Running, Forced Marches, Power Armor and You!

[J_cobbers]

I just posted in the favorite vehicle thread my total fanboy love for the Glitter-boy as a vehicle, and realized that long distance travel really is, based on the game mechanics a limiting factor for power armor characters unless they have a high P.E.

The Running physical skill on pg 317 RUE gives us the rules for running distances, and the Forced March skill provides some other input on the subject (because why would we cover that in the information on the P.E. and S.P.D. attributes right?).

So basically you can run 1/2 mile per point of P.E. at 1/2 speed without "undo fatigue" Unclear what that means other than you should have any penalties.
You can run all out at full speed for 1/3 that distance before collapsing (again unclear what this means in game terms other than that your character will fall down if they push it to their extreme). Most power armor allow their characters to run at full speed but at only 10% of the normal rate of fatigue. Which seems to me means they can run at 1/2 speed of the PA for 1/2 mile per P.E. x10 without undo fatigue. So if the average character has a PE of 11, then they can run in a GB at 30 mph for .5 miles x11 x10 or 55 miles. But only just over 18 miles at the full 60 mph.

Now the Forced March skill is a bit different. It allows travel at 60% of one's maximum speed attribute (60 mph for the GB or would that be the character's speed?) for up to 5X the normal P.E. rate. So, if the PA's speed is allowed as the base, if traveling at 30 MPH that rate could be maintained for 55 miles x5 or 270 miles, which is about 9.17 hours of travel time. What is unclear is what is the rate of fatigue for something like 60% of one's speed, or 36mph in this example. Would it be that same 1/2 mile x PE x 5? If so that is the same distance but in less time: just 7.5 hours.

Does anyone know of any other rules that impact distance running and fatigue that would be applicable?

TLDR: If your character uses ground based Power Armor as a primary means of travel, they'll want to have the Forced March physical skill for distance travel and a high P.E.

[Zamion138]

Good observations, personally we never get into the gritty of tuckering out a character unless they get crazy and say they jog sun up to sun down. Kinda seems like asking if they remembered to buy toilet paper or 2 weeks into game asking when the players were planning on brushing their teeth.

[glitterboy2098]

i think your math is pretty much correct. it certainly explains how PA pilots like the Glitterboy's can get around without any sort of other transport in their starting gear. and it means they drastically outpace horses in the process.

that said, it isn't the way i'd want to get around often, since it would leave you fairly winded by the end of it. but even if you figure 6-8 hours of travel via a PA amplified forced march, followed by a day of rest at camp, you could cover a pretty good amount of ground.

[J_cobbers]

i think your math is pretty much correct. it certainly explains how PA pilots like the Glitterboy's can get around without any sort of other transport in their starting gear. and it means they drastically outpace horses in the process.

that said, it isn't the way i'd want to get around often, since it would leave you fairly winded by the end of it. but even if you figure 6-8 hours of travel via a PA amplified forced march, followed by a day of rest at camp, you could cover a pretty good amount of ground.

Yes but think of all the great cardio you'd get. It'd be like running an ultra marathon and then some if you had to go a long way. Unlike the GB most other power armors don't have on-board food and drink, so I imagine there would be pit stops for nourishment and potty breaks. Hmm I wonder if anyone in Rifts Earth has tapped into the PA Jock market for adult diapers. I would think the NG would be all over it:

"Hey power armor trooper, do you need to huff it for hours on end to get to your next assignment? Worried about excess hydration in the middle of combat? Don't soil your armor over it! When you can't get out of your armor because you have to fight or can't spare the time to make that pit stop, strap into the Northern Gun's Power Armor Pilot Pullups (NGPA PP -see what I did there ) and let it's moister trapping technology keep you dry for those long runs and hostile situations!"

[Axelmania]

That really should be a thing. It's just so dangerous to leave your armor.

Heck even though it wasn't MDC, I recall in Dune the stillsuits had something like that, in this case the danger is the environment and the moisture you lose due to the desert conditions.

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Stillsuit

It consisted of various layers that would absorb the body's moisture through sweating and urination, and then filter the impurities so that drinkable water would be circulated to catchpockets. The individual could then drink the reclaimed water from a tube attached to the neck.

This doesn't explain defecation but Lie Kynes quote later does:

Urine and feces are processed in the thigh pads.

Rifts Africa should've had something like this! Could've been appropriate for some regions of New West too.

I think I'd want it for all environmental armor / power armor though, just because of the dangerous of undressing.

