Wilks

[Pepsi Jedi]

seriously? that's your logic? just go buy a triax or NG rifle?

Yeah... if you have money to buy one, you can have money to buy another. Sell the wilks one and buy an NG one. Or save up for one. Heck your answer was "have a 10,000 rifle stolen, go spend three million to become a juicer (( and I'm assuming, buy weapons to use as a juicer)) and go to war. lol

But you think "Buy a gun that's not on the restricted list" is crazy?

sure, just as soon as i get my hands on the magic bag the CS has been given that craps out millions upon millions of robot vehicles, power armor, trained recruits, armor, and weapons, i'll be sure to go ahead and do that.

Or sell the wilks one and buy a different one. Or save up for the NG one the same way you did the Wilks one. Sure beats a fine or death doesn't it?

you say that as if it isn't a major investment.

I'm sure it is. But if you have your car stolen you don't cry and sit there in the dirt. You go back to work, maybe buy a cheeper car to get around till you can get a new one. You don't just curl up and die.

if you bought a brand new car 40,000 dollar car, and someone came along with 20 pounds of C4, threw it inside, and detonated it (presumably after getting a safe distance away), then took another several thousand dollars out of your bank or maxed out your credit cars, would "oh, just spend your own money on a new 40,000 dollar car" be a viable solution? because you sure seem to think it would be. this is not just some minor expense that you can just write off casually.

If the options are "Save up for a new car" or "Scream and attack a super techological army of millions with the car, trying to run one over and get killed" Then yeah... You save up for the new car. The options you have put forth is like that. Someone comes to streal your car, so you try and ram a tank with it screaming how unfair it is. You ram the tank. The tank driver laughs and rolls over you killing you with no effort and goes on along his way.

But that's if you didn't sell your car (( Yeah even at a loss)) and buy a car from a different company that won't get blown up thusly.

and we live in a place where the car lot is easy to get to and where alternative solutions are readily available, and where our life probably isn't dependant on owning a car. on rifts earth, the nearest source of new weapons may be hundreds of miles away, through monster-infested wilderness, and that's assuming you actually even have the money available to buy a new weapon in the first place.

Hate to break it to you, but if you live 100s of miles through the wilderness, and are so poor that you can't afford the new rifle, the chances of one rifle saving your life from those 100s of miles worth of monsters is pretty nil too.

And it's also ignoring the fact that the CS isn't HUNTING DOWN Wilks owners. They just confiscate and fine you if they find you with one. The CS isnt going to travel 100s of miles through monster filled wilderness to take the rifle away from one po dunk farmer.
If Mr Farmer straps on the rifle and travles 100s of miles into a CS town an the ISS see him, they might take it then, but he'd have to be pretty stupid wouldn't he? Stupid people shouldnt have high tech military grade weapons.

also, you seem to be woefully unaware of the setting. one of the most common ways to become a juicer is to sign up for a military, spend the first couple of years working in that military, and then be free to go your own way.

I'm not unaware. that's just not what you said. You said he was going to go become a juicer then go after the CS. lol So now your idea is... the CS confiscate a rifle... so the guy is SOOO Angry, he goes from being a bean farmer, to sign up for some military that actually has juicers. (( not a given)) And serve 2 of his 4 remaining years of life, as a juicer. Presumeably the military is willing to train Joe Dirt here from being a farmer into a juicer... and if he lives through the first two years (( FAR from a given knowing the juicer life style)) He's going to then get out, after 2 years as a juicer for he military, is going to then leave and go inact his sweet revenge on the coalition states!!! For stealing his gun... years ago.... and forcing him into military service and a 4 year life expectancy!

YEAH!!! THAT'S THE TICKET!! I'll SHOW THEM FOR STEALIN MY GUN!!! YEAAAH!!!!!!!


.............. Really? How stupid is that? You didn't even throw in "You killed my Mother!/Sister!/Wife!/Daughter!" in there. Come on man. That farmer must be a paint chip eating mental defective if that's his thought process.

the whole point of it is that you don't need money to start it off. you just go sign up, and at the end of it you come out with a juicer (or crazy, if you prefer) conversion, training, some combat experience, and weapons.

Right!! Sacrifice your life! Become a killing machine instead of a farmer. Serve for two years as a juicer and manage to not die. Then you can inact that sweet revenge on the CS for daring to take your gun!! Even if you don't manage to get vaporized by the CS your first time out (( Doubtful seeing how smart this guy is for this to be his master plan)) What's best case senerio? You kill some CS grunts and die in 2 years anyway? One juicer surely isn't even going to make a DENT in the CS numbers. LOL GOOD PLAN!!!

you yourself said the CS would likely need 6-7 people in the logistics chain for every soldier in the field.

No I didn't! lol YOU did. I agreed to 2 or 3. You then upjumped it saying "Things are harder in the future." YOU jumped it to 6 or 7. Not me.

I said that the CS is a fully militerized state and most of the civilian population is dedicated to fielding the armies.

that puts a very *specific* limit on how much recruiting the CS is capable of. if you go anything over ~14.3% you are going over 6 people in the logistics chain (the most generous end of the spectrum you gave possible).

No.. the end YOU gave. LOL. I agreed to 2 or 3. YOU Elevated it. Don't go attributing your faulty assumptions to me. I even pointed out you're grossly overestimating it.

by your own numbers, they cannot have more than that and still be able to supply their own troops' needs.

They're not my numbers! lol they're yours. You made them up!!

that is literally, at a rate of 6:1 support:soldiers, the absolute maximum amount you could ever possibly recruit, and it means that you're not producing so much as a single scrap extra for any purpose that does not directly contribute to the military.

