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these super advanced races fight who wins?

The Mechinoids are going to lay waste their entire civilazation! Not even close to being a fair match.

Mechanoids---Both races may have psionics, but the Mechanoids are (un)natural cyborgs, and the fact that the Atorians and their allies are humanoids, will only raise the Mechanoids' rage and genocidal mania.

darkmax wrote:I think the Altess is probably going to win without lifting as much as a finger. They would have programmed some extremely advanced virus program to invade the Mechanoids, causing them to self-destruct. These can be done simply by transmitting it system-wide, once the Mechanoids come within their boundaries, they would "receive" some information.....

1. Mechanoids are not programmable.
2. IIRC, they don't have any self-destruct.

Do you mean the Atorians from the HU megaverse or do you mean the Altess from the Phaseworld 3 Galaxies? Two completely different races.

Legion. For they are many...

Again though, is the original thread starter referring to the Atorians of Heroes Unlimited/ Aliens Unlimited or the Altess? Some of the posters on this thread are referring to one or the other. Both are extremely high tech races.

gadrin wrote:I've forgotten, what are the numbers like for the Mechs ? (population wise)

As many as it takes, generally speaking.

Each Mothership holds:
13 Overlords
100,000 Oracles
12 million Brains
37 million Runners
900,000 Mantis
12 million Octopus
600 Battle Cruisers
1 billion Wasps
60 million Brutes
2 million Black Widows
11 million Tunnel Crawlers
12 million Exterminators
15 million Seeker Pods
30,000 Diggers
88 million Haulers
And 192 billion in various robots (mostly combat oriented).

The number of Motherships at the height of their power is unknown.

gadrin wrote:yeah, the incident where they overwhelmed the Shifter was impressive.

if they ever get the ability to create Rifts on their own (or steal the technological equivalent) it would be a tough time for the Atorians & their vassals.

or can they do that already ? I wouldn't put it past them.

It was rumoured that the Mechies could create quantum translocation devices (re: dimensional gateways) in the Mechanoids Sourcebook, and the Mechanoids RPG. They however, could not maintain consistant gate-ways and it would be one-way travel. Pray they never get the bugs worked out.

As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

darkmax wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

darkmax wrote:I think the Altess is probably going to win without lifting as much as a finger. They would have programmed some extremely advanced virus program to invade the Mechanoids, causing them to self-destruct. These can be done simply by transmitting it system-wide, once the Mechanoids come within their boundaries, they would "receive" some information.....

1. Mechanoids are not programmable.
2. IIRC, they don't have any self-destruct.

Who told you they are not programmable? It is just not to our level of technology. Moreover one does not need to be programmable to be infected by virus. You are not programmable, but you can still get attacked by flu, no?

All the Mechanoids need to do is tune in to the broadcast channels of Altess and they will be infected. The most effective viruses tend to be base level programmings.

BTW, causing a mechanoid to lose control and crash into an atmosphere or one of its kind is a form of self-destruct.

Actually, it's because the mechanoids are BIOLOGICAL. the mechanical bodies are just metal suits.

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

darkmax wrote:ok.... but the virus can still affect the functionality of the suit, no?

Not sure. Can the virus affect cybernetics?

Hmm.... why is it that I have always remembered the Mechanoids as been purely machine?

I have no idea.

darkmax wrote:ok.... but the virus can still affect the functionality of the suit, no?

Hmm.... why is it that I have always remembered the Mechanoids as been purely machine?

Got them confused with the Manhunters?

I doubt the virus would be any use against the Mechinoids bionics.

Yeah...I think a virus would work...wasn't there one in the index aventures? A nano-machine that digested mdc alloys.

Now a nano virus might work, but not a computer virus. Althought being an EVIL GM I'd have to say that unless you caught the mothership itself at a really vulnerable moment they'll be able to create a cure in period of time determined by the GM. So it mightcause them to retreat, but they'll be back for a second round. You have to expect that.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

Um... a planet-cracker is pretty much self-explanatory
Think; how much damage would a total conversion of mass from a 1 TONNE (that's 1 TONNE) of antimatter hitting a solid surface, seeing as how just a few anti-protons (not even a full atom) can cause something on the order of a stick of dynamite in blast damage.

Just ponder that

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

Um... a planet-cracker is pretty much self-explanatory

That depends on how much MDC a planet has.
I think Robotech mentioned it one time.

Think; how much damage would a total conversion of mass from a 1 TONNE (that's 1 TONNE) of antimatter hitting a solid surface, seeing as how just a few anti-protons (not even a full atom) can cause something on the order of a stick of dynamite in blast damage.

