Forums of the Megaverse®

Darque wrote:The font on the corrections tables is a bit small, but not that bad.

The Deific NMI wrote:Very well done Jason.

jigahus wrote:Nice looks like they upped the MDC on armor and weapons damage.

Jason Richards wrote:Not on the armor, really. There were just some places that the vest was listed as 25 when it should have been 30. The weapon upgrades were all on vehicle or robot/power armor weapons, boosted to make them more powerful than hand-held weapons. They are still too close, in my opinion, but it's a major improvement.

maasenstodt wrote:

Jason Richards wrote:Not on the armor, really. There were just some places that the vest was listed as 25 when it should have been 30. The weapon upgrades were all on vehicle or robot/power armor weapons, boosted to make them more powerful than hand-held weapons. They are still too close, in my opinion, but it's a major improvement.

Given the final decision on the power of those weapons, what would you have choosen for them?

Jason Richards wrote:I actually think that the best situation may be of restricting M.D.C. to vehicle-scale weapons and armor, but doing so would change Rifts/Chaos Earth into a mecha game rather than the game of wild variety that it is now.

maasenstodt wrote:

Jason Richards wrote:I actually think that the best situation may be of restricting M.D.C. to vehicle-scale weapons and armor, but doing so would change Rifts/Chaos Earth into a mecha game rather than the game of wild variety that it is now.

In other words, you'd like to see something more akin to how things worked in the setting where MDC was introduced - the Macross portion of Robotech.

I'd be hard pressed to argue with that if the goal were a greater sense of realism, and for a long time, I thought Rifts would have been a better game had it stuck to that paradigm. Nowadays, even if I would still emphasize the importance and presense of SDC tools and structures in my games, it would be pretty tough to seperate personal MDC armor and weapons from these games. They are just too tightly associated with each other, even if the result is that the notion that even minor MDC tools are tremendously powerful has been lost.

I think, especially when one looks at a game like Splicers, it can be truly said that nowadays MDC is just the new SDC. Moving away from that Macross paradigm was what precipitated the shift, and it has ultimately affected the character of all of Palladium's MDC-involved settings since.

Carl Gleba wrote:Quality work as usual Jason

Carl

Sgtball wrote:Has there been a reprint of this book to include the changes? I did not do so well on my contact paper covering of this book, and need an excuse to buy another.

glitterboy2098 wrote:as i've pointed out in another thread, the GB's 1000 round ammo drum can be traced to a incorrectly errattad typo in WB22 1st and 2nd printing, and thus should be the 100 rounds with 40 in an extra drum of the RMB, WB8 and MiO.

Shawn Merrow wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:as i've pointed out in another thread, the GB's 1000 round ammo drum can be traced to a incorrectly errattad typo in WB22 1st and 2nd printing, and thus should be the 100 rounds with 40 in an extra drum of the RMB, WB8 and MiO.

Actually it started in Spokane, WA back in 98 at Incon where a fan made an argument to Kevin that based on the picture it should hold more ammo. It eventually made it into the books. So yes the greater rounds was done on purpose and is not a typo.

Jason Richards wrote:

Shawn Merrow wrote:

glitterboy2098 wrote:as i've pointed out in another thread, the GB's 1000 round ammo drum can be traced to a incorrectly errattad typo in WB22 1st and 2nd printing, and thus should be the 100 rounds with 40 in an extra drum of the RMB, WB8 and MiO.

Actually it started in Spokane, WA back in 98 at Incon where a fan made an argument to Kevin that based on the picture it should hold more ammo. It eventually made it into the books. So yes the greater rounds was done on purpose and is not a typo.

Shawn is right. The 1000 rounds is canon.

Dustin Fireblade wrote:I wonder if it's possible to convince Kevin to change it back then? Or let's go really crazy and multiply all the other rail gun's ammo supply by a factor of 10 as well.

(I would like to know why/how that fan thought it should hold more though)

Shawn Merrow wrote:Actually it started in Spokane, WA back in 98 at Incon where a fan made an argument to Kevin that based on the picture it should hold more ammo. It eventually made it into the books. So yes the greater rounds was done on purpose and is not a typo.

Shawn Merrow wrote:

Dustin Fireblade wrote:I wonder if it's possible to convince Kevin to change it back then? Or let's go really crazy and multiply all the other rail gun's ammo supply by a factor of 10 as well.

(I would like to know why/how that fan thought it should hold more though)

I belive it was based on the size of the ammo belt.

Take one Glitter Boy Technical Diagram (old RMB, and also in RUE from what I have heard), plus a ruler (metric side for better accuracy), a calculator, and of course, a site that has assorted stuff for converting and calculating assorted mathematical problems and forumla, such as the volume of a cylinder.

Starting off...

