States hadn't recieved many from the Federal Gov before the CotR (my guess is both).

if it is just technological advancements then who better than hardwares to develop it? the super tech geniuses?

jaymz wrote:KC - I agree.....but what I mean is not neccessarily the progression from SDC to MDC per se but in how MDC was implemented over time.

IE Where are the really low end MDC combat vehicles and PA's that there were likely many of lying around in various National Guard depots etc? These would have been the first and possibly still reproduced MDC units out there.

May not be any/many.
Perhaps by the time we were able to make armor with 5 MDC, it was just as easy to make it with 25+ MDC.
Same with weapons.

Though I certainly agree that it would be more interesting to explore these earlier prototypes and other experiments.

I honestly don't have a problem over all with poof we have MDC (other than things we have previously spoken about and my assertion that 10-1 is just as power increasing in most respects as 100-1 but that is a different debate altogether ) just the haphazard way it seems to be implemented through the game is all but that is my position on it. This is KillWatch's thread so I'll let him define what he is looking

I agree that it's implemented in a haphazard manner, and there could be a lot of fixing.

Killer Cyborg wrote:
May not be any/many.
Perhaps by the time we were able to make armor with 5 MDC, it was just as easy to make it with 25+ MDC.
Same with weapons.

Though I certainly agree that it would be more interesting to explore these earlier prototypes and other experiments.

Maybe that is what GAW and Chipwell sell? It would certainly allow for a wider variety of low end MD weapons and MDC armours to be available and be more affordable too....

Buckets o Dice:
easy fix: something does 6000 points of damage max. Roll 1d6 and 4d10. That is damage.
In case I am not being clear, if you roll a 5,2,9,4, you do 5294 damage
if you roll 6,8,7,2 then you do 872 points of damage
if you roll 6,0,0,0, you do 6000 damage

even simpler, grenades do 1d4x10 do a multiplier
1d6x1000, 10,000 etc

I can understand MDC as a concept in RT because it is so far in the future. but the MDC only refers to military craft, like you said, not people and every day items.

Splynnys Girlfriend wrote:

KillWatch wrote:We all like or even love palladium. There are some things we dislike or even really cause us to go into frantic rantings (not pointing the finger at anyone-namely me), but this discussion is meant to ferret out a reason for MDC, or express your findings with its shortcomings. Saying "because" is pointless because we know it's in the books. I wanted to know if I was alone in my consternation, or if someone could satisfactorily explain it-which I just wasn't counting on but it could happen

the reason for MDC was to be damage scalin in Robotech so combat with spaceships & giant bots & stuff woudnt involve buckets o dice.

its shortcomings happened in rifts when they forgot what MDC was suposed to be for & started givin MDC stats to oodles of people-scale stuff & started makin all sortsa new critters & gear where its hard to tell if they oughta be considered people-scale or big-scale.

Actually, that started in Robotech.

the reason for 'mdc materials' bein an in-game concept in Rifts was plain bad writin

I'm mostly with you on this.
On the other hand, when roleplaying it was annoying to find in-game ways of having a character say, "So... is the gun you want to sell me Mega-Damage, or what?"
Part of the thing about the gap between MDC and SDC is that there probably would be some kind of term for it in the game world.

But yeah, I still don't like that they did that.

KillWatch wrote:I can understand MDC as a concept in RT because it is so far in the future. but the MDC only refers to military craft, like you said, not people and every day items.

That's how it's supposed to be in Rifts too, it's just that a lot of gamers and writers seem to forget that.

KillWatch wrote:I can understand MDC as a concept in RT because it is so far in the future.

Huh?! The SDF3 leaves Earth August 2022. The Coming of the Rifts happened December 2098.

The Beast wrote:

KillWatch wrote:I can understand MDC as a concept in RT because it is so far in the future.

Huh?! The SDF3 leaves Earth August 2022. The Coming of the Rifts happened December 2098.

Difference being in Robotech they had alien superscience help them not just technological development. Each settings timeline is actually quite irrelevant to the discussion regardless of the statement by KillWatch in this case.

What many of us would like to see is some sort of progression from SDC to MDC. Not just tada we have MDC. In Robotech you can go TADA we have MDC due to the alien superscience. Not so much in Rifts or the timeframe that led to Rifts.

