Combat cyborg power cores

[Riftmaker]

Do combat cyborgs have power cores like robots and power armor? If so what book and what page?

I checked Ultimate rifts and the bionic source book and didnt see anything.

[Nightmask]

For some reason they never list the power cores for cyborgs although they clearly have to have them, an oversight or the assumption the cyborg would never live long enough to need to replace their starting power core.

[Bill]

While it's not explicitly stated that a cyborg's reactor will ever run out, many weapons have the option to patch into the cyborg's nuclear power supply; implying that they do have one.

[Riftmaker]

Well at least I can point out to my player the hole so he doesnt have to fall into it himself.

[Nightmask]

Well at least I can point out to my player the hole so he doesnt have to fall into it himself.

At least until he goes 'hey can I modify my chassis then to include this cool energy weapon?'.

[Eashamahel]

Yep, for YEARS myself and the other people I knew who played RIFTS wondered about this. What does a Cyborg run on? Does it have a power core?

If so, does a partial borg also have a central power core?

And then, do individual bionic limbs (like Headhunters have) have power cores?

And do Cybernetic replacements have batteries/power cores of some kind?


Then we started wondering about things like the E-Clip ports that were available to power Bionic weapons, and what there point was if energy weapons were powered by the 'borgs core, and if a Headhunters Bionic Arm was powered (by something) that could power a forearm blaster (which didn't need seperate e-clips), could they just plug guns into their arms and power them that way? And on and on.

[Nightmask]

Yep, for YEARS myself and the other people I knew who played RIFTS wondered about this. What does a Cyborg run on? Does it have a power core?

If so, does a partial borg also have a central power core?

And then, do individual bionic limbs (like Headhunters have) have power cores?

And do Cybernetic replacements have batteries/power cores of some kind?


Then we started wondering about things like the E-Clip ports that were available to power Bionic weapons, and what there point was if energy weapons were powered by the 'borgs core, and if a Headhunters Bionic Arm was powered (by something) that could power a forearm blaster (which didn't need seperate e-clips), could they just plug guns into their arms and power them that way? And on and on.

If you go by Steve Austin, it looked like each of his limbs had its own nuclear power pack (as evidenced when his legs were damaged fighting the Sasquatch in one episode releasing lethal levels of radiation, while other episodes showed him having a separate nuclear pack in his arm), with probably a central power supply to handle all those cybernetic systems for those without limb replacements (since it seemed like Steve's eye ran off the surplus from his limb power supplies, or probably the arm one).

[say652]

Internal energy supply. Japan book. Only reference.

I do remember seeing something about a core lasting 20 years somewhere

[Nightmask]

Internal energy supply. Japan book. Only reference.

I do remember seeing something about a core lasting 20 years somewhere

Except if memory serves that's explicitly listed as an option for powering external weapons and not as being the actual thing that runs your bionics/cybernetics.

[Mack]

Bionics Sourcebook, p94, under "Light Laser Blaster":

Unlimited if tied to a full conversion cyborg's power supply.

Based on that, I'd infer that there definitely is an internal generator of some sort, and that only a full conversion cyborg's is strong enough to power a weapon. (A partial conversion cyborg's power supply may only power his limbs.)

[say652]

I know what an internal energy supply does lol. I think the coalition war campaign book mentions it though. Decommissioning cyborg soldiers.

[Morik]

It really is the six million dollar question.

[Eashamahel]

I'm rather certain Partial Conversion cyborgs have had structural supports to non-augmented areas since the first RIFTS rulebook, with the core/shoulders and back being improved as well as the bone structure being enhanced to allow the body to support the enhanced limbs. Actually, "The pelvis/hips area, shoulders, collarbone, and spine are all feinforced with metal rods, exoskeleton, and cybernetic implants to support the new bionic additions." (RMB, pg 237)


Also, aren't very nearly ALL robots and power armours in RIFTS powered by batteries anyways? Pretty sure "Nuclear Batteries" is the explanation for most high-tech power sources.


Really, considering how long this question has been around (since RIFTS first came out, literally since the first book) it's crazy it's never been cleared up in one of the many books that has cyborgs as a main feature (Triax & The NGR, Japan, Warlords of Russia, ect) or in the RUE. It's been a long time since I've read the Bionics Sourcebook, but maybe it's hidden in there somewhere.

[kaid]

I don't think I have ever seen it listed any where specifically. Originally whatever was powering them was not very strong at all and could not be used to power energy weapons and all integrated weaponry on borgs needed eclips to power them. That has changed a bit and now larger full conversion borgs apparently can get a power supply potent enough to power integrated energy weaponry although they take some penalties due to the power draw in speed and performance.