Main GB picture: 167mm tall (including from gun in stowed position)

Ammo Drum: 17mm tall, 40mm wide

Since the GB is listed as 3.1m tall, that comes out to 18.5 to 1 scale. 1mm in the drawing = roughly 18.5mm at 1-1 scale

Ammo Drum estimates.
Estimated 31cm diameter, estimated 2.5cm thickness for armor material (based on cross sections, the armor is only 2.5cm/1 inch thick, not bad considering it is likely 100 stronger than steel and likely equal to over 8ft thick armor plate steel), which puts 5cm of diameter as being accounted for by armor, allowing for 26cm internal diameter.
Estimated length is 74cm, estimated 69cm internal length accounting for 5cm thickness in the ammo drum wall.

Estimated internal volume is 36,634 cubic cm, (or 2235.5 cubic inches.)
Looking at a single BG cartridge., it is 3.5 times longer than it is wide, and the length is listed at 7in, which gives it a roughl diameter of 2in.
The volume of a 50mm (2in) diameter and 177.8mm (7in) long cylinder comes to 360.37 cubic cm (21.99 cubic inches), multiplied by 100 comes to 36037 cubic cm (2199 cubic inches) which is VERY close to the estimated internal volume of the ammo drum.
Due to figures I discovered, a 'circles in a circle' diagram, I estimated that round things such as a circles filling up a circle, using up 70-80% of the area of the large circle. This unfortunately makes the ammo drum a little 'small' to hold 100 rounds itself.

If drum thickness were just 2cm thick (4cm of its diameter), volume increases to 40,000 cubic cm.
If it is just 1.5cm thick (3cm of its diameter), it goes up to 43,000 cubic cm.
If it is just 1cm thick (2cm of its diameter), it goes up to 47,000 cubic cm.
So, if the ammo drum has walls 1-1.5cm thick (2-3cm of its diameter), it accounts for sufficient space to hold 100 cylinders that are 50mm by 177.8mm.

Looking at the ammo belt.
There is an estimated length of 70mm on the pic, translating to 1.3m total length at 1-1 scale.
That's possibly enough space for up to 26 rounds (not including any 'links' between rounds).
If we stick with the basic idea of 2.5cm thickness walls of the ammo drum, there would be roughly enough space in the drum for 75 rounds, plus another 25 rounds.

Although, if height is to the 'crown', and not the end of the stowed gun, then the scale changes to 21.2 to 1.
In this case, the ammo drum becomes 36cm diameter and 85cm long.
Sticking with the basic idea the walls are 2.5cm thick, there is a new interior space of 31cm diameter and 80cm long.
The new internal volume becomes 60,000 cubic cm, or roughly 42,000 that could be used up by ammo. This also actually leaves enough space for internal systems that help to feed the ammo into the ammo belt that feeds ammo to the BG. If 8,000 cubic cm was used for ammo feed systems, it leaves 52,000 cubic cm, which is roughly enough for 36,000 cubic cm of BG rounds (100 rounds total)

This new estimate also figures in that the standard weapon system will not have any ammo in an ammo feed belt until such a time the ammo feed belt is actually attached to an ammo source, as ammo would possibly be exposed to the elements and to possible damage when not in battle. There is nothing worse in battle then having a gun jam because of fod (foriegn object debris) has got into the 'links' of the ammo feed belt, since I doubt it is fully sealed since it is flexible.


Looking at the ammo itself.

First, lets look at the flechettes themselves, and if they will fit within the BG cartridge.
5mm diameter fletchettes, area of 19
50mm diameter cartridge, based on the drawing, and the 'thickness' in the picture (13mm exterior, 11mm interior), gives it an interior diameter of 42mm, which comes out with an area of 1385.
Trying to estimate space usage of round objects in a circle (using previously mentioned circles in a circle diagram, of 7 4cm radius circles in a 12cm radius circle), I come up with the following.
50 x 19 = 950
70% of 1385 = 969.5
It seems there is roughly enough 'space' there than is needed for 50 x 5mm diameter fletchettes within the diameter of the BG cartridge.

Again, it seems the technical diagrams, their measurements, and the math, still makes sense.

Except maybe that a 7in long cartridge has space for 75% more flechettes, but I account the extra space as being used for the mother of all hybrid flashbangs/aquatic rocket motors (exhibit A: The excessively loud noise of the boom gun, probably louder than even a 120mm tank cannon, unconfirmed. Exhibit B, WB 22 Free Quebec, the GB apparently gets some air, er, water time when firing underwater unanchored, despite the fact that water is 600 times denser than air, the GB flies back hundred of yards over a period of an apparent minute or more... this is from WB 22 first printing.)

How about the damage?
Would it surprise you if the math shows the damage is perfectly suited, if we take the basic figures and updated muzzle velocity of mach 5?

As everyone knows, the BG does 30-180 MD via 200 flechettes.
That's only 15-90 SDC per individual fletchette.
The flechettes are comparable in size/diameter to a 5.56mm round.
Looking into CoCW, and trying to find the heavy hitters of the 5.56mm rounds...

