Range gods

[Axelmania]

I thought it would be cool to have a 'range is king' sort of thread where we look at the top-tier longest-range attacks that do or could exist on Rifts Earth (well, I mean except for bringing Three Galaxies/Robotech/Mechanoid megaships into play since if they were here we'd probably be told about it) and how they would fare against 1 another.

Long-range missiles are one area, but the expensive of shooting them when a single comparatively cheap mini-missile could down a volley does reduce their competitiveness.

In the main book, LRMs weren't originally a thought since nothing could actually fire them. I'm not sure what the first was in Rifts publication, page 56 of the Sourcebook gave "large full size missile launcher" for minimum 10 million (it only had this and mini, did not distinguish between short/medium/long as far as I can tell) it wasn't totally clear what things you could add this to or what size missiles it could field.

Atlantis (WB2) had the Dragon Dreadnought (p152) and Triax+NGR (WB5) had the Devastator (pg 79) and ISWP (pg 120) which introduces LRM-specific vehicles, but all were still limited to other continents and would not shift the balance of power in North America, Rifts' central setting.

Which is why the Mechanoid Spider Fortress (Sourcebook 2 page 82) is such a huge threat, since as far as I know (other than SB1's possible 10 million dollar guideline) this was the first North American LRM capability.

Prior to all of this though, the range king was the medium range missile, up to an 80 mile multi-warhead, initially the realm of only 3 things: the UAR-1 Enforcer (p 194) Death's Head Transport (p 200) and TR-001 Titan Combat Robot (p 214).

The non-missile king was the Glitter Boy, with 11,000 feet was only rivaled by the Death's Head Transport (2 miles = 10,560 feet) and the benefit of these attacks is they had higher payloads and could only be dodged, not shot down, making them ideal for assaulting immobile targets.

The conversion book shifted the balance further in favor of railguns with the major super ability Magnetism (pg 48) which could extend the range by 1000 feet to 12,000 feet total for the boom gun.

What I think really shifted the balance of power in North America is the Heavy SAWs, on page 106 of Mercenaries. Instead of requiring a questionable 10 million add-on to a robot (already costing millions) a less mobile launcher could be had for <100,000. Unlike other LRM-launchers introduced in this book (Iron Bolt on 110, Grey Falcon on 113, Air Castle Bomber on 115, Sea King on 120) these are presumably still around to influence the world, since Wellington Industries I think is still around, while Iron Heart is not.

It also verified (Mark IX on 148, Nightwing on 150) that the Coalition had LRM capabilities, something reinforced by War Campaign (Fire Storm, p 160 and Talon, p 177) and Final Siege (p 216, the CTX-53 variant of the CTX-52 Sky Sweeper from CWC 156)

The next big shift I think was Merc Ops' "Golden Age Howitzers" on pg 125. With 7.2 > 11.3 > 20 miles, these became the longest-range non-missile weapons on Rifts Earth, far as I know. A huge advantage, not being able to have your attacks shot down.

Since they weighed over a ton, they were similar to SAWS in that they made sense as things you would transport in trucks, and set up in fortified areas, but weren't very mobile and vulnerable to assault themselves.

All except the GAW Sledgehammer (Ops 127) which is the ULTIMATE gamechanger. A mere 89 pounds with a 3 mile range, for under 5000 credits, these things suddenly become the ultimate Glitter-Boy Killer. Formerly the realm of those with short-range missile launchers (the boom gun having a better range than mini-missiles) these weapons basically shoot grenades, which far as I know, can't be shot down like missiles.

[Shark_Force]

unless militaries in the golden age stopped caring about mobility for some unfathomable reason, artillery might not be as mobile as, say, a laser rifle or a tank's main gun, but they're gonna be fairly mobile. there's probably a brief period of set-up time before you can start firing them, but most artillery should either be pulled by a truck of some kind on a trailer (and again, should only take a brief period of time to set up and break down - i would expect the advanced technology of the golden age or even rifts earth would be able to help speed that process up greatly) or actually be part of a vehicle (those would be called self-propelled guns i think), which should have an even shorter setup time.

they really shouldn't be terribly immobile.

