Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

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Dunia
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Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by Dunia »

Just curious to read about saidbook from someone that is not Kevin. (No insult instended, just want a detailed review from one who has bought it, Like the one that was made for Vampire Sourcebook and Vampire Kingdoms last year).
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by Jorel »

I'm not sure where to find a review of it, but I highly recommend it. It is the best book they have put out in awhile. There is a ton of great setting material in the beginning and it gives better details about the areas surrounding it like the great lakes. I like the bots and stuff as well and have used the hover trains in one adventure already.
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by auyl »

Jorel wrote:I'm not sure where to find a review of it, but I highly recommend it. It is the best book they have put out in awhile. There is a ton of great setting material in the beginning and it gives better details about the areas surrounding it like the great lakes. I like the bots and stuff as well and have used the hover trains in one adventure already.


I second this. I just started reading it a few days ago and can barely put it down. There's so much good info on NG and the Great Lakes region along with a ton of equipment options. A very good buy.
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by kaid »

I am not sure I have seen one posted but a lot of us have posted about it in the rifts forums. Overall NG-1 is one of the best source books they have. The first half of the book is world info on the northern gun and its geography and parts of northern wisconsin and bay of green bay area.

It gives a good run down on some of the internal politics of the northern gun and things like their special forces/FBI type unit the Loss prevention unit.

For the "toy box" section there are 27 robot vehicles and the hover train and its cars. The robot vehicles are excellent about half of them are actually more long range exploratory type models that have crew cabins/sanitary facilities and small living compartments. Pretty nice for groups many of whom dismiss robot vehicles utility but things like the bulldog/okemos/ogre/scorpion are all very solid group support vehicles/living quarters.

They also have an excellent assortment of hard hitting front line combat units like the grizzly and the gunwolf.

There are only a few OCC's in the book but all of them are pretty nifty there.

Bush pilot: these guys can fly just about anything with wings and drive just about anything with wheels. When you need to get somebody or something out to the middle of nowhere and then retrieve them they are an excellent OCC. NG uses these folks to deliver the goods to points far and wide.

Monster hunter. NG does not have as much issues with weird critters as some areas do due to lesser amounts of ley lines in the U.P. but when something goes bump in the night this OOC is pretty well suited to shoot it in the face.

Robot controller: This is pretty much my favorite OCC from the book although loss prevention officer is a close second.

The NG sells a lot of robot vehicles/robots/drones/vehicles to all sorts of people. If you don't make your payments or you misuse or abuse or are otherwise antisocial to the NG with heavy equipment these guys are trained in disabling or destroying robots/vehicles/drones/power armor. These guys have similiar skill set to an operator but they are more like anti operators their job is to break stuff but do so in a way that they can put it back together again after the problem is neutralized. They also have some really excellent psionic options to bolster their tech capabilities. One of their abilities is +20% to their mechanical skills in what is in effect anti jury rigging.

Loss prevention officer: these guys are the secret agents/special forces/fbi of the northern gun. These guys go after people who are stealing trade secrets or trying to undermine/rob/harm the northern gun. These guys are fully trained in all northern gun product lines weapons/armor/robot vehicles/power armor/vehicles. They can requisition pretty much any NG items needed for their task.

One fun toy in their kit is they have the power to black ball somebody from the northern gun. Basically they can declare you persona non grata and your face goes out to every NG outlet EVERYWHERE and you are locked out of buying anything from them ever until that order is rescinded. Needless to say most adventurers and mercs are NOT going to want to screw with these guys.

The last OCC is northern gun law enforcement officers. This is actually one of the best Law enforcement OCC's I have come across in the rifts line with some really nice MOS choices depending on what you are looking to do from elite power armor swat forces to rocket bike riding roadway patrollers.


This is honestly one of the best balanced books and I put it up there with Triax/NGR1 for quality/usefulness and actually winds up having even more useful world information than traix did.
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

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Seconded what Kaid posted. The only negative IMO is that some of the designs are underpowered. The robot with two barrels on the cover does less damage than the NG-7 Hunter that has one barrel. I recommend altering some of the MDC of the designs as well. That being said I do think it's a book that should be bought. One of my favorites in a long time.
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by kaid »

Sureshot wrote:Seconded what Kaid posted. The only negative IMO is that some of the designs are underpowered. The robot with two barrels on the cover does less damage than the NG-7 Hunter that has one barrel. I recommend altering some of the MDC of the designs as well. That being said I do think it's a book that should be bought. One of my favorites in a long time.