Even if you had an MDC building or vehicle to undress in with a toilet, there's always the chance a tiny demon with Turn Invisible snuck inside and will be hiding in your toilet bowl. Do you want to risk that? Do you have a Talisman of See the Invisible you use every time you go to the toilet?

Much better to process your feces in thigh pads.

[glitterboy2098]

I always kinda questioned the still suit concept. The recycling of the sweat I could buy as being largely passive and driven by a mix of movement driven pumping and solar evaporation. We've actually recently made some membrane filters that can make fresh water out of seawater using about the same energy sources. I'm less convinced urine could be processed as well though, given the extra chemical compounds involved. (And really, where did all the uric acid and ammonia go afterwards) and the catheter system needed to actually capture the urine would be rather uncomfortable.
The feces bit seemed to really stretching it. Not only are we talking of solid waste (given their low water diets), but also items far more complex chemically and in larger quantities. How would you even go about fully extracting the moisture in feces without complex machinery? And sterilizing it, given most feces are at least half comprised of gut bacteria? And again the issue of how to dispose of the leftover material is left hanging.

Still suits allowed for some pretty rad SciFi, but like a lot of SciFi macguffins, they kinda create more questions than answers if you look at them too hard. (The trick with SciFi is usually to put just enough thought and detail into your macguffins to pass casual scrutiny, and avoid using them in such a way that invites anything beyond casual scrutiny.)

[Axelmania]

Considering this is in a universe which had sentient AIs wiping out humans, using engines to fold space, force fields, the I just handwave it to the stillsuit being a product of the advanced tech levels there, using processes we haven't figured out yet. Even though the Fremen seem really low tech, they're descended from high-tech settlers and the stillsuit is I think a remnant that they've kept going out of necessity.

[eliakon]

Why would you need a 'still suit'?
This is not a desert world with no atmospheric moisture after all...
And you DO have a nuclear power cell with unlimited power...
Just extract water from the air.

[glitterboy2098]

i think the issue was less supplies of water than "what to do when you need to void waste"

[Axelmania]

Yes, poop mechanics. Urine evacuation has fewer complications, a catheter could be worn with a narrow tube possibly fed out somewhere. Eating would be more complicated.

Feces evacuation is more dangerous than eating because you don't have line of sight on the armor breach to make sure Lasae aren't using it to sneak into your suit.

6th sense is one fix... But I wouldn't want to undress unless I had 4 walls up and was in a protection circle.

[J_cobbers]

Given the hostile realities outlined in the Rifts setting, these are valid concerns. I l love that the original topic has now turned into serious discussion of my tongue in cheek product idea
As for still suits, there are are actual real life mechanical water filters that can clean urine into drinkable water so the tech isn't that far off, as for fecal matter, not sure we have a real life example. As for waste collection, perhaps for the liquid instead of a catheter it's just absorbed by the base layer (gross maybe but much simpler), while the solid waste you might have to make some adjustments to make sure it lines up with the collection apparatus. It's SF I'm sure some fanboy has figured it all out x_x

[glitterboy2098]

a thought.. the NG-EX10 Gladius exoskeleton. it's a sort of hybrid PA/EBA (to the point it is still being debated whether it and similar suits need the PA piloting skill.)
looking at the NG2 stats for it (the latest)

it uses a battery pack good for 96 hours of constant use. it has a top speed of 40mph (user tires at 30% the normal), but if you stick to below 20mph the user tires less easily (20%)

this suggests that you could cover a lot of ground forcemarching using the NG-EX10. not as much as with a glitterboy, Sampson, or other full sized PA, but a Gladius might make a decent alternative. yeah the batterypack runs out faster than a nuke pack, but it can actually be recharged by a nuclear pack or other generator in 2 hours (per NG2), so something as simple as a NG built nuclear jetpack might be able to keep you going indefinitely, if you recharge during your regular stops to rest and deal with biological functions. alternately, be carrying one portable nuclear charger/powerpack (such as used for a MG style railgun) for every 4-5 people, and have the suits be recharged in sequence while they sleep in watches.
(interestingly, the batterypack the NG-EX10 uses is not the same as the batterypacks found on pg103 of NG1.. those seem to be bigger systems for robots and larger PA, and offer a longer lifespan. which suggests a space NG-EX10 batterypack might be lighter than the 31 pounds of the robot scale system)

why bring this up? the NG-EX10 is only 150,000 credits, which is dirt cheap for rifts. it doesn't provide much greater protection than a heavy EBA suit, but the extra mobility and strength certainly makes it attractive for adventurers.