[ShadowLogan]

I thought it would be cool to have a 'range is king' sort of thread where we look at the top-tier longest-range attacks that do or could exist on Rifts Earth (well, I mean except for bringing Three Galaxies/Robotech/Mechanoid megaships into play since if they were here we'd probably be told about it) and how they would fare against 1 another.

Range can be king, but there are several ways to look at this to consider as opposed to not just a one-size-fits all approach to range since a 4000ft with an Ion weapon is pretty "long range" compared to typical Ion Weapons (but not typical lasers or rail gun on vehicle/robots or bigger):
-Personal (portability degree), Robot/Vehicle, and Super-sized Vehicles (ex Navy Ships)
-not to mention type (laser, Ion, Plasma, Particle, Railgun, Projectile, etc)
-are you including firing beyond effective range
-firing conditions (underwater vs air vs vacuum)

The next big shift I think was Merc Ops' "Golden Age Howitzers" on pg 125. With 7.2 > 11.3 > 20 miles, these became the longest-range non-missile weapons on Rifts Earth, far as I know. A huge advantage, not being able to have your attacks shot down.

Actually older titles than Merc Ops come to mind:
-SB4 has several weapons that exceed 20miles (C-406 on pg84: 35miles), and has a few weapons with ranges that equal or exceed 10miles (one is Errata found in Rifter #3 or Errata page on the website) on CS Naval Vessels
-WB7 on pg136 has (generic quick stats for) Battleship weapons in the 25mile range

[Axelmania]

I forgot about the boats! Boats are basically just water spaceships so I probably lumped those behemoths in with the Three Galaxies stuff to ignore.

Firing Beyond Effective Range should be considered, although it's a weird issue when discussing changes over time since it went from -4 per 25% to something for an extra 30% at some point. Plus I'm not entirely sure which weapons can do that and which can't.

Mobility's super-important, a lot of this assumes everyone knows where everyone is and is able to attack them as they cross the expanse. A bunch of stuff without clear mechanics with GM rulings like terrain, radar shielding, etc. would play against the long range weapons.

Vacuum is probably a 'Mutants in Orbit' dilemma. Water is an interesting thing to discuss and does change the range on a lot of weapons.

Off the top fo my head I don't know any major changes done by water in terms of worst:best though. Don't rail guns still fair pretty well? Or maybe I'm thinking of how good boom guns are in space...

Guessing water probably messes with mortars/howitzers worse than it does missiles/railguns though.

[Ed]

I forgot about the boats! Boats are basically just water spaceships so I probably lumped those behemoths in with the Three Galaxies stuff to ignore.

Firing Beyond Effective Range should be considered, although it's a weird issue when discussing changes over time since it went from -4 per 25% to something for an extra 30% at some point. Plus I'm not entirely sure which weapons can do that and which can't.

Mobility's super-important, a lot of this assumes everyone knows where everyone is and is able to attack them as they cross the expanse. A bunch of stuff without clear mechanics with GM rulings like terrain, radar shielding, etc. would play against the long range weapons.

Vacuum is probably a 'Mutants in Orbit' dilemma. Water is an interesting thing to discuss and does change the range on a lot of weapons.

Off the top fo my head I don't know any major changes done by water in terms of worst:best though. Don't rail guns still fair pretty well? Or maybe I'm thinking of how good boom guns are in space...

Guessing water probably messes with mortars/howitzers worse than it does missiles/railguns though.

Water would degrade the performance of high speed low mass projectiles like rail gun rounds more than low speed high mass mortar rounds.

[Axelmania]

We talking IRL physics or Palladium physics?

[glitterboy2098]

Per WB7, railguns designed for underwater use use spherical or spike shaped projectiles. While the book does not say it, IRL such shapes encourage super cavitation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation
Real life design leans towards spike shapes, like those used by the APS assault rifle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APS_underwater_rifle
(The 'torpedoes' found in WB7 are also supercavitation weapons, as they are described as using rocket propulsion, have speeds of around 300mph, and are highly inaccurate beyond a very close distance. Pretty much the exact opposite of current standard torpedoes like the MK48, but almost exactly like the Russian Shkval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval )