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Shaded_Helios wrote:When the Cataclysm flushed Earth down the interdimensional toilet, humans had come along pretty far technologically. What was it, somewhere around 2200 AD?

Well, MD weaponry and MDC materials couldn't have just appeared overnight as a replacement to their SDC counterparts. There had to be something that was more powerful/resilient than the run of the mill SDC but significantly weaker than Golden Age MD technology.

I'm just wondering if anyone has addressed this in a game. Something like finding a well preserved armory/museum with firearms dating from the early 2100's. It wouldn't be hard to imagine a laser rifle doing 1d4x100 SDC damage or a pistol that did 3d6x10 SDC. Body armor with 600 SDC wouldn't be implausible as a forerunner to true MDC versions.

those are just massivly SDC weapons. I think there are some in robotech like that.

MorganKeyes wrote:

Shaded_Helios wrote:

those are just massivly SDC weapons. I think there are some in robotech like that.

Well, yeah, that's the point. If there's going to be a MD system, there has to be a transition between modern SDC weapons and MD weapons. Weapons suddenly increasing in power by a factor of 100 just couldn't happen in the space of a few years. At some point technology would have to be really good, but not MD good.

Welcome to the kludge that is MDC game mechanics. I doesn't make sense and was never intended to. It's just an incredibly lazy implimentation and that the long and the short of it.

it's not lazy to say "i'd rather play than do real world math" ya know

MorganKeyes wrote:

Nekira Sudacne wrote:it's not lazy to say "i'd rather play than do real world math" ya know

Actually there's alot of systems out on the market that address such issues far better then MDC and don't require any math to worry your head over. Sorry I'm not falling to my knees before the altar of the Palladium game mechanics, but you all know that while I am a fan of the setting and it's potential I've never hidden the fact that I am far from pleased with it's implimentation (in fact I think I have been rather well behaved of late. ). Besides, if it was all so wonderful then why do such questions and discussions keep coming up time and time again?

but I LIKE MDC just as it is.

simple to grasp

easy to use.

Shaded_Helios wrote:

those are just massivly SDC weapons. I think there are some in robotech like that.

Well, yeah, that's the point. If there's going to be a MD system, there has to be a transition between modern SDC weapons and MD weapons. Weapons suddenly increasing in power by a factor of 100 just couldn't happen in the space of a few years. At some point technology would have to be really good, but not MD good.

Actually, the transition is already in effect. Just look at modern tanks and some modern weaponry (lire 40 mm grenades and rocket launchers). Those are already in the 100s of SDC. It's only a matter of time till Choham and MD material can be cost effectively turned into body armor, the same applies to single man, easy to carry weapons

..While I am definately not fond of the gap between the two (I use a 1 to 5 ratio instead of a 1 to 100, and give MDC an ablative AR of 18 vs SDC weapons), I don't see any reason why it wouldn't have been developed without an in between stage.

..Look at Chaos Earth, the canon material of the Golden age. With the exception of NEMA and a few militaries around the world, MDC tech was sparce. Everyone and their grandmother was stuck with SDC armor and weaponry if they wanted to deck themselves out.

..Leaps and bounds. We didn't go from the abacus to the personal computer over the course of a thousand years, we went there over the course of 100. We didn't go from hand carried messages to cell phones over the course of a thousand years, we went there in less than 100.

..The twentieth century was the first technological boom period, and most of that came about in the last quarter. There's no reason not to beleive the same couldn't happen again in the 21st.

..Of course, MDC material is much closer than 100 years away in rl... or rather it would be if we weren't dominated by the oil industry's insistance on slowing the technological evolution of humanity....

-Mike >8]