Splynnys Girlfriend wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Splynnys Girlfriend wrote:
the reason for MDC was to be damage scalin in Robotech so combat with spaceships & giant bots & stuff woudnt involve buckets o dice.

its shortcomings happened in rifts when they forgot what MDC was suposed to be for & started givin MDC stats to oodles of people-scale stuff & started makin all sortsa new critters & gear where its hard to tell if they oughta be considered people-scale or big-scale.

Actually, that started in Robotech.

yeah i already got your back there bro

I meant that that they started giving MDC gear to stuff other than spaceships and giant bots back in Robotech.
Macross was okay, but by the time Invid Invasion came out, standard body armor had 50 MDC and was laser resistant.
IIRC, there was some stuff in Southern Cross as well.

By the time Sentinels rolled around, all the basics were there:
Carbonarite body armor had 75 MDC
Praxians had explosive crossbow bolts and Spherians had laser wands that could inflict 2d4 MD.
Psychics could do 2d6 MD with a Mind Bolt, more damage than you can do in Rifts
Perytonian Wizards could Call Lightning for 2d6+1d6/level MD (again, more than Rifts), Energy Bolt inflicted 1d6 MD to start, and up to 5d6 MD by level 12. They could summon invisible armor for 100 MDC + 10 MDC per level, better than AoI, or summon a version of Energy Field with 60 MDC +10/level.
Limpet mines did 1d4x10 MD, cobalt grenades did 1d6 MD.
The SAL-9 matched the range of the C-18, inflicted 1d6 (same as a Wilk's 320), and 45 shots per clip.
The M-37 Auto-pistol fired explosive bullets for 1d4 MD, the Badget SMG could fire the same rounds, the old Woverine Assault rifle could launch 2d6 MD grenades.
The FAL-2 laser pulse rifle could fire up to 40 shots for 2d6 MD each, and it was "quite common."
There was the RL-2 Rocket Cannon that launched plasma mini-misiles.
And the Gallant energy weapon could hold its own pretty well in Rifts, even now.
And a bunch of other stuff that I don't feel like refreshing my memory about right now.

When Rifts first came out, a lot of the human-scaled Mega-Damage gear was more powerful than the Robotech stuff, but not by a heck of a lot, and some of it was less powerful.
While power creep started taking over Rifts pretty quickly, it started off pretty reasonable, more so than Robotech in some regards (if less so in others).

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Splynnys Girlfriend wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

Splynnys Girlfriend wrote:
the reason for MDC was to be damage scalin in Robotech so combat with spaceships & giant bots & stuff woudnt involve buckets o dice.

its shortcomings happened in rifts when they forgot what MDC was suposed to be for & started givin MDC stats to oodles of people-scale stuff & started makin all sortsa new critters & gear where its hard to tell if they oughta be considered people-scale or big-scale.

Actually, that started in Robotech.

yeah i already got your back there bro

I meant that that they started giving MDC gear to stuff other than spaceships and giant bots back in Robotech.
Macross was okay, but by the time Invid Invasion came out, standard body armor had 50 MDC and was laser resistant.
IIRC, there was some stuff in Southern Cross as well.

By the time Sentinels rolled around, all the basics were there:
Carbonarite body armor had 75 MDC
Praxians had explosive crossbow bolts and Spherians had laser wands that could inflict 2d4 MD.
Psychics could do 2d6 MD with a Mind Bolt, more damage than you can do in Rifts
Perytonian Wizards could Call Lightning for 2d6+1d6/level MD (again, more than Rifts), Energy Bolt inflicted 1d6 MD to start, and up to 5d6 MD by level 12. They could summon invisible armor for 100 MDC + 10 MDC per level, better than AoI, or summon a version of Energy Field with 60 MDC +10/level.
Limpet mines did 1d4x10 MD, cobalt grenades did 1d6 MD.
The SAL-9 matched the range of the C-18, inflicted 1d6 (same as a Wilk's 320), and 45 shots per clip.
The M-37 Auto-pistol fired explosive bullets for 1d4 MD, the Badget SMG could fire the same rounds, the old Woverine Assault rifle could launch 2d6 MD grenades.
The FAL-2 laser pulse rifle could fire up to 40 shots for 2d6 MD each, and it was "quite common."
There was the RL-2 Rocket Cannon that launched plasma mini-misiles.
And the Gallant energy weapon could hold its own pretty well in Rifts, even now.
And a bunch of other stuff that I don't feel like refreshing my memory about right now.