Just ponder that

Where are these things detailed?

darkmax wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

darkmax wrote:I think the Altess is probably going to win without lifting as much as a finger. They would have programmed some extremely advanced virus program to invade the Mechanoids, causing them to self-destruct. These can be done simply by transmitting it system-wide, once the Mechanoids come within their boundaries, they would "receive" some information.....

1. Mechanoids are not programmable.
2. IIRC, they don't have any self-destruct.

Who told you they are not programmable? It is just not to our level of technology. Moreover one does not need to be programmable to be infected by virus. You are not programmable, but you can still get attacked by flu, no?

The mechanoids are psychic cyborgs, not androids. They're a genetically engineered race of super-obedient drone organisms, with each kind specially tailored to be melded to a specific type of cyborg body. While I'm sure you could open up the inner workings of the cyborg body and physically program the self-destruct mechanisms in 'em to go off (I'm pretty sure they actually do have these things, since they'd rather blow up and maim a lot of humans than risk getting captured and studied by the enemy), you couldn't code up some computer virus to infect 'em en masse.

All the Mechanoids need to do is tune in to the broadcast channels of Altess and they will be infected. The most effective viruses tend to be base level programmings.

Dubious, since communication between mechanoids is processed by the mainly-biological minds of individual mechanoid units.

The only thing computer viruses might work on are the expendable robot drones that are used by the Mechanoids for some purposes. And given that these robots were designed by a race of psychic cyborgs who are used to using mechanically-assisted telepathy to communicate, even the robots might be a bit of an uphill challenge for other races to crack and reprogram.

But putting that aside, the full weight of the Mechanoids at their peak could destroy any power from Aliens Unlimited, Manhunter, or Phase World. In fact, it could win even if it was simultaneously waging war every nation from all three settings simultaneously. In their home dimension, the Mechanoids didn't target star systems or specific civilizations, they waged war against entire galaxies at a time. They'd arrive at a new galaxy in force, find the lay of the land, and systematically annihilate every humanoid race from one end of it to the other, from primitive hominids on unexplored worlds, to galaxy-spanning civilizations that had existed for thousands of years. They'd destroy all life on entire planets, and then carve those planets up for raw resources, and they'd be doing that in dozens or hundreds of star systems simultaneously until all humanoid life, and all other civilizations that attempted to aid the humanoids, were toast.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

Um... a planet-cracker is pretty much self-explanatory

That depends on how much MDC a planet has.
I think Robotech mentioned it one time.

Think; how much damage would a total conversion of mass from a 1 TONNE (that's 1 TONNE) of antimatter hitting a solid surface, seeing as how just a few anti-protons (not even a full atom) can cause something on the order of a stick of dynamite in blast damage.

Just ponder that

Where are these things detailed?

No Details, just mentioned in Aliens Unlimmited, and AU: Galaxy-Guide.

As I said...just think it out. Stats and dice values at this point are superfluous.
It is fracking ONE METRIC TONNE OF ANTI-MATTER!!!!
It's basicly GMDC (Game Master Damage Capacity) on that scale of destruction; "Okay, the Attorian planet cracker bomb hits the ceneter of the Mechanoid Mothership.... um... anyone have a dump truck full of D6's? X10 trillion"

But that's just it! It would have to get to the MOthership. And who's to say that the Mechinoids couldn't do that to the Atorian home world. 1 mothership has a lot of firepower to draw upon.

Aramanthus wrote:But that's just it! It would have to get to the MOthership. And who's to say that the Mechinoids couldn't do that to the Atorian home world. 1 mothership has a lot of firepower to draw upon.

Exactly; but Mechie psychosis is that they wanna 'play' with the soft-skin bipeds first...THEN blow 'em up
Read up on the mechies, you'll know what I mean

It's all a question of who drops da'bomb first

Atorians is the original opponents.

Actually I have read about the Mechinoids. But my comment was to the one who mentioned using a planet buster on the mothership. It's not likely to get thru.

Aramanthus wrote:Actually I have read about the Mechinoids. But my comment was to the one who mentioned using a planet buster on the mothership. It's not likely to get thru.

Ah.. yes... The millions upon millions of Wasps they could throw in front of it?
Give the man a cookie! Good to see somone thinking..and thanx for qualifiction of yor reply / statement

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

Um... a planet-cracker is pretty much self-explanatory

That depends on how much MDC a planet has.
I think Robotech mentioned it one time.