Again, you're just making these numbers up, They mean nothing out side your fictional assumptions.

you yourself said: "No. You're half right. MOST of the CS population does revolve around supplying and maintaining the military. It's how they keep it going. You're taking something past the extreme to go from 2 or 3 upkeep to more than 7 per, but you're half right."

Yeah. I said that. I said You.... Shark Force.... are taking something..... the numbers past 2 or 3...... to more than 7.... that you're taking something past the extream. YOU said that. Not me.

I pointed out you're half right. yes it takes 2 or 3 in our current military to upkeep boots on the line. YOU jumped it to 7. That's where you went past the extreme into hyperbole.

YOU are the person who came up with 7 upkeep instead of 2 or 3. not me. YOU. if you need 7 people to supply one soldier, that is actually *less* generous than what i gave.

No Shark. YOU said it. I pointed out that you were wrong. That you were grossly exaggerating. You're just making up numbers. Wanna see? Here's your quote

we can figure on a pretty similar amount of required people to support them; ie 6-7 people per ISS

Posted teusday sep 18, 2:07 pm.

YOUR numbers man. lol. I was saying you're wrong and exaggerating things.

and you even went so far as to say *more* than 7. i went the extra mile and was generous enough to offer 6 as the number. at 7:1 the CS would be looking at an absolute maximum of 12.5% recruitment. at "more than 7" it gets a little fuzzy, because that isn't a definite number, but i can tell you one thing: it doesn't add up to more than 2 million, with 1 million available for kicking in doors and confiscating stuff that hurts the coalition's feelings.

It helps that you're just making up stuff and don't seem to remember what you've typed that's being refuted.

my point was that to make your numbers work, you pretty much need to have 2:1 being the absolute total number of workers required. otherwise, the CS simply does not have enough of a logistics chain to supply several million soldiers, including ISS, dog boys, and regular military. bearing in mind that dog boys are not even counted in that 12 million population, nor are skelebots (who cost less to train, but much much much more to produce than the average CS soldier).

I don't refute a 2 to 1 ratio, or even a 3 to 1 ratio. That's well with in the CS ability considering their entire society is built up around it. If the CS fields 2million troops. Even at 3 to 1 odds, that would mean 6milllion people working to put those boots on the ground. WELL with in the CS population ability.

the numbers do not make sense. they are complete and utter hogwash. if it takes 7 people to support one soldier,

You MADE UP that number. Assuming that it was more than we have today. lol. If you make the number 76, it's still made up. or 4588392. It doesn't matter as you just plucked it out of the air man.

it is simply not possible to recruit more than 1 in 8 people and be able to supply them the bare minimum. and we know that if there's one thing that can be said of the CS, it certainly isn't hurting for supplies; in fact, they have so much stuff that even regular grunts can request the use of multi-million credit machines if they feel their job calls for it.

They have so much stuff they have three million Samus sittin' around in storage, just in case, and so much stuff that they're flying tens of thousands of troops across the ocean to win the NGR's war.

the CS has completely laughable numbers when it comes to their military strength. if we operate under the assumption that those numbers are canon, then we are operating under the assumption that the CS has been undergoing a massive financial collapse, cannibalizing itself to maintain it's ridiculously huge military.

That's the thing, You made up the numbers... and are now gong off the assumption that they're using your numbers... if you make up stuff, it's pretty easy to call it stupid and say it won't work... You made it up to be that way. lol

[Killer Cyborg]

the coalition doesn't restrict itself to policing it's own land. they're more than happy to send troops out, constantly, into everywhere else.

Care to quote some relevant passages to me?
Or refer me to already-quoted passages that I missed?
I'm under the impression that CS law pretty much only extends to CS borders.

if the CS has a proposed 6 or 7 people needed for each soldier (including stuff that isn't military, but which is required for the military to function), that puts an absolute cap of about 14% of their population in the military, period.

And if not, then not.
Do you have something solid to indicate the 6-7 number?

we have numbers that say their available army is 10% and that chi-town itself has a garrison that represents 10% of the total CS population. so what... -4% are available to guard every other part of CS territory?

Do you have the book and page number for the Chi-Town garrison?
Again, if it was posted, I missed it.

And the "standing army" numbers were "over 10%," to be precise.
Which would most likely mean "less than 11%," but which could also mean anything from 10-100%.
(although we know that the 100% simply isn't true.)

even if we assume that it only takes, say, 4 people per soldier in the field (allowing 20% military, or ~2.4 million total)... we still get complete and utter nonsense when we start working with the numbers we're given. the CS military numbers are simply not something you can look at and say "yeah, that sounds plausible". they fall apart under even the most casual scrutiny.

So perhaps we should assume less than that?

for the numbers to actually fit, you'd need at least 30% recruitment rate (including ISS). which means the CS had better be able to somehow support their soldiers with only 2 people, total, including every single other job in the process of equipping, training, and supplying that soldier.

Okay.

and that isn't even looking at the logistics of creating and supplying the dog boys, not to mention the added expense of fielding millions of skelebots (no, skelebots aren't soldiers... but you'll still need the resources and labor to get them produced and in the field, and that makes it even less likely to get the numbers down to 2 people in the logistics chain for every soldier).

Let's look at this another way.
If a hypothetical country were to have a hypothetical army of 9 million soldiers (including reserves), what would you say that their minimum overall population would be?
Maximum expected population?
Average expected population?

[Nightmask]

the coalition doesn't restrict itself to policing it's own land. they're more than happy to send troops out, constantly, into everywhere else.

Care to quote some relevant passages to me?
Or refer me to already-quoted passages that I missed?
I'm under the impression that CS law pretty much only extends to CS borders.

And barely even that, seeing as they have such issues with the burbs. Plus as city-states, the outer edges of their territory may as well be wilderness.