Given the size of the borg and the penalties for hooking weapons to their power system whatever power system they are using is clearly weaker than even light power armor generators and probably smaller. It would be nice if at some point they actually come out and stat out some different borg power cores.

[Eashamahel]

Given the size of the borg and the penalties for hooking weapons to their power system whatever power system they are using is clearly weaker than even light power armor generators and probably smaller. It would be nice if at some point they actually come out and stat out some different borg power cores.

Those penalties were added much later, and Cyborgs of all kinds, from Headhunters to full conversions, have had integrated weapons without external power systems since the RMB came about. If anything, having full conversion 'borgs take negatives for powering energy weapons seems ridiculous, as their power consumption would have to be at least on par with many Power Armours who provide the power necessary for built in (or hooked up) energy weapons.

Just for example, check this out from the RMB

-The NG Samson has a NG-202 Railgun hooked into it's power supply. The Samson is 11 ft tall, and weighs 460lbs without gun/ammo, and can power the railgun fully while also powering it's jump system, and has a PS of 30, and can run 240km/h (which is ridiculous considering there are human legs moving in there...).

-The SAMAS has a C-40R Railgun hooked into it's power supply. It's 8 ft tall, and weighs 340lbs without gun/ammo, and can power the weapon fully while also powering it's flight system, and has a PS of 30, and can run 96km/h.

-An average full conversion 'Borg is 7-9 ft tall (comparable to a SAMAS), and weighs 1000lbs(!!!), which is ridiculously heavy considering how light those Power armour are. It has a PS of 26-30, and can run 192km/h


So, a Borg is as big and as strong as a power armour, with power armour level running speed, despite the fact that it weighs nearly 3x as much as a power armour of comparable size. It takes significantly MORE power to get a borg to do the same things as a power armour, so it's energy system must be comparable. It's so powerful in fact that it doesn't even need to be made of high tech plastics and ceramics, and is instead made of extremely (comparably) heavy metals, and so solid that it is capable of wearing (effectively) an entire suit of power armour as body armour, something which is beyond most Power Armours who are capable of supporting only a small amount of additional MD plating.

Basically, having 'Borgs take penalties from weapons patched in or any other later add-on is the result of Palladium's power-core rules/concept being really only vaguely explored in the beginning. The original concept of 'it's all powered by nuclear batteries, done.' was a hand-wave explanation that was never really explored, because everything that came from Palladium was self contained. Power armour were made with X weapons attached, robots had Y guns, Cyborgs could attach on these systems, ect, nobody thought to look into something as sinle as 'can i just plug my NG pistol into my SAMAS?'.

As far as I know, we still don't know what the power core for a railgun's power level is compared to an E-Clip. One would think it would have to be several degrees more powerful than a simple E-Clip, considering it weighs 60-100lbs, has 40MD, and the power pack if breached will spew deadly radiation. All that makes me think it's tens of times more powerful than a simple E-Clip, or at least holds the energy of dozens of E-Clips (maybe hundreds) as it's capable of re-charging itself constantly, but the idea of it powering something else is never even looked into.

[Nightmask]

I'm rather certain Partial Conversion cyborgs have had structural supports to non-augmented areas since the first RIFTS rulebook, with the core/shoulders and back being improved as well as the bone structure being enhanced to allow the body to support the enhanced limbs. Actually, "The pelvis/hips area, shoulders, collarbone, and spine are all feinforced with metal rods, exoskeleton, and cybernetic implants to support the new bionic additions." (RMB, pg 237)


Also, aren't very nearly ALL robots and power armours in RIFTS powered by batteries anyways? Pretty sure "Nuclear Batteries" is the explanation for most high-tech power sources.


Really, considering how long this question has been around (since RIFTS first came out, literally since the first book) it's crazy it's never been cleared up in one of the many books that has cyborgs as a main feature (Triax & The NGR, Japan, Warlords of Russia, ect) or in the RUE. It's been a long time since I've read the Bionics Sourcebook, but maybe it's hidden in there somewhere.

No, pretty much all robots and power armor run on self-contained nuclear power cores complete with a warning about how they can contaminate an area if destroyed (which shouldn't happen very often if at all due to their design).

[kaid]

I would have to dig up my RMB but I recall all the ion rods/hand blasters/other integrated weapons having to use eclip ports. It was not until I think the triax/ngr book and their pre configured borg chasis that you actually saw any significant built in weaponry on borgs.

[Nightmask]

I would have to dig up my RMB but I recall all the ion rods/hand blasters/other integrated weapons having to use eclip ports. It was not until I think the triax/ngr book and their pre configured borg chasis that you actually saw any significant built in weaponry on borgs.

Which is a bit odd, given how common such cyborgs are in fiction and their weapons all run off their internal systems rather than an external power supply. Unless the writer has some specific plot need for it the cyborgs also have such long-life power cores that you never see them worrying about needing a new one.