Think; how much damage would a total conversion of mass from a 1 TONNE (that's 1 TONNE) of antimatter hitting a solid surface, seeing as how just a few anti-protons (not even a full atom) can cause something on the order of a stick of dynamite in blast damage.

Just ponder that

Where are these things detailed?

No Details, just mentioned in Aliens Unlimmited, and AU: Galaxy-Guide.

As I said...just think it out. Stats and dice values at this point are superfluous.
It is fracking ONE METRIC TONNE OF ANTI-MATTER!!!!
It's basicly GMDC (Game Master Damage Capacity) on that scale of destruction; "Okay, the Attorian planet cracker bomb hits the ceneter of the Mechanoid Mothership.... um... anyone have a dump truck full of D6's? X10 trillion"

You would think, but Palladium often doesn't work that way.
Take the big guns in Robotech. The listed damage is "Destroys anything in its path", but later it mentions that if they're fired at a planet they only inflict millions of MDC.
Which wouldn't do much against a Mechanoid ship.

Given that 1 metric ton of TNT doesn't do as much in-game damage as it should, why would Anti-Matter?

DhAkael wrote:

Aramanthus wrote:Actually I have read about the Mechinoids. But my comment was to the one who mentioned using a planet buster on the mothership. It's not likely to get thru.

Ah.. yes... The millions upon millions of Wasps they could throw in front of it?
Give the man a cookie! Good to see somone thinking..and thanx for qualifiction of yor reply / statement

I thought of it, actually.
Assuming that the planetbuster missile was fast enough, the wasps likely wouldn't be able to intercept it before it was close enough for the blast radius to catch the Mothership. Unless the Planetbusters have a pitiful blast radius, the Mothership would still take 1/2 damage (better than full, of course).

On the other hand, I believe that Motherships have Phi-Warpers onboard to move the ship. In which case, the Mothership simply wouldn't be there when the missile arrived.

I just didn't want to get into this until we established that a Planetbuster would indeed pose a serious threat to a Mothership.

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

Um... a planet-cracker is pretty much self-explanatory

That depends on how much MDC a planet has.
I think Robotech mentioned it one time.

Think; how much damage would a total conversion of mass from a 1 TONNE (that's 1 TONNE) of antimatter hitting a solid surface, seeing as how just a few anti-protons (not even a full atom) can cause something on the order of a stick of dynamite in blast damage.

Just ponder that

Where are these things detailed?

No Details, just mentioned in Aliens Unlimmited, and AU: Galaxy-Guide.

As I said...just think it out. Stats and dice values at this point are superfluous.
It is fracking ONE METRIC TONNE OF ANTI-MATTER!!!!
It's basicly GMDC (Game Master Damage Capacity) on that scale of destruction; "Okay, the Attorian planet cracker bomb hits the ceneter of the Mechanoid Mothership.... um... anyone have a dump truck full of D6's? X10 trillion"

You would think, but Palladium often doesn't work that way.
Take the big guns in Robotech. The listed damage is "Destroys anything in its path", but later it mentions that if they're fired at a planet they only inflict millions of MDC.
Which wouldn't do much against a Mechanoid ship.

Given that 1 metric ton of TNT doesn't do as much in-game damage as it should, why would Anti-Matter?

One or two anti-"protons" (meaning; SUB-atomic particles) are equivelent to a stick of TNT. A tea spoon full of anti-matter (a couple of grammes) is equal to the entire nuclear arsenal of the entire Earth going up...multiplied by about 100!
What part of TOTAL CONVERSION OF MASS do you not comprehend?
A typical nuclear explosion is about oh... less than half a percent of (or even lower) conversion of mass to energy.
A matter / anti-matter reaction is TOTAL..complete... 100 bloody percent!

E (energy in joules) = M (Mass; by periodic table of elements) X C2 (Speed of light squared). If you do the math... that is a HELLUVA lot or energy if it is 100%...which almost all NUKES are not...but anti-matter (and it is proven fact ) IS.

[MODERATED]

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:

DhAkael wrote:As for who would win... One mechanoid mothership Vs. Attorian sector fleet; I'd say 90% casulaties / loss to the Attorians, but one good AM planet buster would put paid to the mechies

How much damage does one do?

Um... a planet-cracker is pretty much self-explanatory

That depends on how much MDC a planet has.
I think Robotech mentioned it one time.

Think; how much damage would a total conversion of mass from a 1 TONNE (that's 1 TONNE) of antimatter hitting a solid surface, seeing as how just a few anti-protons (not even a full atom) can cause something on the order of a stick of dynamite in blast damage.