When Rifts first came out, a lot of the human-scaled Mega-Damage gear was more powerful than the Robotech stuff, but not by a heck of a lot, and some of it was less powerful.
While power creep started taking over Rifts pretty quickly, it started off pretty reasonable, more so than Robotech in some regards (if less so in others).

yep. Southern Cross had MDC body Armor (about 50 MDC) as well as MDC shields (for human sized characters). Shields were around 50-100 points depending on which army.

I guess I am an optimist at heart. I always thought that the earth was won back somehow and we cleaned up the atmosphere and began space travel. I knew that the twain were never to have met, but I thought RT was just further in the future. It felt more real, more buck rogers. now, less so.

Been meaning to post on this thread for a bit, but was busy trying out a different form of MDC in regards specifically to a test game my friends and I were playing in. It isn't exactly a full revamp to the MDC system as it really only effects supernatural creatures and we needed a month or two to get through the game session.

Basically, we turned all the supernatural MDC creatures that were roughly around human size into their SDC equivalents, then gave them a MDC shield. The idea is that every monster has a weakness, and that said weakness is the trick to damaging the MDC shield and eventually weaken the creature enough that it can be finished by mundane means. We also played around a bit with the Supernatural strength stats on the monsters and decided to just use SDC damage values instead of the MDC damage values given in the RUE or in the monster entry.

Eventually, we basically down converted most monsters that didn't qualify as Alien intelligences or their equivalents into SDC beings with MDC shields. We also converted all the armor and weapons that aren't heavy anti vehicle weapons into SDC weapons and armor, and left the MDC system to govern giant robots, vehicles, fortified cities, large structures, and those super powered AIs and Gods.

KillWatch wrote:got some questions I am looking for some insight from you guys
A) One of the biggest mistakes palladium has ever made, or THE biggest mistake palladium has ever made?
B) What MDC/SDC conversion system do you use?

A) Wow are you off base on this one. Neither. MDC makes sense to me, I was in the Army and knew that tanks couldn't be damaged by infantry. Not modern armor anyways, it is too advanced for the light stuff we carried. Makes perfect sense that armor would continue to advance, whether it was a tank or a PA suit or what not and that old style weapons wouldn't be able to damage them.

B) 100:1 is the book conversion and I see no reason to change it. SD weapons weren't meant to harm MDC things.

I don't see how you can play rifts without MDC, the game is meant to have a logical divide between advanced weapons and armor, and previous generations of weapons and armor. If you can't understand the concept of MDC or just don't like it, why play Rifts? There are other games out there that don't have it, why not play them? I can see Rifts being played for months without SDC, but not without MDC, it is too important to the system.

Athos wrote:

KillWatch wrote:got some questions I am looking for some insight from you guys
A) One of the biggest mistakes palladium has ever made, or THE biggest mistake palladium has ever made?
B) What MDC/SDC conversion system do you use?

A) Wow are you off base on this one. Neither. MDC makes sense to me, I was in the Army and knew that tanks couldn't be damaged by infantry. Not modern armor anyways, it is too advanced for the light stuff we carried. Makes perfect sense that armor would continue to advance, whether it was a tank or a PA suit or what not and that old style weapons wouldn't be able to damage them.

B) 100:1 is the book conversion and I see no reason to change it. SD weapons weren't meant to harm MDC things.

I don't see how you can play rifts without MDC, the game is meant to have a logical divide between advanced weapons and armor, and previous generations of weapons and armor. If you can't understand the concept of MDC or just don't like it, why play Rifts? There are other games out there that don't have it, why not play them? I can see Rifts being played for months without SDC, but not without MDC, it is too important to the system.

MDC works GREAT with the technological stuff. It's the supernatural stuff that makes it a headache.

KillWatch wrote:got some questions I am looking for some insight from you guys
A) One of the biggest mistakes palladium has ever made, or THE biggest mistake palladium has ever made?
B) What MDC/SDC conversion system do you use?