They still go after people well outside what they insist is their territory. Under Golden Age Weaponsmiths there's a bomber that the CS is said to target and destroy even when it's detected practically on the other side of the continent WAY beyond any claim to being CS territory.

[Shark_Force]

how the hell can i sell a wilk's rifle that has been confiscated? for that matter, how am i supposed to sell it and buy a new rifle? have you ever done a trade-in for anything, anywhere? here's how it goes: you will get a tiny portion of the value of the old thing. you will have to pay full price for the new thing. unless the objective is to massively downgrade, this is not a viable option. and again, this even assumes people have access to a store. which they very well may not. there may not be (and in fact most likely there isn't) a store nearby.

this isn't something you just go without for a while. it is an essential tool for survival in the setting. you either have access to MD capabilities, or you are completely helpless against those that do. being helpless in the setting is not something that is likely to last long, particularly given the number of predators, human and otherwise. maybe you'll be ok. i don't imagine "maybe bandits won't show up and rape your daughters" or "maybe monsters won't show up and eat everyone you care about while you sit there helplessly" is terribly reassuring to the people who are having their ability to defend themselves stolen from them, though. particularly given how much time and energy the CS spends on making sure everyone is afraid of those things to keep them under the CS's thumb

it will be even less comforting to the comparative few who have that sort of thing actually happen to them. that's exactly the kind of story you *don't* want to have refugees telling in the 'burbs, ie the prime recruiting grounds for the CS military. some of whom more than likely will be willing (possibly along with some of their friends and relatives) to give up their lives to hurt the people responsible. and the remaining people who didn't have that happen will be fully aware that the CS didn't give a damn if it did happen to them. not exactly the best way to make friends.

but seriously, even at 2-3 people for support, you still get completely ludicrous numbers compared to what the books tell us. 10% of the population is in the military garrison in chi-town, the ISS needs 1.6 million SAMAS and presumably therefore has that many human officers, millions of people sent to fight in tolkeen) about 1 million at any given time iirc?), none of this adds up. that's about 30% of their population right there, do they not also defend the other coalition states? because if they do, they're already under 2:1, which is about as favorable as you're going to get for a technologically advanced fighting force. heck, that's exceptionally good when presumably millions of your troops are flying around in complex power armor with nuclear reactors in them for power.

and that's at 2 people, the low end of the scale, and that presumes they're just producing enough. the CS military mothballed 1.6 million SAMAS (in addition to what they sent to the ISS supposedly) because they couldn't even think of something to use them for. they are clearly producing *far* in excess of what they need if there upgrade happens all at once and they don't have any use for the old stuff any more. frankly, i suspect that 7:1 ratio is much more probable, but even at 2:1 it really isn't reasonable, or even close to reasonable.

the numbers may as well be a joke, because about all they're good for is laughing at. and again, these numbers don't even take into account non-human troops, which the CS has a large number of, but which still require most of the same things equivalent human troops need.

and this is all still assuming the CS, which cares an awful lot about their image as the good guys, are willing to paint themselves as heartless thugs willing to steal the things people need to survive for a trade advantage.

@ johnnycat: the question was "where do they enforce the law" and the answer, as clearly shown, is "everywhere". they don't care if that bomber is nowhere near their territory. enforcing that within their territory would consist of "don't fly it near our borders or we'll shoot it down". likewise, they wouldn't care if someone off in lazlo or tolkeen was practicing magic or teaching people how to read. if it's not in their borders, they wouldn't enforce it. except, they quite regularly do go out of their borders and enforce their rules. whenever they feel like it.

it doesn't matter what tools they used to enforce it. they key is that they will enforce it as far away as they can detect it, and they actively send troops out all around themselves to detect it beyond their own borders.

[Killer Cyborg]

the coalition doesn't restrict itself to policing it's own land. they're more than happy to send troops out, constantly, into everywhere else.

Care to quote some relevant passages to me?
Or refer me to already-quoted passages that I missed?
I'm under the impression that CS law pretty much only extends to CS borders.

And barely even that, seeing as they have such issues with the burbs. Plus as city-states, the outer edges of their territory may as well be wilderness.

They still go after people well outside what they insist is their territory. Under Golden Age Weaponsmiths there's a bomber that the CS is said to target and destroy even when it's detected practically on the other side of the continent WAY beyond any claim to being CS territory.

For breaking CS gun laws?

[Pepsi Jedi]

Seriously? this is getting silly.

how the hell can i sell a wilk's rifle that has been confiscated?

You sell it when you find out they're going to be illegal soon. Or even after. You don't put it in your front window and carry it around. You sell it when you can. Recoup some of your loss.

for that matter, how am i supposed to sell it and buy a new rifle?

Same way you got it, either at a reputable weapons store, or on the black market.

have you ever done a trade-in for anything, anywhere? here's how it goes: you will get a tiny portion of the value of the old thing. you will have to pay full price for the new thing. unless the objective is to massively downgrade, this is not a viable option.

No. It's not an OPTIMAL option. It's a very VIABLE option. When your option is this. "Sell at a loss, and put that money towards buying a new one" Or.... "have it taken, with NO Money for it, and then get fined thousands of credits ON TOP OF THAT" Then, selling, even at a loss is ALOT better than the alternative.

and again, this even assumes people have access to a store. which they very well may not.

The gun originally just manifested like mana from heaven then?

there may not be (and in fact most likely there isn't) a store nearby.

So the gun you're so worried about just grew on a tree? Then no big loss. Let um take that one and go pick a new one from your gun tree when the CS has left.

this isn't something you just go without for a while.

Not optimally. But if needed you make due. Again you're blatently ignoring a major factor. ------ MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MEGA DAMAGE WEAPONS------ Only a small percentage have them.

it is an essential tool for survival in the setting. you either have access to MD capabilities, or you are completely helpless against those that do.