Just ponder that

Where are these things detailed?

No Details, just mentioned in Aliens Unlimmited, and AU: Galaxy-Guide.

As I said...just think it out. Stats and dice values at this point are superfluous.
It is fracking ONE METRIC TONNE OF ANTI-MATTER!!!!
It's basicly GMDC (Game Master Damage Capacity) on that scale of destruction; "Okay, the Attorian planet cracker bomb hits the ceneter of the Mechanoid Mothership.... um... anyone have a dump truck full of D6's? X10 trillion"

You would think, but Palladium often doesn't work that way.
Take the big guns in Robotech. The listed damage is "Destroys anything in its path", but later it mentions that if they're fired at a planet they only inflict millions of MDC.
Which wouldn't do much against a Mechanoid ship.

Given that 1 metric ton of TNT doesn't do as much in-game damage as it should, why would Anti-Matter?

Am I talking to a wall here for fracks sake!?
Read your gods damned physics.... and the posts.
one or two anti-"protons" (meaning; SUB-atomic particles) are equivelent to a stick of TNT. A tea spoon full of anti-matter (a couple of grammes) is equal to the entire nuclear arsenal of the entire Earth going up...multiplied by about 100!
What part of TOTAL CONVERSION OF MASS do you not comprehend?
A typical nuclear explosion is about oh... less than half a percent of (or even lower) conversion of mass to energy.
A matter / anti-matter reaction is TOTAL..complete... 100 bloody percent!

E (energy in joules) = M (Mass; by periodic table of elements) X C2 (Speed of light squared). If you do the math... that is a HELLUVA lot or energy if it is 100%...which almost all NUKES are not...but anti-matter (and it is proven fact ) IS.

Keerist... watch some Star-Trek at least, if you can't read a basic phyics 101 text book.

Seriously, I've been polite and you're being insulting.
Without any reason.

We're talking about a game.
We're talking about a game where nuclear bombs in the kiloton+ range do drastically less damage than a single metric ton of TNT.
Do you really expect the writers' damage expectations for an anti-matter bomb to be accurate?
The fact is that game-world physics and real-world physics are different things. I'm not sure how or why you're unclear on this.

Sure, you're thinking "But the planetbuster can kill an entire PLANET!!"
Right. But depending on how many MDC the writers envision a planet as having, that doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Because the writers are the ones setting the scale of things.

IF the writers think that a planet has hundreds of millions of MDC, then a planet-buster may well not deal significant damage to a structure that has 40 billion MDC.
Same applies if the writers picture a planet as having a handful of billions of MDC.
Say a planetbuster does 2d6 billion MDC, that still wouldn't kill a mechanoid mothership.
If a planetbuster does 1d4x10 Billion MDC, then it might take out a Mothership, if it rolls maximum damage.

On the other hand, if a planet is assumed to have Trillions of MDC, then a mechanoid mothership would get instantly killed by anything that is assumed to destroy an entire planet in one hit.

In short, quit trying to beat me over the head with real-world physics in a conversation about in-game conflicts. They have no real bearing on a conversation about whether an alien spacecraft (built with technology that is beyond anything you or I can truly comprehend) can withstand an anti-matter explosion.
It's about as applicable as using the Palladium rules for falling damage to determine if you could survive jumping off of a cliff.

Killer Cyborg wrote:Seriously, I've been polite and you're being insulting.
Without any reason.

We're talking about a game.
We're talking about a game where nuclear bombs in the kiloton+ range do drastically less damage than a single metric ton of TNT.
Do you really expect the writers' damage expectations for an anti-matter bomb to be accurate?
The fact is that game-world physics and real-world physics are different things. I'm not sure how or why you're unclear on this.

Sure, you're thinking "But the planetbuster can kill an entire PLANET!!"
Right. But depending on how many MDC the writers envision a planet as having, that doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Because the writers are the ones setting the scale of things.

IF the writers think that a planet has hundreds of millions of MDC, then a planet-buster may well not deal significant damage to a structure that has 40 billion MDC.
Same applies if the writers picture a planet as having a handful of billions of MDC.
Say a planetbuster does 2d6 billion MDC, that still wouldn't kill a mechanoid mothership.
If a planetbuster does 1d4x10 Billion MDC, then it might take out a Mothership, if it rolls maximum damage.

On the other hand, if a planet is assumed to have Trillions of MDC, then a mechanoid mothership would get instantly killed by anything that is assumed to destroy an entire planet in one hit.