A) Mega Damage by itself is not a mistake. It represents armor that cannot be hurt by small arms fire. This makes sense. I should not be able to take out a tank with a .22 caliber pistol, no matter how many shots I hit it with. The mistake lies in that MD weapons are a dime a dozen. And most of them do the same amount of damage as the guns on the vehicles. And an overabundance of MD body armor, which is needed because of all the MD weapondry. I think they should have kept the MD material as super tough alloys only available for tanks, power armor, and robots, with only the heaviest of man portable weapons being MD. Afterall, if you go up against a tank with nothing but an assault rifle and body armor, it should be suicide. And 1 hit should kill you. And Mega Damage creatures should be super rare. So the concept is not a mistake, just how much of it there is around.

B) Standard 1:100 conversion.

strtkwr wrote:

KillWatch wrote:got some questions I am looking for some insight from you guys
A) One of the biggest mistakes palladium has ever made, or THE biggest mistake palladium has ever made?
B) What MDC/SDC conversion system do you use?

A) Mega Damage by itself is not a mistake. It represents armor that cannot be hurt by small arms fire. This makes sense.

This would make more sense to me only if something like a C-18 laser pistol (essentialy md small arms fire) could be stopped by an MDC tank as well but it can, if given enough time, kill a tank. THAT is where MD/MDC falls down

that isn't the only placed it falls down, but I've been using AR as DR

jaymz wrote:

strtkwr wrote:

KillWatch wrote:got some questions I am looking for some insight from you guys
A) One of the biggest mistakes palladium has ever made, or THE biggest mistake palladium has ever made?
B) What MDC/SDC conversion system do you use?

A) Mega Damage by itself is not a mistake. It represents armor that cannot be hurt by small arms fire. This makes sense.

This would make more sense to me only if something like a C-18 laser pistol (essentialy md small arms fire) could be stopped by an MDC tank as well but it can, if given enough time, kill a tank. THAT is where MD/MDC falls down

That's what I was getting at with the rest of my comment. They should have reserved MD for only the biggest portable weapons, like rocket launchers, and the rest (like the C-18) should have been SDC weapons.

but what would be the damage? I mean a laser pistol should do more than a powder pistol, just thinkin

I use a different ratio. In mine a C-18 does the very close equivalent standard 20mm round.

KillWatch wrote:but what would be the damage? I mean a laser pistol should do more than a powder pistol, just thinkin

well, if I was building a game, I would set up a classification system for each weapon type.

For example:

Projectile-Pistol: Weapon damage ranges from 1d4-4d6 SDC
Projectile-Rifle: Weapon damage ranges from 2d6-5d6 SDC
Projectile-Shotgun: Weapon damage ranges from 1d6-5d6 SDC
Projectile-Heavy: Weapon damage ranges from 36x10 SDC-3d6 MD
Projectile-Vehicle: Weapon damage ranges from 3d6x10 SDC-3d6x10 MDC
Energy-Pistol: Weapon damage ranges from 2d6-5d6 SDC
Energy-Rifle: Weapon damage ranges from 3d6-6d6 SDC
Energy-Vehicle: Weapon damage ranges from 1d6-5d6x10 MDC
Energy-Heavy: Weapon damage ranges from 1d6-4d6 MD

Then, I would make sure each author adheres to the limit set, so each book is kept within the limit of previous books, which limit's the power creep in subsequent books, and ensures that for the most part, vehicle weapons do more damage than hand weapons. I would also probably limit the number of heavy weapons each author could put in a book (like one or two if there was a in game reason it was needed), and handicap them. For example, in N&SS, there is a weapon called a vehicle stopper that does 2d6x100, but it is a one shot weapon that takes a full melee to reload. Going up against a tank, PA, or robot alone with only body armor and a handgun or rifle should be suicide, and a group of foot soldiers should expect heavy losses if they attempt to do so.

strtkwr wrote:

KillWatch wrote:but what would be the damage? I mean a laser pistol should do more than a powder pistol, just thinkin

well, if I was building a game, I would set up a classification system for each weapon type.