[Axelmania]

If you had a nuclear suit of power armor which could keep you warm in cold environments, it couldn't be that complicated to put in a miniature incinerator for waste and pump out the exhaust the same place your CO2 comes out.

[Zamion138]

a thought.. the NG-EX10 Gladius exoskeleton. it's a sort of hybrid PA/EBA (to the point it is still being debated whether it and similar suits need the PA piloting skill.)
looking at the NG2 stats for it (the latest)

it uses a battery pack good for 96 hours of constant use. it has a top speed of 40mph (user tires at 30% the normal), but if you stick to below 20mph the user tires less easily (20%)

this suggests that you could cover a lot of ground forcemarching using the NG-EX10. not as much as with a glitterboy, Sampson, or other full sized PA, but a Gladius might make a decent alternative. yeah the batterypack runs out faster than a nuke pack, but it can actually be recharged by a nuclear pack or other generator in 2 hours (per NG2), so something as simple as a NG built nuclear jetpack might be able to keep you going indefinitely, if you recharge during your regular stops to rest and deal with biological functions. alternately, be carrying one portable nuclear charger/powerpack (such as used for a MG style railgun) for every 4-5 people, and have the suits be recharged in sequence while they sleep in watches.
(interestingly, the batterypack the NG-EX10 uses is not the same as the batterypacks found on pg103 of NG1.. those seem to be bigger systems for robots and larger PA, and offer a longer lifespan. which suggests a space NG-EX10 batterypack might be lighter than the 31 pounds of the robot scale system)

why bring this up? the NG-EX10 is only 150,000 credits, which is dirt cheap for rifts. it doesn't provide much greater protection than a heavy EBA suit, but the extra mobility and strength certainly makes it attractive for adventurers.

Just gave my players two of these and they bought 1 back up battery to do just as suggest trading it back and forth.
It really is a great deal and not so over powered that you would want to restict it.... like say a ja12...

[kaid]

i think your math is pretty much correct. it certainly explains how PA pilots like the Glitterboy's can get around without any sort of other transport in their starting gear. and it means they drastically outpace horses in the process.

that said, it isn't the way i'd want to get around often, since it would leave you fairly winded by the end of it. but even if you figure 6-8 hours of travel via a PA amplified forced march, followed by a day of rest at camp, you could cover a pretty good amount of ground.

It seems pretty accurate power armor can allow a trained soldier to do a forced march at speeds of most riding animals pretty well. However going full out max speed for ground power armors that are not weird oddities like ultimax has to be done carefully and your endurance for max speed maneuvers in a day is going to be limited.

It is one advantage of robot vehicles they can move their max speed terrain permitting all day every day.

It also explains why there are vehicles designed to transport power armor squads if you feel you may need to deploy them to the fight faster.

[kaid]

i think the issue was less supplies of water than "what to do when you need to void waste"

I think with most power armor the answer is you stop get out and use the bushes. Catheter hookups are probably not uncommon on the bigger armor sets like the glitterboy but for the other stuff you likely need to get out and answer natures call.

As for how to handle the byproducts of urine recycling easiest option is simply vent them outside the armor keeping only the water. With all the water removed it basically is going to be a salty powder which should be easy enough to just expel as necessary.

[Axelmania]

The bushes approach could leave you open to sniping if a single bush or animals in bushes if all around.

[kaid]

The bushes approach could leave you open to sniping if a single bush or animals in bushes if all around.

And that is the disadvantage of power armor over robot vehicles. There are robot vehicles that have their own internal bathroom facilities as well as sleeping bunks so you could stay in them for weeks. Power armors inherent disadvantage is it is personal body armor. You can only stay in it for a finite period of time. Glitterboys are some of the best laid out for longer term use but even they encounter debilitating penalties if you don't get out somewhat frequently.

[rem1093]

Always thought that the PA pilots just used diapers like astronauts do.

[Axelmania]

I just thought of an interesting application of Teleport Lesser but as TW enhancement into PA.

[kaid]

Always thought that the PA pilots just used diapers like astronauts do.

It is very possible they do but like with babies it is a short term fix and you still need to take time out of the suit to clean up or risk some pretty serious complications if you ignore it to long.

[guardiandashi]

Don't try to "Hardcore" through a UTI, get treatment.
And while you can take a dump in your suit,it sucks, and cleaning the fecal matter repository sucks...

Two quotes I thought were great. I just can't remember atm which of the Troy Rising novels they were in, but I think it was citadel