While they're very useful, MOST PEOPLE DONT HAVE THEM.

being helpless in the setting is not something that is likely to last long, particularly given the number of predators, human and otherwise. maybe you'll be ok. i don't imagine "maybe bandits won't show up and rape your daughters" or "maybe monsters won't show up and eat everyone you care about while you sit there helplessly" is terribly reassuring to the people who are having their ability to defend themselves stolen from them, though.

Then they BETTER save up some money and replace the gun, huh? With a CS Approved weapon this time. You're not wrong that it's not optimal, but it beats death. Which is what happens if you do some knee jerk reaction and attack the CS.

particularly given how much time and energy the CS spends on making sure everyone is afraid of those things to keep them under the CS's thumb

What a joke.. the CS don't have to spend time and energy making people are afraid of those things. Those things are honestly scary and the people had 200 years of dark ages to learn to fear them.

it will be even less comforting to the comparative few who have that sort of thing actually happen to them. that's exactly the kind of story you *don't* want to have refugees telling in the 'burbs, ie the prime recruiting grounds for the CS military. some of whom more than likely will be willing (possibly along with some of their friends and relatives) to give up their lives to hurt the people responsible.

Again, you're looking at this from a childs point of view. "They took my daddy's gun so I'm gonna give up my life and kill dhem!" no. The CS is the CS. They routinly burn parts of the burbs to the ground if they feel like it. Still thousands and thousands of people flock to live in the burbs for a REMOTE CHANCE to make it into one of the mega cities. Burning down the burbs doesn't chase them off. They rebuild the minute the CS pulls back inside the city.

Some podunk farmer 100s of miles out in the boonies isn't going to make a lick of difference to the "People". That's his fault for being an idiot and living 100s of miles out in the wilderness not where the CS can protect him. If he was smart he'd live under that protective umbrella. (( Saying what they'd likely think. Noit me))

Do you really think these people living and trying to get into the CS every day is going to suddenly turn on what they hold up to be nigh on Heaven, just because of some story of some redneck farmer they never met?

and the remaining people who didn't have that happen will be fully aware that the CS didn't give a damn if it did happen to them. not exactly the best way to make friends.

Burning down swaths of the burbs probably doesn't endear warm fuzzy feelings either, but it doesn't slow them down. You keep forgetting the CS's people love the CS. They're going to think that the farmer did something to deserve it. Even if it's nothing other than "Possession of an illegal fire arm"

but seriously, even at 2-3 people for support, you still get completely ludicrous numbers compared to what the books tell us. 10% of the population is in the military garrison in chi-town, the ISS needs 1.6 million SAMAS and presumably therefore has that many human officers, millions of people sent to fight in tolkeen) about 1 million at any given time iirc?), none of this adds up. that's about 30% of their population right there, do they not also defend the other coalition states? because if they do, they're already under 2:1, which is about as favorable as you're going to get for a technologically advanced fighting force. heck, that's exceptionally good when presumably millions of your troops are flying around in complex power armor with nuclear reactors in them for power.

But it's not. Their SOCIETY, is militarized. As in, their society revolves around keeping the military going and supplied. They work for that end. Therefore while it is large, it's like war footing during WWII or something. When everyone is pitching in for the fight, you have more people pitching in. If 1 out of 10 is in the military, and 3 out of the remaining 9 are supporting that one. that still leaves you with 60% not. I'd say that MORE people in the CS contribute. That's what allows the growth. I'd think 5 to 7 out of the 10 are going to have SOMETHING that ties back to keeping the military going. Even if it's indirectly. Even if it's growing those genetically superior cows, or sewing CS Issue boxer shorts, or working in a plastic factory that makes plastic buttons for one of the spider skull walkers. That's how they keep their society growing but --also-- keep their military growing.

and that's at 2 people, the low end of the scale, and that presumes they're just producing enough. the CS military mothballed 1.6 million SAMAS (in addition to what they sent to the ISS supposedly) because they couldn't even think of something to use them for.

No no no no no no. They didn't moth ball them because they couuldn't think of anything to use them for. They mothballed them because they have better and more advanced versions, but you don't waste equipment. If there's ever a protracted war (( say with demons/devils?)) And it starts eating away at their new Samus... those millions of back up units in the warehouse are going to be gold baby!!

they are clearly producing *far* in excess of what they need if there upgrade happens all at once and they don't have any use for the old stuff any more.

But.. it didn't. It happened over time. There were rumors of field deployments before the official announcement. And the roll out of the new gear didn't happen like a light switch. There were field units using the new stuff in secret. Then there was the grand unveiling. After that, the new stuff trickles down from ChiTown and Iron heart, the other production centers. Ask anyone in the military. When the military makes a change it isn't instant and all over. They do test cases. Say, with the Digital cammo a few years ago. They did some test runs with some units. Got feed back. Went and changed some things. Then started the roll out. The troops didn't just wake up one day, with out knowing it was coming and have new uniforms they had to buy. They had plenty of warning on that.

When the change happened with the M16 in Vietnam it wasn't a light switch flick. It was a gradual roll out. Yes it's good to get them out as fast as possible so there was likely a good amount of build up PRIOR to the roll out, but it's not instant.

frankly, i suspect that 7:1 ratio is much more probable, but even at 2:1 it really isn't reasonable, or even close to reasonable.

We have that sort of support to front line ratio now. It's perfectly reasonable, but it's not quite what you're talking about.

the numbers may as well be a joke, because about all they're good for is laughing at.

Because you don't like them?

and again, these numbers don't even take into account non-human troops, which the CS has a large number of, but which still require most of the same things equivalent human troops need.