A baseline is a 5.56mm round that does 5D6, muzzle velocity of mach 3.3 (1,000m/s). Old notes show an average mass of a 5.56mm NATO round is around 4 grams.
Doubling the mass of the 5.56mm will effectively double the to 10D6 damage.
Increasing the muzzle velocity by 50% brings it from mach 3.3 (1,000m/s) to mach 5 (1,500m/s), upping damage again, to 15D6 damage, or 15-90 SDC per round, equal to a BG flechette..

The doubled mass comes to 8 grams, which interestingly enough, comes very close to estimates others had done, estimated if the flechettes (based on the 5x25mm size shown in the technical diagram) were made of Depleted Uranium or Tungsten, the result came out to just shy of 8 grams.

Either way, there are 1.6kg/3.5 pounds of flechetes, a perfectly senesible number for a '50mm' weapon, especially considering a 40mm cannon round (just the projectile) is about 2 pounds, and that an old 47mm cannon (just the projectile) weighed 3.3 pounds.

This helps to further backup that the original 100 shot capacity is accurate and sensible, and that the gun is actually balanced and sensible in terms of damage based on said ammo size, and with updated muzzle velocity of mach 5.
Also, at 867 pounds, if 350 pounds was ammo, and maybe 20 pounds was ammo drum, that leaves almost 500 pounds for the gun itself, which, surprise surprise, is close to weight of some older 40mm and 47mm cannons, which are also around 500 pounds. Also of note, an old 47mm round weighs 3.3 pounds. Again, the ammo weight seems spot on.

Possible problems.
The ammo belt measures 2mm thick and 5mm wide, that's 37-42mm thick and 92.5-105mm wide with the 1-1 scale estimates.
With all of the other data listed and everything shown in the technical diagrams, this is one of the only things that does not really fit with everything else.
Although, in the diagram of the casing ejector in the technical diagrams, the scale of the ammo feed belt seems larger, close to half of the cylindrical portion it is attached to, while the main pic shows the belt to closer to 1/4 the width of the clyndrical section it is attatched to. So, according to the diagram of the casing ejector, it does appear to be large enough to still handle the width of the ammo, the length is still questionable, except for the small section of ejected cartridge shown in the diagram, which gives a basic comparison for the size of the ammo feed belt, if it was 'thin skinned', it might have barely enough space for a 7in long round.

Again, it seems the technical diagrams, their measurements, and the math, still makes sense.

Except maybe that a 7in long cartridge has space for 75% more flechettes, but I account the extra space as being used for the mother of all hybrid flashbangs/aquatic rocket motors (exhibit A: The excessively loud noise of the boom gun, probably louder than even a 120mm tank cannon, unconfirmed. Exhibit B, WB 22 Free Quebec, the GB apparently gets some air, er, water time when firing underwater unanchored, despite the fact that water is 600 times denser than air, the GB flies back hundred of yards over a period of an apparent minute or more... this is from WB 22 first printing.)

Jason Richards wrote:Boys! Boys!

Great discussion, but this thread is for errata. Valid though all opinions may be, the 1000 rounds is canon, so it is not an errata.

Thanks.

R Ditto wrote:That's the problem, it is canon.
It makes no sense at all (like the canon length of a Star Wars A-Wing, or of the damage of a 16in battleship gun in Rifts Underseas, or that 4th ed D&D apparently 'remade' an old setting using a chipper shredder...).
Yet, no matter how absurd and nonsensical it is, it is canon... even if it gets retcon'd beyond the realm of common sense, it remains canon.
Which in turn reduces my respect of such things.

As the old saying goes, if it isn't broke, don't fix it...
and the ammo amount wasn't broke before, it is now...
Someone needs to retcon the retcon...
100 rounds needs to be here as errata, not 1000 rounds as canon.

Jason Richards wrote:

R Ditto wrote:That's the problem, it is canon.
It makes no sense at all (like the canon length of a Star Wars A-Wing, or of the damage of a 16in battleship gun in Rifts Underseas, or that 4th ed D&D apparently 'remade' an old setting using a chipper shredder...).
Yet, no matter how absurd and nonsensical it is, it is canon... even if it gets retcon'd beyond the realm of common sense, it remains canon.
Which in turn reduces my respect of such things.

As the old saying goes, if it isn't broke, don't fix it...
and the ammo amount wasn't broke before, it is now...
Someone needs to retcon the retcon...
100 rounds needs to be here as errata, not 1000 rounds as canon.

Well, disagreements aside, the fact is that it is NOT errata. This thread is for discovered errors that need to be addressed by Palladium. This issue has, in fact, been addressed, even if not to the result that you would prefer.

I encourage you to change the stat for your own games, though. Not a thing wrong with that!

TechnoGothic wrote:Yeah I'd change the GB's BG ammo back down to 100 rounds. Its way more than enough ammo for those damages.

glitterboy2098 wrote:

TechnoGothic wrote:Yeah I'd change the GB's BG ammo back down to 100 rounds. Its way more than enough ammo for those damages.

what, you don't think the ability to fire for an hour non-stop and destroy 4 Ticonderoga Class super-carriers without reloading isn't a good idea?