[FatherMorpheus]

This whole topic touches on the 'attach weapon to power supply equals unlimited power" nonsense in Rifts.

Having tried to really understand how much power one of the nuke's can actually supply, and how much is actually consumed using various energy weapons, I have determined that it is next to impossible to find any consistent logic for it in the game.

Some nuke supplies have 5 year supply, some have 10, 15 or 20. Some talk about reducing it with constant use of external, but attached, weapons, others do not. Sometimes the vehicle costs 500,000 without nuke and 2.5 million with nuke and 5 year supply, while others are 1 million with 10 year supply. And they are basically the same sized and capability.

I would warn against over thinking this too much. Do Borgs have mini-nukes powering them? Most likely, as it would be the only thing with the duration or capacity to power what they do. How much does it cost? Who knows, built into the cost of each item!. How long does it last, round figure 20 years. Why? Because I said so!

[Nightmask]

This whole topic touches on the 'attach weapon to power supply equals unlimited power" nonsense in Rifts.

That's not nonsense though. You hook something up to a battery you get a finite amount of use from it before the battery runs down, you hook the same thing up to a generator on the other hand and as long as the generator remains functional the item will provide nigh-infinite use due to the much longer amount of time the generator can provide over the more limited battery.

One of many examples is the skelebot, it uses the exact same energy weapon that's also available in an e-clip version for humans except it's modded to run off their internal supply giving it basically unlimited shots. The captured weapons can be modded back to run on e-clips so it's the same weapon but by being plugged into a long-term generator in the form of the nuclear power core of the skelebot it can fire until the skelebot or it is destroyed or the power core eventually runs out in a year or two.

[FatherMorpheus]

The nonsense comes from when you try to figure out how long any particular nuke provides power for a mech, weapon+mech, or whatever combination. There is no standard or sense for it. Nuke's consume fuel, for Rifts I always assume the fuel is sealed in the nuclear containment shell of the power plant. All self contained. The fuel doesn't expend based on time, it consumes based on output. You run out of fuel, you run out of power. In the real world you calculate your power load and run at that level for X time. Usually 20 or 30 years.

If you need more power than the facility can provide, you have to build another one. In the model Rifts has created, you basically operate all of the normal functions, then add a weapon's power draw. So this should, cut into the overall life of the power supply. Does? Or do you just go with 'unlimited' assuming that the armor, borg, whatever will be destroyed long before the draw of the weapon will ever effect that 10 year power supply.

That is where the nonsense comes into play. It is hard for me to imagine that when a Borg is built, the power supply which is built into it is designed to run for 20 years regardless of if you have built in weapons or not. And if you have built in weapons, and you use them constantly, you would drawn the fuel much more quickly than the 20 years. I like to use 100 E-Clips per year. Seems fair. But if you try to over think this whole thing, it breaks your brain because none of the equipment really logical sense.

Thus... Nonsense!

[Nightmask]

The nonsense comes from when you try to figure out how long any particular nuke provides power for a mech, weapon+mech, or whatever combination. There is no standard or sense for it. Nuke's consume fuel, for Rifts I always assume the fuel is sealed in the nuclear containment shell of the power plant. All self contained. The fuel doesn't expend based on time, it consumes based on output. You run out of fuel, you run out of power. In the real world you calculate your power load and run at that level for X time. Usually 20 or 30 years.

If you need more power than the facility can provide, you have to build another one. In the model Rifts has created, you basically operate all of the normal functions, then add a weapon's power draw. So this should, cut into the overall life of the power supply. Does? Or do you just go with 'unlimited' assuming that the armor, borg, whatever will be destroyed long before the draw of the weapon will ever effect that 10 year power supply.

That is where the nonsense comes into play. It is hard for me to imagine that when a Borg is built, the power supply which is built into it is designed to run for 20 years regardless of if you have built in weapons or not. And if you have built in weapons, and you use them constantly, you would drawn the fuel much more quickly than the 20 years. I like to use 100 E-Clips per year. Seems fair. But if you try to over think this whole thing, it breaks your brain because none of the equipment really logical sense.

Thus... Nonsense!

You might want to recheck things, since for one nothing suggests that nuclear cores expend based on output rather than time. While there's one power armor or robot I can think of that notes due to the extreme demands of its experimental cloaking system its nuclear core goes from 20 years down to like 8 years of life that's likely more to do with the excessive load degrading the power core conversion components rather than somehow accelerating the nuclear decay to power things. So a core is going to run out in x years whether it's being used or not since the nuclear reaction can't be paused

Meanwhile we do have examples of power armors and robots powering energy weapons for effectively unlimited payload without any suggestion that it's degrading the life of the power core meaning the drain is within the acceptable output levels of the cores and inflicts no excessive, life-span reducing demands on the cores.