And who can, if need be, take care of their own. Pick up lone star and look at the breeding programs and stuff.

and this is all still assuming the CS, which cares an awful lot about their image as the good guys, are willing to paint themselves as heartless thugs willing to steal the things people need to survive for a trade advantage.

You're highly mistaken. The CS does what it wants, then spins it after the fact. Again they routinly burn out the burbs. Which are just rebuilt by new people wanting to get into the CS. The propaganda machine doesn't have to 'cover up' anything. They just paint the guy in question as the bad guy. It's not 'Oh hey, we steal from the farmer, but we're good guiys. Really" Instead it's "That farmer was in possession of military grade weaponry, and non compliant with the law. Laws we have to KEEP YOU SAFE. To KEEP OUR SOCIETY GOING. To FIGHT THE EVIL in the dark. So we had to take the gun. We didn't want to, but it was announced 6 months ago. Turn in your guns or face fines. he chose to keep the gun. So we took it and fined him. He's still alive. he can buy --approved-- weaponry, if he likes, but this one was on the banned list." That's if they don't go even darker with it.

@ johnnycat: the question was "where do they enforce the law" and the answer, as clearly shown, is "everywhere". they don't care if that bomber is nowhere near their territory. enforcing that within their territory would consist of "don't fly it near our borders or we'll shoot it down". likewise, they wouldn't care if someone off in lazlo or tolkeen was practicing magic or teaching people how to read. if it's not in their borders, they wouldn't enforce it. except, they quite regularly do go out of their borders and enforce their rules. whenever they feel like it.

This is actually right. The CS law's are in place in CS territory. And, like Shark says, that's well and good for day to day business, but the CS is alot like the old Texas Rangers. "My jurisdiction is where I'm standing".

Now.. they're not gonna be standing in down town Lazlo, lol, but if they're out side of their borders, and decide to enforce their rules, it comes down to "Who is going to, or even can, stop them"?

it doesn't matter what tools they used to enforce it. they key is that they will enforce it as far away as they can detect it, and they actively send troops out all around themselves to detect it beyond their own borders.

Sometimes yes. It will often depend on the cost/benifit equasion. "How much does it cost, in fuel, in man hours, in man power, in equipment, in logistics, in PRIDE, and in REP.... vs "What do we get out of it?"

[Shark_Force]

We have that sort of support to front line ratio now.

My husband has said the United States military has a 3-4 to 1 ratio
of service troops to combat troops right now.

careful now, you might get accused of making up numbers by citing real life. it's already happened to me, apparently some people think the numbers in the rifts world books are more real than that

[Killer Cyborg]

We have that sort of support to front line ratio now.

My husband has said the United States military has a 3-4 to 1 ratio
of service troops to combat troops right now.

careful now, you might get accused of making up numbers by citing real life. it's already happened to me, apparently some people think the numbers in the rifts world books are more real than that

Well, the thing is, they're not really "real world" numbers unless you have a legit source from the real world.
"My husband said..." doesn't count.
And I don't recall you posting any source at all, Shark Force, though I might have missed or forgotten it.

Scrolling back, it seems like you also ignored my last post to you, including the following questions:
Let's look at this another way.
If a hypothetical country were to have a hypothetical army of 9 million soldiers (including reserves), what would you say that their minimum overall population would be?
Maximum expected population?
Average expected population?

The above could have been a handy excuse for you to show off your real-world knowledge, and explain your reasoning, so I'm mildly surprised that you never got back to me on it.
I figured you'd have some firm answers pretty quick.

[Giant2005]

According to this article: http://www.alternet.org/story/102187/th ... 22_in_iraq
The real world costs in support of each soldier is extremely high.
The Soldier's wage is $51,000-$69,000 (60k average) and to maintain that soldier costs $500,000 a year in wages for his support staff.
If the support staff are on average, paid equally well to the Soldier, that would be the equivalent to having over 8 non-combatants to keep one combatant active.
That number is an estimate and could be quite different if the support staff earn significantly more or less than the combatant.

[Pepsi Jedi]

We have that sort of support to front line ratio now.

My husband has said the United States military has a 3-4 to 1 ratio
of service troops to combat troops right now.

careful now, you might get accused of making up numbers by citing real life. it's already happened to me, apparently some people think the numbers in the rifts world books are more real than that

But you did make up the number. I quoted your post where you did it and even gave the time date stamp of you doing so.

[Shark_Force]

We have that sort of support to front line ratio now.

My husband has said the United States military has a 3-4 to 1 ratio
of service troops to combat troops right now.

careful now, you might get accused of making up numbers by citing real life. it's already happened to me, apparently some people think the numbers in the rifts world books are more real than that

But you did make up the number. I quoted your post where you did it and even gave the time date stamp of you doing so.

oh, i'm sorry. i must've missed the post where you provided the source for proving anything at all on your end. you don't even really address it beyond just disagreeing on principle.

it's hard to find sources that are particularly solid. i mean, a very quick internet search can find answers anywhere from about 5 to 10, but the information there doesn't have any more support than mine. it also of course depends on when you're looking at... lots of talk about it being 3 support per soldier in world war 1, vs 10:1 in vietnam, for example... but again, no sources given. further, it is often mentioned as being different based on which branch of the military you're talking about. one quick search had someone giving an answer of 5 for the marines vs 7 for the army, for example.

i can give "sources"... it's finding the sources of those sources which would provide significant credibility that is the problem. and even then, that's generally just talking about personnel deployed to the combat zone (ie that doesn't include production, that's just all the stuff that's local to the conflict, including HQ, medical, military police, intelligence/analysts, etc, and in some cases includes civilian contractors). and of course, some of that is going to be because the US military tries rather hard to provide some of the comforts of home, i'm sure... the CS probably doesn't worry so much about whether their military base has a KFC franchise, i suspect.

