A novel form of transport, even for Rifts!

[Comrade Corsarius]

You know, it’s been a long while since I have posted anything on the Rifts boards, so ‘hello’ to anyone who doesn’t know me, and ‘happy days are here again’ to everyone else.

I’ve been thinking a bit about running another Rifts adventure, and I was wondering of the vehicle of choice to give to my next group of stalwart adventurers. Many people seem to use the Mountaineer ATV, or something similar to get around. Hovercycles are a firm favourite, and the ever-popular Robot Horse is a must-have for any New West character to be taken seriously.

But then I have been thinking a little deeper. What about carrying all your stuff? What about booty? What about loot? Where do you keep all those wonderful toys that you just don’t have room in your saddlebags for? I mean, you can always get a trailer for your motorbike, but it looks pretty goofy trundling along behind a hovercycle or robot horse. So then I thought, why can’t they take their home/base with them? It’s not really an original idea, and in fact the RMB provides for it with the Behemoth Explorer as your very own home-away-from-home. Still, I am no great fan of the huge but vulnerable mecha with a low speed, a lousy armour plating, and the life expectancy of a sardine in a supernova if the coalition (or anyone else) should turn the heat on.

So then I was looking through the main book, a little wistfully, as there seemed to be nothing interesting or unique, when I stumbled upon something so simple that it’s not even really mentioned in the GMG. Sky Ships! Visions of Peter Pan and Captain Hook’s ship danced in my mind as I imagined the trade routes spreading across the Colorado Baronies and the Magic Zone. Tea Clippers and tall ships taking all the main trade along the ley lines that criss-cross the entire country, and perhaps even enormous sailing passenger ships such as the ‘great eastern’ or (in a more modern time) the Club Med II. War Frigates similar to those employed by Queenstown Harbour could defend the convoys against swarming power armour or rascally pirates. And all this is just from the RMB without much addition from anything else! What a treasure to find!

Now there are those who think this might be a bit silly, but for some time I’ve wondered how large amounts of trade goes on from one place to another in Rifts north america. Certainly in technological societies I found it difficult to imagine how mega-companies like Northern Gun and Wilks can get all their trade to as many far-flung places as they do. Surely they would use some sort of bulk carrier, like trucks or rail, or hover transports. Well, I like the sky ship as the magical equivalent. Surely Stormspire would have a small fleet, ready to send their wares to wherever they were required?

I also looked at the possibility of a medium-sized vessel (with a roomy hold) for an adventuring craft. The RMB says that you can add up to 6 TW enhancements onto a medium-to-large craft, and the GMG gives lots of lovely little additions you can build in. Impervious to fire, Force field for 50mdc/10ppe, a ley-line accellerator that gives extra speed and duration, invisibility…. It’s just too good! Then there is the MDC of the vessel itself. The RMB doesn’t give much of a clue, but the GMG states that ‘magic sailboats’ of a medium size are 250MDC, which is a nice sort of number. Tough enough to keep on going, weak enough so the PCs don’t go racing into combat with it. That nice little shield is good too, for a lvl 7 character who can draw on 70ppe/12 hours on a ley line, means he can create a 350MDC shield if he has to, effectively for free. Weapons I limited to two starfire cannons mounted on either side of the hull, so neither can fire at the same target. I want to give the pcs power, but not too much, and there is the restriction that it can only travel along ley lines, meaning they can really only go where the story arc (ie: GM) takes them, which is actually lots of places. As the place is hugely criss-crossed with ley lines, I have no problems with them travelling from one side of the country to the other in search of adventure. Of course, the lines may not go in exactly the direction they want, and they may be thown into other adventures along the way.

And, of course, you would wonder what to use for lifeboats? Why Wingboards of course! According to the GMG, they only need the expenditure of 1PPE to operate, and everyone that is alive has 1ppe. So without bending the rules too much, I’d say that anyone can fly one if the have to (the shock or fear of falling from the sky may be enough to activate any latent power or PPE that each non-magic or psychic character may have)

What does anyone else think of Sky Ships?

[PigLickJF]

Huh, when you first said airship I was thinking of dirigibles/zeppelins, not actual ocean craft in the sky. Personally, I think the "balloons" would be a bit cooler.