In short, quit trying to beat me over the head with real-world physics in a conversation about in-game conflicts. They have no real bearing on a conversation about whether an alien spacecraft (built with technology that is beyond anything you or I can truly comprehend) can withstand an anti-matter explosion.
It's about as applicable as using the Palladium rules for falling damage to determine if you could survive jumping off of a cliff.

Here, Here.
I agree totally. DhAkael is starting to sound like some of my players who seem to think that a 10 kiloton nuclear explosion is a big deal in a space battle, only to find out that it does a miniscule amount of damage. They wasted 8 out of 10 nuke rounds they had for their hovertanks on "skybursts", thinking it would actually do damage to a swarm of Invid they were facing, yelling "Nuke hit Baby!" It got tiring very quickly, until I explained that they were only hitting 20 or 30 of them at the most, and those hits were only damaging, not killing, them.
In any case, I'd say treat the hit as a reflex cannon shot, and add a 0 or two onto the end of the number. Crack a planet, yes. Kill a Mechanoid Mothership, maybe. Remember, a planet is the equivalent of a soft target, while a Mothership is a hardened, armored target. Another thing to put it in perspective. A star going nova will also destroy a planet, but a mothership harnesses that type of energy to make the power crystals the Mechanoids live off of. Unless the Planetbuster goes off inside the Mothership, I don't think it is going to do much of anything.

devillin wrote:

Killer Cyborg wrote:Seriously, I've been polite and you're being insulting.
Without any reason.

We're talking about a game.
We're talking about a game where nuclear bombs in the kiloton+ range do drastically less damage than a single metric ton of TNT.
Do you really expect the writers' damage expectations for an anti-matter bomb to be accurate?
The fact is that game-world physics and real-world physics are different things. I'm not sure how or why you're unclear on this.

Sure, you're thinking "But the planetbuster can kill an entire PLANET!!"
Right. But depending on how many MDC the writers envision a planet as having, that doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
Because the writers are the ones setting the scale of things.

IF the writers think that a planet has hundreds of millions of MDC, then a planet-buster may well not deal significant damage to a structure that has 40 billion MDC.
Same applies if the writers picture a planet as having a handful of billions of MDC.
Say a planetbuster does 2d6 billion MDC, that still wouldn't kill a mechanoid mothership.
If a planetbuster does 1d4x10 Billion MDC, then it might take out a Mothership, if it rolls maximum damage.

On the other hand, if a planet is assumed to have Trillions of MDC, then a mechanoid mothership would get instantly killed by anything that is assumed to destroy an entire planet in one hit.

In short, quit trying to beat me over the head with real-world physics in a conversation about in-game conflicts. They have no real bearing on a conversation about whether an alien spacecraft (built with technology that is beyond anything you or I can truly comprehend) can withstand an anti-matter explosion.
It's about as applicable as using the Palladium rules for falling damage to determine if you could survive jumping off of a cliff.

Here, Here.
I agree totally. DhAkael is starting to sound like some of my players who seem to think that a 10 kiloton nuclear explosion is a big deal in a space battle, only to find out that it does a miniscule amount of damage. They wasted 8 out of 10 nuke rounds they had for their hovertanks on "skybursts", thinking it would actually do damage to a swarm of Invid they were facing, yelling "Nuke hit Baby!" It got tiring very quickly, until I explained that they were only hitting 20 or 30 of them at the most, and those hits were only damaging, not killing, them.
In any case, I'd say treat the hit as a reflex cannon shot, and add a 0 or two onto the end of the number. Crack a planet, yes. Kill a Mechanoid Mothership, maybe. Remember, a planet is the equivalent of a soft target, while a Mothership is a hardened, armored target. Another thing to put it in perspective. A star going nova will also destroy a planet, but a mothership harnesses that type of energy to make the power crystals the Mechanoids live off of. Unless the Planetbuster goes off inside the Mothership, I don't think it is going to do much of anything.

What-ever... try and educate... and get fan-boys

DhAkael wrote:What-ever... try and educate... and get fan-boys

You can't educate anybody by being abusive and yelling things that everybody already knows, especially when it's irrelevent stuff that everybody knows.

A single mothership would win easily.

Most people forget that there are also 600 battle cruisers per mechanoid mothership. I believe KS dropped that from the list as the stats were not reprinted for rifts.

Most people also forget that oracles have every known psionic power & probably some unknown ones - which will stop any kill them all plan. All the fun of being a giant brain..that weighs something like 50 tons.