i do know i've seen some numbers on it, but finding where i got that information is hard. for example, it may have been a TV documentary. and in fact, the number i remember is being 3 support staff per soldier.


but if you want more, try googling "tooth-to-tail ratio" or "soldier to support ratio" for example.

as to your request for numbers KC... again, i'd have to ballpark that. finding concrete answers is proving difficult. finding anything with sources is even harder.

edit: and this is why i didn't want to post anything. it's a fair amount of digging just for the sake of a post that is very likely to be ignored, and even then, finding a good solid internet source... well, i'm stuck relying on self-proclaimed experts. sorry, worse than that: mostly *anonymous* self-proclaimed experts. which doesn't mean they're guaranteed to be wrong, but i mean, if i was doing this as a job, i sure as hang wouldn't want to submit *this* as a report to my boss.

the USSR in WW2 for example i can find a couple of sources that claim a total of about 35 million soldiers fought from 1941 to 1945. no figures for how many were recruited at any given time, but if we get very very very generous and presume that every last one of those people were simultaneously serving in the military, you'd get roughly one in 6 people in the population into the military (soviet union had a population of something like 200 million). of course, that was WWII, but it sorta shows what kind of desperation measures they were going to. that included drafting young and old, veterans from previous wars, etc. and it was dramatically higher than pretty much any other nation involved.

if we presume a much more reasonable figure of, say, half that many having served at the peak (which i suspect is still generous, given that ~20 million soviet soldiers total died during said war)... that would be 17.5 out of 200, or about 9% of their population were available for the military. and they weren't exactly super-well equipped... they were given cheap guns, weren't given proper uniforms, and for most of the war didn't exactly have a ton of mechanized support or anything like that. i think we can safely say that the soviets were also not generally holding back... there were no knitting competitions held, unless it was a competition to knit enough useful war supplies to actually keep your troops in fighting shape.

so, now we move on to your question. it all depends on what you meant: do you mean a modern fighting force of 9 million combat troops? well, that's simple to figure out a ballpark figure for... though the accuracy will of course suffer. but 9 million combat troops, if we assume the random tooth-to-tail stuff on the internet is correct, probably means 8 times or more as many in the military (7:1 ratio means 1/8 are front-line combat troops), that would give us 72 million military personnel needed for 9 million of those to be combat troops. again, if we presume the soviet union was going razor-thin on how many people they could recruit, and we use the most ridiculous number possible (ie the soviet union had all 35 million soldiers for the entire war), we would come up with 100/17.5 (we're just inverting the population to military rate here) * 72 million = (approximately) 411 million total population.

and i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the soviet union was bleeding pretty hard from recruiting that many... i don't think the CS has gone nearly as far as the soviets would have. and of course, not being completely insane, i don't really believe that the soviets kept every single soldier alive until the very last second of the war, at which point 20 million died. and again, this is not even close to what the CS are doing, where the CS are very picky about who they choose, reportedly... they're not grabbing random 60-year-old men off the streets and telling them they're soldiers now if they don't want to get shot, and they're presumably giving much better training and equipment (not that doing better than WWII soviet training and equipment is a particularly impressive feat, mind you).

oh, and that's also with external support.

again, that's just a ballpark for the minimum really.

edit: quick correction: keep forgetting that common (ie non-military) use of casualties is different from military. the soviet union had 20 million *casualties* which is not at all the same as 20 million getting killed. the math pretty much remains the same.

[Killer Cyborg]

as to your request for numbers KC... again, i'd have to ballpark that. finding concrete answers is proving difficult. finding anything with sources is even harder.

Understood; all I'm looking for is a ballpark number.

so, now we move on to your question. it all depends on what you meant: do you mean a modern fighting force of 9 million combat troops? well, that's simple to figure out a ballpark figure for... though the accuracy will of course suffer. but 9 million combat troops, if we assume the random tooth-to-tail stuff on the internet is correct, probably means 8 times or more as many in the military (7:1 ratio means 1/8 are front-line combat troops), that would give us 72 million military personnel needed for 9 million of those to be combat troops. again, if we presume the soviet union was going razor-thin on how many people they could recruit, and we use the most ridiculous number possible (ie the soviet union had all 35 million soldiers for the entire war), we would come up with 100/17.5 (we're just inverting the population to military rate here) * 72 million = (approximately) 411 million total population.

and i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the soviet union was bleeding pretty hard from recruiting that many... i don't think the CS has gone nearly as far as the soviets would have. and of course, not being completely insane, i don't really believe that the soviets kept every single soldier alive until the very last second of the war, at which point 20 million died. and again, this is not even close to what the CS are doing, where the CS are very picky about who they choose, reportedly... they're not grabbing random 60-year-old men off the streets and telling them they're soldiers now if they don't want to get shot, and they're presumably giving much better training and equipment (not that doing better than WWII soviet training and equipment is a particularly impressive feat, mind you).

oh, and that's also with external support.

again, that's just a ballpark for the minimum really.

edit: quick correction: keep forgetting that common (ie non-military) use of casualties is different from military. the soviet union had 20 million *casualties* which is not at all the same as 20 million getting killed. the math pretty much remains the same.

Okay! Good work.

Now I'll let you know why I asked that specific question:
The North Korean Army is the 4th largest standing army in the world, with 1,106,000 active personnel, and 8,200,000 reserves (2nd largest).
Their entire population is only 28 million people, so that's about 32% of their population that is in the military.

I stumbled onto this after seeing that the new version of Red Dawn apparently has us being invaded by North Korea, and thinking that was completely absurd.
After reading up on things a bit, I still think it's absurd, but I'm impressed by their military, and it made me think about the arguments that pop up about whether or not the Coalition could sustain their massive military.