PigLick

[Marcethus]

well another good RV like vehicle is the Iron Maiden APC from Merc's only takes 2 to pilot and has room for 10 ppl or equivalent in gear
also Rifts atlantis has some skyship like things to take a look at. it's described in the listing for places of interest in Splynn

[Marcethus]

oh and I agree with piglick that blimps would look cooler than flying sailing ships unless your going for that Final Fantasy ie FF6 or 9

[Dustin Fireblade]

I haven't used sky ships m'self, but I have been working on a similar concept which I was going to send on to Dustin Fireblade and the SpecOps campaign he is in (appoligies Dustin,...things have been hectic of late).

No problems.

[Dr. Doom III]

War Throne.

Accept no substitute.

[Colonel Wolfe]

This reminds me of a question that keeps bugging me and I am to lazy to read books in order to find the answer.

When something can only travel along a ley line (sky ship etc), what kind of lateral movement does it have. How wide are ley lines and or how far to off the side of the ley line can the vessel operate?

-Zebra

I don;t have my book on hand, but it depends on the Power of the Ley line... any where form a few dozen feet, to a Mile Wide for the Biggest Leyline... but it Still Makes it Dangerous if you happen to be on a Smaller ley line, and an Enemy plans an Ambush arund the ley line.

[Dr. Doom III]

This reminds me of a question that keeps bugging me and I am to lazy to read books in order to find the answer.

When something can only travel along a ley line (sky ship etc), what kind of lateral movement does it have. How wide are ley lines and or how far to off the side of the ley line can the vessel operate?

-Zebra

I would go with the same range as the influence on magic. For those it seems "on a ley line" is 200 feet to either side.
Unfortunately it never really says how large ley lines actually are. Judging by the pictures in the Rifts main book I'd go with at least a 100 foot diameter.
That gives you 500 feet of lateral movement.

[Dr. Doom III]

What does anyone else think of Sky Ships?

The first Rifts game I ever GMed had the characters leaving Tolkeen west to explore for pre-Rifts ruins in a Sky Ship.
It didn't get very far since all but one of the PCs were killed during their very first encounter with three Skelebots.

[Marcethus]

Sky Ships don't necessarily have to be bound to a Ley Line if you can get a TW engine in one (or create something semi based off of Terry Brooks Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series)

[CyCo]

as for atmospherics, there was an Anime show on GTechTv which had a 1930's feel, but with advanced technology. They basically had "flying aircraft carriers" and they were being attacked by these star-shaped hi-tech ships. Unfortunately the night I caught the show was the last ep.

If someone knows the title, I suggest looking at that series (renting it, whatever), nice art and a good adventuring feel.

Now, I havn't had alot of exposure to Anime, but I know what I like. What you describe sounds like Last Exile. I had seen it in a shop, and looked at it and thought it would be cool. Then, I saw it in a video rental place, and rented disc one with the first 4 episodes.

I was blown away. I loved it. ;)

Now, if they would get in the second disc so I can see how it goes, well, if I still love it I'm getting it. ;)

[Comrade Corsarius]

Actually, by all things, I was inspired by The Mummy II. With the TW speed enhancement, you can even do the:

Adventurer: You go up in that thing? You're braver than I thought!

SS Captain: Listen pal, she's faster than she looks, There's a couple of special modifications that I've made myself... Like when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour, you're going to see some serious stuff

Adventurer Like what?

SS Captain: Like a bloody great ship flying through the air at 88 miles an hour! Isn't that amazing enough?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I have no problems with a baloon above the ship, but according to the description, the ship flies along the line all by itself. (I have no idea about final fantasy, but I DO know about peter pan).

But yes, I already have some plans for the ship, such as being intercepted racing along the line by a CS SAMAS patrol, fighting off airborne raiders on other flying craft (yes, there are flying platforms in FOM, but these are from the original rifts book. Doesn't anyone read that thing anymore?). I suppose you could do the whole 'sky captain' thing (I've not seen the movie yet, but it looks cool) with the TW airforce flyers. Yah, that sounds very cool, acutally. But fending off power-armoured boarders, and using it as a plot device and 'home' for the adventurers is a big one for me.

For the width of the ley lines, I always thought that the biggest ones (and thus most travelled) had influence to a mile on each side, and the little ones only about 100 feet. So it means that a trip to hicksville, usa, might be a bit rough if you suddenly run into, oh, a bunch of raiders in Flying Titans, or some friends of those Gargoyles that you took care of last town...