Well one thing to note about that model is it is also a good deal cheaper than the NG-7 Hunter. Also it is an energy platform instead of kinetic so less ammo issues for those who may be on longer journeys although the hunter has a pretty incredible amount of ammo so its not as big an issue as it may otherwise be. Also I believe the damage is the same 2d6x10 for both bigfoot and hunter. I believe the bigfoot also has some short or medium range missiles which give it some longer range punch when needed.
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by DhAkael »

It's been stated several times that Northern Gun is a few years behind the CS and of course a decade or two behind Triax (and if you allow it) the Republic of Japan. This is actually not a BAD thing in-game. It shows that Northern Gun, while being very prolific, just doesn't QUITE have the advanced materials and electronics yet to fully upgrade their fleet. Please note that even their kinetic-kill weapons while having a fairly substantial rate of fire (NG-101, NG-202 et-al) still have a fair to poor damage rating; this can be handwavium'd by saying the rounds-on-target is less than say a comparable CS or Triax railgun. Ditto for their energy weapons (less efficent power transfer and storage in capacitors).

One way an enterprisng GM can alter the damage / stats without completely re-writing the entire stat block is; have the PCs work for NG on stealing/salvageing/reseraching better production technologies. As a reward, the characters get to field test the "more powerful / better armoured" gear... and of course if the GM is really sadistic... there is the inevitable glitches that happen right when the hero's DON'T want them to. :demon:

Just a thought.

-ahem-

But I digress.

In answer to O/P; no official revue has been posted in any "legit" publication, but the general consensus is;
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by Jorel »

Me Julie say it aaight! Booyakasha!
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Re: Is there a detailed review of NG 1?

Unread post by Hotrod »

(re-posted from a related thread) Several things stand out to me about Northern Gun:

The Good: Where do I begin?

+The cover. It's great to have a quality wraparound piece. Palladium's books are books I like to keep, and it's nice having more art and less ad-space on the outside that gets dated in a few years.
+The descriptions of Northern Gun as a company/government. The location details are rich in both local character and physical features. There's an impressive amount of research that went into this book, down to the correct names and locations of real-life iron ore deposits. I also liked the passages that focus on commerce by sea and land.
+The OCCs are appropriate to the setting: techno-centered classes with plenty of abilities and at least one strong area of specialization.
+New types of tech that make lots of sense, and add some nice depth: Hover Trains, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, and Solar-powered weapons are great ideas.
+The robots are well-conceived and balanced. Chuck Walton has captured the "Heavy Metal" look of Northern Gun in a way that looks and feels real. I'm particularly fond of the new behemoths, the medical robots, and of course, the GunWolf (Rawr!).
+The section on bounties is good, though the rates seem on the low side considering how much it costs to keep equipped in Rifts. Life as a merc must be pretty rough. (50 credits for a Xiticix head? 100 credits for a Gargoyle? I hope you can kill them without burning up ammo or taking any damage!)
+The art in general is excellent.

The bad: I'm having to nit-pick here.
-The particle beam long-guns seem too similar in performance (damage in particular) to warrant a medium, a heavy, and an impractically-big version.
-The scaling seems off to me, though this is true of virtually every Rifts book out there. A 26-foot beachmaster robot is about 4 times the height of an armored 6-ft man (extra inches for boots/helmet). Since it's a proportionally-sized robot, it's also 4 times the width and 4 times the length. With armor plates of the same relative dimensions (and the same metallurgical make-up), this robot should have 4x4x4 = 64 times the damage capacity of an armored man (not counting any internal MDC components, just the shell). The beachmaster has 540 MDC, which is only 5-8 times that of an armored man. It should be about 10x higher.
-The only flavor text is Erin Tarn's (again, true of virtually every Rifts book out there) (like the scaling issue, it's a pet peeve; I prefer fresh perspectives and vignettes centered on anyone else's perspective.

The quirky:
There are some new oddities to this one...
? There are more good-alignment NPC's than in any sourcebook I can think of, probably more than any two or three other Rifts books I've seen. Most of the OCC's are dominated by good alignments. Apparently the most moral society in the world is also its most-famous arms dealer.
? I get that this book was crowd-funded, but holy cow! The name inserts are everywhere! It's neat, but it occasionally breaks my willing suspension of disbelief in a few spots where it feels forced. Every robot, and most weapons, have two names plugged in as their designers. I challenge anyone on these boards to name the lead designers of their cars or their guns (if they own any). The name inserts work well for NPCs that might have a valid reason for existing in-game, but even here, they're a little odd, because the full name is always included, as opposed to other Palladium titles, where minor characters who aren't statted out rarely get the full name treatment (and many others only have it listed as a "true" or "full" name in small text amid a full set of stats)

The "Come on and publish NG2 already!":
!There's scant information about the Mantistique Imperium. They show where Mantistique is, but include nothing else.
!The only vehicles and body armor are for the police OCC.
!There's no power armor.
!There aren't any built-in adventures or mini-campaigns. This isn't a serious flaw, but I'd like to see some in NG2.
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