Granted, the vast bulk of the NKA is made up of reserves, not active members. The level of support needed for reserves is likely to be lower than that for active soldiers.
Though part of that depends on what exactly the support you're talking about entails.

[Colt47]

Seriously, we got people with naruni weapons AND stolen CS Mecha, the only people this effects are the npcs.



I suppose if the game was a blade runner-esque game or a game similar to Mirrors Edge than it would matter more, but the typical group of adventurers are made of chiseled granite and are willing to go to extreme lengths to reclaim any personal possession. This includes raiding an entire CS base along with the bases "platoon" of SAMAS and all of Proseks men, or set the self destruct and take the entire base down trying... unless they find something better, in which case they forget the whole debacle and run off into the sun set riding their new Skull-smasher.

[Killer Cyborg]

the typical group of adventurers are made of chiseled granite and are willing to go to extreme lengths to reclaim any personal possession. This includes raiding an entire CS base along with the bases "platoon" of SAMAS and all of Proseks men, or set the self destruct and take the entire base down trying... unless they find something better, in which case they forget the whole debacle and run off into the sun set riding their new Skull-smasher.

My experience varies.
While attacks against CS bases aren't unheard of in my group, they weren't ever done over something as small as "they took my rifle!", and usually resulted in heavy casualties among the PCs, if not a TPK.

[Colt47]

the typical group of adventurers are made of chiseled granite and are willing to go to extreme lengths to reclaim any personal possession. This includes raiding an entire CS base along with the bases "platoon" of SAMAS and all of Proseks men, or set the self destruct and take the entire base down trying... unless they find something better, in which case they forget the whole debacle and run off into the sun set riding their new Skull-smasher.

My experience varies.
While attacks against CS bases aren't unheard of in my group, they weren't ever done over something as small as "they took my rifle!", and usually resulted in heavy casualties among the PCs, if not a TPK.

TPKs are not uncommon when this scenario plays out, but it's a common player behavior when their possessions are taken. Personally I think keeping the wilks ban a bit low brow might be a safer play on the GMs part than treating the ban similarly to the brow beating the CS usually deliver when dealing with Naruni tech. That or have it discriminate based on the wilks weapon, as I got the feeling the ban was added in the books due to some of the wilks laser weapons being as powerful, if not more so, than even Triax or Naruni.

Also, I can totally see a CS grunt wondering why the heck they are using standard CS laser rifles when the 447 pulse rifle does a better job, weighs half as much, and is built by a human manufacturer.

[Shark_Force]

Okay! Good work.

Now I'll let you know why I asked that specific question:
The North Korean Army is the 4th largest standing army in the world, with 1,106,000 active personnel, and 8,200,000 reserves (2nd largest).
Their entire population is only 28 million people, so that's about 32% of their population that is in the military.

I stumbled onto this after seeing that the new version of Red Dawn apparently has us being invaded by North Korea, and thinking that was completely absurd.
After reading up on things a bit, I still think it's absurd, but I'm impressed by their military, and it made me think about the arguments that pop up about whether or not the Coalition could sustain their massive military.

Granted, the vast bulk of the NKA is made up of reserves, not active members. The level of support needed for reserves is likely to be lower than that for active soldiers.
Though part of that depends on what exactly the support you're talking about entails.

reserves likely don't take up much at all... though i don't imagine north korea is particularly forthcoming on the details of their training regimen for reserves, at least in the US it's something like 2 weekends per month i think? so, 4 days out of every 30 or so... (i'm not sure, but i wouldn't be surprised if north korea trains more than that. i also wouldn't be the tiniest bit surprised to find out that the military is supported by other countries... like china, for instance). if they make the training days possible to be any day, rather than only weekends, they can of course train/supply a lot more reserves per support personnel, given that if they for example trained on average 6 days in every 30 (chosen for dividing evenly), they could rotate through 5 different reserve groups while keeping the same support crew... not to mention certain types of support crew simply aren't needed at all (you don't need military intelligence for reserves unless/until you're going to deploy them, for example).

furthermore, there's a huge difference between having that many troops and being able to deploy them effectively.

i'd go with that ~1.1 million active personnel number (about 4%) as being their effective recruiting rate. sure, they have those reserves, but if they just pulled those 8.2 million people out of their jobs indefinitely, i doubt they'd be in good shape. i would expect that their defensive needs are largely expected to be covered by their regular military... otherwise, those 8.2 million would not be reserves, they'd be regular troops. they would not, for example, be likely to launch a 3 year long military campaign and send all their regulars out of their territory for that entire period as well as constantly feeding more into the meat grinder from home constantly.

also, i'm not sure if that's quite the picture i presented... that ~411 million was for an army roughly equivalent to the US, and was assuming you wanted 9 million fighting troops.

for 1 million fighting troops with a similar sized t3r (that's tooth-to-tail ratio), that number goes down considerably... about 45.7 million would be expected. if we presume that because of a different military philosophy (for example, fewer vehicles or lower tech/simpler vehicles, resulting in less effectiveness per soldier but a more favorable t3r) they don't need as many support personnel per soldier, the number needed goes down further... although i have no information on that number for the north korean army.

if we work on what i consider to be the even more likely scenario, specifically that those 1.1 million active duty soldiers are not all front line combat troops (though they may be able to perform that role if needed), but rather the *entire* military organization including support, then you'd only need something like 5.7 million population to get to USSR levels (though again, i suspect the USSR information is still a bit favorable). of course, if we presumed an army with roughly the same t3r as the modern US military is reported to have, that would mean only 125,000 of those are combat troops... though again, i lack the information to tell if north korea has a similar t3r as is reported on the internets for the US (and i also lack what i consider a strong source for that t3r mentioned for the US on the internets, so take that with a grain of salt).