[MADMANMIKE]

..Rifts main book, first printing page 163, bottom right: ....All ley lines are about a half mile wide (approximately 2700 feet/823m). Note: One mile is about 1.6 kilometers.

..From the random length table below that, they are between 3 and 300 miles long.

-Mike >8]

[Vrykolas2k]

I think something like that is mentioned in the 2nd Atlantis book.
Likely borrowed the idea from Talislanta, which is the first game I ever heard of to use windships...

[Comrade Corsarius]

From what I understand, at least from the original map in the RMB, all ley lines are more-or-less connected, but assuming they are not....

I'd use a TW system similar to that used by the TW train in the New West to change from line to line at nexuses. Of course, I'd put a price on it in PPE so it wasn't free, but there you go.

OR you could do it the 'hard' way (assuming there was a watercourse nearby) and just sail your way to your destination (the RMB states that sky ships can be made seaworthy for a greater cost and 3x the construction time)

[MADMANMIKE]

From what I understand, at least from the original map in the RMB, all ley lines are more-or-less connected, but assuming they are not....

I'd use a TW system similar to that used by the TW train in the New West to change from line to line at nexuses. Of course, I'd put a price on it in PPE so it wasn't free, but there you go.

OR you could do it the 'hard' way (assuming there was a watercourse nearby) and just sail your way to your destination (the RMB states that sky ships can be made seaworthy for a greater cost and 3x the construction time)

..Seaworthy is the way to go. I had a small flat bottom boat like that in one of my games, worked out great. Likewise, the river system in this country is very extensive. It's possible to sail from Chicago to the gulf or to the East Coast.

-Mike >8]

[glitterboy2098]

You could alway do the protoype small business home garage build airship that the builder found a book of when he was young and he has been wokring and prefecting the ship, could be peter pan, the hindenburgh, concordeish or the tardis homebuilt (the howard Hews spruce goose) quality to it?

or use Jules Verne and have him build an Aeronef. (uh... airship using helical blades for lift.)

Robur the conquerer, and the Albatross.

[glitterboy2098]

please, no. no DBZ inspired material.

[Dr. Doom III]

..Rifts main book, first printing page 163, bottom right: ....All ley lines are about a half mile wide (approximately 2700 feet/823m). Note: One mile is about 1.6 kilometers.

..From the random length table below that, they are between 3 and 300 miles long.

-Mike >8]

Cool. Missed that.

[Comrade Corsarius]

Doom! Dude, it's good to see you after a year!

My source also comes from the RMB (don't remember the page) but it's in the TW section, just after Tree Trimmers methinks. (another useful invention that no-one seems to use)

[MADMANMIKE]

..Rifts main book, first printing page 163, bottom right: ....All ley lines are about a half mile wide (approximately 2700 feet/823m). Note: One mile is about 1.6 kilometers.

..From the random length table below that, they are between 3 and 300 miles long.

-Mike >8]

Cool. Missed that.

..Yeah, I only noticed that a couple of years ago. It was surprise to me.

-Mike >8]

[NoJack]

Last Exile was a VERY cool show, escpecially if you like airships and fighters. Unfortunately if you like good endings it's a bit of a disappointment. Not much closure at all. But the airborne artillery and the like were very cool.
Also if anyone has played the Warhammer 40K Dawn of War video game you will have seen the Space Marine landing pods... also a fun delivery system.

[tsh77769]

there are ley line trains mentioned in one of the west books.

TSH77769

[glitterboy2098]

there are ley line trains mentioned in one of the west books.

TSH77769

ya think?

I'd use a TW system similar to that used by the TW train in the New West to change from line to line at nexuses. Of course, I'd put a price on it in PPE so it wasn't free, but there you go.

[grandmaster z0b]

Cool idea, I may use it *yoink*.

As far as what happens when you run out of "track" (ley lines) I can imagine adventures having to portage the now dead weight of the ship by cutting down heaps of trees and pulling it over the trunks with ropes. This is what the Vikings did with their longships when the river they were sailing on got too shallow or had rapids. This is how they got so far over Europe and to the middle east.

New idea - Viking style raiders in flying longships! (yeah super cheese I know)

[Comrade Corsarius]

Go right ahead and take it. That's why I wrote it here. Nothing wrong with the cheezy TW flying longship idea. Can you imagine one of those suckers packed with berserkers from Pantheons of the Megaverse? Well, because Odin knows all magic spells, I'd give him a good go at building TW as well. Maybe the all-father has some new ideas after all....