I'll grant you that from an RL stance there's inconsistencies in things due to the writers not being engineers or otherwise experienced with electrical systems but some things are reasonable enough you can apply a measure of RL knowledge to make things more sensible. Rifts cyborgs in general don't seem to be given the option of powering energy weapons (unlike say Phase world cyborgs like Repo bots), so it's likely their power cores aren't meant to do more than power their internal systems but no reason they couldn't upgrade to one that could for sufficient cost, which of course makes it one of the many things that the GM has to determine the cost for.

[Eashamahel]

I would warn against over thinking this too much. Do Borgs have mini-nukes powering them? Most likely, as it would be the only thing with the duration or capacity to power what they do. How much does it cost? Who knows, built into the cost of each item!. How long does it last, round figure 20 years. Why? Because I said so!

This is really the answer to pretty much everything in RIFTS. If it's not written down, it's a mystery, and you're unlikely to be able to figure out a good explanation for it based on precedent. Just figure out an answer that works for your own group, and remember that the game was written by a guy who is all about story and hardly notices the rules.


also, with the book now in hand I apologize, the forearm guns do in fact require E-Clips. Also, while having the book open... yeesh, now I remember how much of a mess this was. The Concealed Arm Laser Rod has a specific note on how long it takes the mini-E-Clip to recharge (inside the 'Borg? Or is that compared to the usual recharge time in a recharger? How long was that again?), the forearm blasters have no Rate of Fire, but the Concealed Ion Rod for the leg is WILDLY good, outdoing the forearm blaster in damage (4D6 vs 3D6) and range (2000ft vs 1200ft) and with a Standard (Aimed, Burst, Wild) rate of fire, making it about the best gun in the whole freakin' book. Alright, I'm closing it now...


actually, while everyone is in here talking about it, can anyone point me to a picture of a 'Borg using a Laser Rod (concealed arm or leg) in any RIFTS art? Or failing that, can someone point me to a possible inspirational source for where this idea came from? It's always seemed the strangest thing to me, a wand like weapon the size of a pack of menthos candy that pops into your hand when you need it. I honestly just always picture it like Robocops pistol in his leg (but that's more a secret compartment with a special holster) and wonder where the idea came from?

[Tinker Dragoon]

Do combat cyborgs have power cores like robots and power armor? If so what book and what page?

I checked Ultimate rifts and the bionic source book and didnt see anything.

Bionics Sourcebook, p. 90, Nuclear Power Cell.

actually, while everyone is in here talking about it, can anyone point me to a picture of a 'Borg using a Laser Rod (concealed arm or leg) in any RIFTS art? Or failing that, can someone point me to a possible inspirational source for where this idea came from? It's always seemed the strangest thing to me, a wand like weapon the size of a pack of menthos candy that pops into your hand when you need it. I honestly just always picture it like Robocops pistol in his leg (but that's more a secret compartment with a special holster) and wonder where the idea came from?

Warlords of Russia, pp. 78 and 109.

[Riftmaker]

Bionics Sourcebook, p. 90, Nuclear Power Cell.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND THINGS OF ALL AGES WE HAVE A WINNER!


. . . . and it's got a cost and no mention of how long it lasts God I love palladium.

[Vrykolas2k]

I always assumed a nuke core, until you kill some Mechanoids and modify yourself to use theirs...

[Tinker Dragoon]

Bionics Sourcebook, p. 90, Nuclear Power Cell.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND THINGS OF ALL AGES WE HAVE A WINNER!


. . . . and it's got a cost and no mention of how long it lasts God I love palladium.

It's stated to be similar to the power cells used in small robots, power armor, and vehicles, many of which have a 10-20 year life.

Of course, the equivalent robot system (SB1, p. 101/SB1r, p. 25) has only a two-year life for the same price, so use your best judgment.

[taalismn]

Cyborgs are powered by a single living cell cloned from Chuck Norris.

Cyborgs are powered by distilled awesomeness.

Cyborgs are powered by the PPE of their missing living parts.

So keep your nuclear power cell, pg. 90.

[Riftmaker]

@taalismn OK this is official

[say652]

Under my cyborgs beard, is another fist.

[taalismn]

@taalismn OK this is official

But seriously, the pg. 90 find was good data-digging.
But that beggars the other question about the price/lifespan discrepancies between the cyborg and robot powerplants. One would think that two-year robot powerplants would be cheaper as they are considered expendable. Cyborg powerplants I can see as high-end, high-priced, because they're keeping a person alive, AND have to have extra radiation shielding so heat and nuclear radiation don't cook the very organic tissues they're supposed to be keeping alive.
Just ascribe it to lack of an internal cross-reference database for Palladium writers.