For example:

Projectile-Pistol: Weapon damage ranges from 1d4-4d6 SDC
Projectile-Rifle: Weapon damage ranges from 2d6-5d6 SDC
Projectile-Shotgun: Weapon damage ranges from 1d6-5d6 SDC
Projectile-Heavy: Weapon damage ranges from 3d6x10 SDC-3d6 MD
Projectile-Vehicle: Weapon damage ranges from 3d6x10 SDC-3d6x10 MDC
Energy-Pistol: Weapon damage ranges from 2d6-5d6 SDC
Energy-Rifle: Weapon damage ranges from 3d6-6d6 SDC
Energy-Vehicle: Weapon damage ranges from 1d6-5d6x10 MDC
Energy-Heavy: Weapon damage ranges from 1d6-4d6 MD

Then, I would make sure each author adheres to the limit set, so each book is kept within the limit of previous books, which limit's the power creep in subsequent books, and ensures that for the most part, vehicle weapons do more damage than hand weapons. I would also probably limit the number of heavy weapons each author could put in a book (like one or two if there was a in game reason it was needed), and handicap them. For example, in N&SS, there is a weapon called a vehicle stopper that does 2d6x100, but it is a one shot weapon that takes a full melee to reload. Going up against a tank, PA, or robot alone with only body armor and a handgun or rifle should be suicide, and a group of foot soldiers should expect heavy losses if they attempt to do so.

Sounds like you are on the same wave length as the group I was playing in. The only thing we did in addition to adjusting the damage scaling was apply MDC as a form of damage shield on certain monsters. It felt a lot better than having it strait MDC like traditional Rifts and it also made being human a lot less of a handicap.

1 MDC = 1d10 x 10 SDC
2 MDC = 1d10 x 20 SDC
10 MDC = 1d10 x 100 SDC
25 MDC = 1d10 x 250 SDC
78 MDC = 1d10 x 780 SDC
100 MDC = 1d10 x 1,000 SDC
256 MDC = 1d10 x 2,560 SDC

Basically you add a zero to any MDC number x 1d10 to get SDC. Adds some randomness to the SDC and gives you a possible range of 10-100 SDC = 1 MDC.

As to HP there are 2 methods I have used.
One is divide the resultant SDC by 4.
Other is do as above, but subtract that result from the SDC for final SDC.

EX: 256 MDC = 1d10 x 2,560 = SDC. Rolled a 4, so 4 x 2,560= 10,240 SDC
HP would be 10,240/4= 2,560
If you then subtract the resultant HP from SDC you have final of: HP 2,560 and SDC of 7,680.

EX: 10 MDC = 1d10 x 100, rolled a 6. Yields 600SDC
HP 600SDC/4 = 150
If you then subtract the resultant HP from SDC you have final of: HP 150 and SDC of 450.


Yes, I know this is a long drawn out process, but I have nothing but time on my hands. And I haven't used this method to convert all. I just use it here and there if I need a creature/vehicle or 2 for a conversion and want some randomness in the mix.

Most times I just split the difference of 10 or 100 SDC = 1 MDC and use 50 x MDC = SDC again dividing the SDC by 4 to get HP and subtracting that from the SDC for final stats.

EX: 100 MDC x 50 = 5,000 SDC/4 = 1,250 HP. 5,000 - 1,250 = 3,750 SDC. Final 1,250 HP and 3,750 SDC

Quick conversions on the fly, I use either 10 or 100 SDC and fudge it accordingly to the situation at hand. Again, roughly use one fourth for HP and may or may not subtract from SDC.

In answer to the OP:
1) Neither and none.
2) See all the stuff I just posted above.


Whew!............

KillWatch wrote:got some questions I am looking for some insight from you guys
A) One of the biggest mistakes palladium has ever made, or THE biggest mistake palladium has ever made?
B) What MDC/SDC conversion system do you use?

A) Allowing this rumor that megaversal rules are somehow universal rules. It's true that learning one game gives you a head start on learning another but most have their own rules that means there really is no core. And this is given rise to the "use the latest publication as canon" nonsense. In other words, some have tried to use Rifts rules to argue BtS rules. That's a load of crap in my opinion, and it's the fault of the megaversal branding. THE biggest is being unable to produce what they promise the fans they'll produce.

B) I don't use a conversion system. I never played in a game that does. My friend is running a Rifts game right now and she is going without M.D.C. I think she's using double M.D.C. number to get S.D.C. value and adding 1 die to damage rolls, and housing ruling the hell out of the places where that doesn't work very well.