How would I move once I ran out of track? well, assuming I did, (the place is seriously criss-crossed with ley lines anyway), I would allow similar 'teleporting' rules from nexus to nexus as per the TW Ironhorse, but with a PPE cost (although fairly paltry, we are drawing most of the energy from the ley line), say 100ppe?

[Colonel Wolfe]

Last Exile was a VERY cool show, escpecially if you like airships and fighters. Unfortunately if you like good endings it's a bit of a disappointment. Not much closure at all. But the airborne artillery and the like were very cool.

Unfortunatly as a anime fan myself I have noticed that alot of the Anime that starts out realy good tends to flop in the last episode with lots of loose ends that don't get answered

I've noticed that 90% of Anime i watch has this habbit. except DBZ.. which keeps goin and going

[NoJack]

While I'm not a big fan of DB or any of its derivatives, it does have that long never ending storyline. Something Like Ranma 1/2 or Naruto I find much more entertaining. But I digress... this was supposed to be about flying ships and the like. (Not geting after anyone)

In NGE they had a giant flying wing that dropped their evangelion Unit onto a target that was far away from their base of operations... I could picture a huge TW sailboard type construct moving one of those giant golems... hmm portable death droppers.

[glitterboy2098]

Last Exile was a VERY cool show, escpecially if you like airships and fighters. Unfortunately if you like good endings it's a bit of a disappointment. Not much closure at all. But the airborne artillery and the like were very cool.

Unfortunatly as a anime fan myself I have noticed that alot of the Anime that starts out realy good tends to flop in the last episode with lots of loose ends that don't get answered

I've noticed that 90% of Anime i watch has this habbit. except DBZ.. which keeps goin and going

DBZ keeps going and going because they somehow manage to strech a 2 minute fight into 6 episodes.

[Kelorin]

Corsarius, if you're looking for some cool skyships with a TW look, check out a comic series called the Red Star.

I'm not sure if I can post links to other companies' websites, so try doing a google search for Red Star + Comic.

Based on the hammer & sickle in you're posts, you'll also appreciate the Russian / Soviet theme of the comics.

[Comrade Corsarius]

Why not just use a TW locomotive with a 2 or 3 anti-personal weapons for the "engine" and maybe have 1 or more cars with heavier weapons for defense. The other cars are for rooms, storage, labs, etc.

Because it's huge and expensive. Sky ships can be as small as a 2-man dhingy all the way up to a man'o'war or Frigate. I suppose with the power creep in rifts since the RMB these days you could have TW Ironclads to rival a Fire Storm, but I would rather hope not.

The ship I designed for my players to use is about the size of a fishing boat, based loosely on an arabic dhow (watch the mummy II, guys), with a different configuration of triangular sails. A big hold in the middle, storage forward and sleeping quarters aft split over two levels. 'Engine Room' is below that containing all the TW doohickeys that make it go (I love the work of HG Wells and Jules Verne, so all my TW stuff is steam-guages and polished brass). The ship has a crew of four. A Mystic captain, a TW First mate/engineer, a Sailor OCC (South america 1) with minor psi powers, and a partial conversion Momano Headhunter (with TW bionics. I just thought the last bit was cool. I was originally just going to have a partial or full borg to do the heavy lifting). The ship's masts can be rigged as a derrick to lift heavy cargo from the hold, but that would take time if you needed to take-off and rejiggering of the rigging, so you'd only do that if it were safe.

So while it's reasonably expensive, it's not as pricey as a TW Ironhorse, and it can still travel over the seas, which a TW Ironhorse definitely cannot, and thus is more versatile.

[grandmaster z0b]

How about a flying ship that also has the ability to turn into a zepplin? It would basically be a normal TW ley line ship with an inflatable hot air balloon TW attatchement for when it runs out of ley lines. Wouldn't be too hard with the right combination of air and fire spells, and probably quite cheap on the PPE i'd dare say. Only big con is that it would be very slow and vulnerable to fast flying demons or pirates in Power Armour when not on a ley line.

[Comrade Corsarius]

Just get a mass of PPE batteries, or better, a mass of PPE emeralds which recharge even away leylines, to make a larger ship that can fly away from leylines.

Brilliant, but I forsee the cost spiralling beyond the cost of the common or garden variety adventurer. Very very pricey indeed. Why not just equip a ship with phase world contra-grav and be done with it? I appreciate the sentiment, but cripes! I'd be in hock for the rest of my life to pay for that sucker!

[Comrade Corsarius]

I have given some thought to what people have been saying here regarding ‘how do you switch ley lines?’ in a Sky Boat.

The answer is simple: You don’t unless you have something built into the sky boat that can do this (or you sail on water to get to your next ley line). Now follow my logic…

1) We know that an entity-powered TW vehicle (the TW Ironhorse) can ‘teleport’ between ley line nexuses that are about 300 km or so apart.
2) We know that TW Sky Boats are powered only by the magic of the line and the power of the mage(s) piloting it and therefore would require an expenditure of PPE to do a similar feat.
3) We know that TW vehicles can have between four and six TW enhancements added to them.

So therefore I’d say that a ‘nexus hopper’ TW enhancement can be added to ANY vehicle, but at the cost of TWO TW enhancements (it’s bulky and heavy and hey, it’s pretty powerful).

The TW nexus hopper can only operate between ley line nexuses (nexii? Nexes?) that are within 365km of each other. As the Sky Ship approaches a nexus along a ley line, the mage puts in 121 PPE. This is to activate the One Point Twenty-One Gigawatts that is necessary for creating a rift just large enough to accommodate the vehicle and it’s occupants. (The majority of PPE to open the line comes direct from the ley line itself). It snaps shut immediately behind the ship as it passes through. Theoretically it could be ‘hijacked’ by dimensional raiders or splugorth, but this would be unlikely. Part of the machine would be a ‘scanner’ that costs 10ppe to use (one use, duration one melee) and will show all available ley line nexus in the 365km range, somewhat like a ‘radar’ for nexus. Once the target nexus has been selected, the sky ship or vehicle accelerates to 188miles per hour (this is even for sky ships and vehicles that are incapable of such speeds, and is only applicable in this situation) and travels instantaneously through to the other ley line nexus.

I hope that this helps for anyone wishing to use this idea in their campaigns.

[Dead Boy]

Uhh, guys. Is it just me or dosen't any one else remember that air ships already exist in this game? The were introduced in WB:2 Atlantis under the simple headding "Flying Ships", though they didn't have an accompanying picture. They're powered by a couple Eyes of Eylor that not only allow it to fly anywhere, but also gives it some spell magic abilities as well. I know because I used one in the short story I submitted to the Rifter, Hounds of the Hunt. I really wish they'd get back to me on that.

[Comrade Corsarius]

Uhh, guys. Is it just me or dosen't any one else remember that air ships already exist in this game? The were introduced in WB:2 Atlantis under the simple headding "Flying Ships", though they didn't have an accompanying picture. They're powered by a couple Eyes of Eylor that not only allow it to fly anywhere, but also gives it some spell magic abilities as well. I know because I used one in the short story I submitted to the Rifter, Hounds of the Hunt. I really wish they'd get back to me on that.

Your point? Not to dis you DB, but TW Sky Ships are actually listed as a vehicle in the RMB under the TW description. It includes size, speeds, spells required for construction, and time for construction. It does not have a picture or a list of MDC. I only recently found them and thought they were cool, which is why I've put this post up, as a cool thing for adventurers to have, and maybe other people (like me) have missed them pretty much up to this point. Kind of like the TW powered armour in the RMB that I don't recall anyone using, ever. If you go back and check it out, apart from it's dinky MDC, it's actually pretty darned potent. I'm surprised at just how well some stuff in the RMB has stood up to the incessant power creep.

[Killer Cyborg]

Our party was stranded in Palladium Fantasy world for a while and one of the first adventures we had involved going up against a flying ship controlled by a necromancer.
We killed him and stole it, of course, and have been flying around in it ever since.
The only problem is that this particular ship isn't that roomy... we're shopping around for a bigger one.

[sHaka]

what a way to travel!

mind you, all hands on deck in a Ley line storm

The potential is huge as they can float across deserts, mountains, plains and seas! - awesome

I've yoinked that idea too!!

[Dead Boy]

Your point? Not to dis you DB, but TW Sky Ships are actually listed as a vehicle in the RMB under the TW description.

No dis taken. To share a little secret with you, (*shhhhh, don't tell anyone), but I've been functioning on 100% memory the past couple of months. The vast majority of my books are out on loan to a friend who damn well better retrun them soon, or else I might have to kill him!