now, it's hard to say what exactly the t3r we might expect from the CS would be.

however, we can make some rough estimates there. in fact, i feel much much better about the quality of these estimates. all we have to do is look at the CS, and try to figure out if they differ in any major way from the US in terms of how many people it should take to maintain the services.

for example, have the CS made major strides in intelligence, that would drastically reduce the numbers required? i see no indication that they have.
have the CS made major strides when it comes to vehicle maintenance and repair? i see no indication that they have, and every indication that their need for these or equivalent services (body armor is not a vehicle, but if they were supposedly holding on to 3.2 million SAMAS... well, i could be wrong, but i don't think the US has anything equivalent to that sort of stockpile).
have the CS made major strides in medicine? well, in certain areas of medicine, yes. cybernetics, specifically, as well as emergency untrained trauma treatment (the nanobot medical kits). otherwise, they appear to not enjoy any bonuses as compared to palladium RPGs set in modern or equivalent settings.
have the CS made major strides in food preparation? i don't see anything indicating they have.
have they made major strides in military HQ organization? none that i'm aware of.
have they made major strides in communication? none that i'm aware of.
have they made major strides in military police duties? if anything, i suspect they use more MPs than the modern US.
have they made major strides in transport? well, yes and no. they have some really good transports for troops, which maybe they might use for other things as well. but then again, they also have increased needs, because there's a lot less support infrastructure they can use... for example, they don't have the highway system that the US has (which connects every major military base, if my understanding is correct).

really, i see nothing in the CS that leads me to believe they'll have a better t3r than modern US. if i could find what i consider a reliable source for a number for the t3r of the modern US, i'd be a lot happier though

[Pepsi Jedi]

as to your request for numbers KC... again, i'd have to ballpark that. finding concrete answers is proving difficult. finding anything with sources is even harder.

Understood; all I'm looking for is a ballpark number.

so, now we move on to your question. it all depends on what you meant: do you mean a modern fighting force of 9 million combat troops? well, that's simple to figure out a ballpark figure for... though the accuracy will of course suffer. but 9 million combat troops, if we assume the random tooth-to-tail stuff on the internet is correct, probably means 8 times or more as many in the military (7:1 ratio means 1/8 are front-line combat troops), that would give us 72 million military personnel needed for 9 million of those to be combat troops. again, if we presume the soviet union was going razor-thin on how many people they could recruit, and we use the most ridiculous number possible (ie the soviet union had all 35 million soldiers for the entire war), we would come up with 100/17.5 (we're just inverting the population to military rate here) * 72 million = (approximately) 411 million total population.

and i'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the soviet union was bleeding pretty hard from recruiting that many... i don't think the CS has gone nearly as far as the soviets would have. and of course, not being completely insane, i don't really believe that the soviets kept every single soldier alive until the very last second of the war, at which point 20 million died. and again, this is not even close to what the CS are doing, where the CS are very picky about who they choose, reportedly... they're not grabbing random 60-year-old men off the streets and telling them they're soldiers now if they don't want to get shot, and they're presumably giving much better training and equipment (not that doing better than WWII soviet training and equipment is a particularly impressive feat, mind you).

oh, and that's also with external support.

again, that's just a ballpark for the minimum really.

edit: quick correction: keep forgetting that common (ie non-military) use of casualties is different from military. the soviet union had 20 million *casualties* which is not at all the same as 20 million getting killed. the math pretty much remains the same.

Okay! Good work.

Now I'll let you know why I asked that specific question:
The North Korean Army is the 4th largest standing army in the world, with 1,106,000 active personnel, and 8,200,000 reserves (2nd largest).
Their entire population is only 28 million people, so that's about 32% of their population that is in the military.

I stumbled onto this after seeing that the new version of Red Dawn apparently has us being invaded by North Korea, and thinking that was completely absurd.
After reading up on things a bit, I still think it's absurd, but I'm impressed by their military, and it made me think about the arguments that pop up about whether or not the Coalition could sustain their massive military.

Granted, the vast bulk of the NKA is made up of reserves, not active members. The level of support needed for reserves is likely to be lower than that for active soldiers.
Though part of that depends on what exactly the support you're talking about entails.

Small note. The new Red Dawn was filmed as being invaded by China... then it was shelved for a few years. They changed it to North Korea in post due to politics and wanting to make more money over seas. They literaly went in and digitally changed insignia's and flags and stuff from china to NK.

And.... Might I say....

WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Killer Cyborg]

reserves likely don't take up much at all... though i don't imagine north korea is particularly forthcoming on the details of their training regimen for reserves, at least in the US it's something like 2 weekends per month i think? so, 4 days out of every 30 or so... (i'm not sure, but i wouldn't be surprised if north korea trains more than that. i also wouldn't be the tiniest bit surprised to find out that the military is supported by other countries... like china, for instance). if they make the training days possible to be any day, rather than only weekends, they can of course train/supply a lot more reserves per support personnel, given that if they for example trained on average 6 days in every 30 (chosen for dividing evenly), they could rotate through 5 different reserve groups while keeping the same support crew... not to mention certain types of support crew simply aren't needed at all (you don't need military intelligence for reserves unless/until you're going to deploy them, for example).

Sounds reasonable, and this gives be a better picture of the kind of support you're talking about.
The CS may well be able to cut short the manpower needed for training, though, by utilizing technology. VR simulators and such.

furthermore, there's a huge difference between having that many troops and being able to deploy them effectively.

Care to elaborate on how that would apply in Rifts?

i'd go with that ~1.1 million active personnel number (about 4%) as being their effective recruiting rate. sure, they have those reserves, but if they just pulled those 8.2 million people out of their jobs indefinitely, i doubt they'd be in good shape. i would expect that their defensive needs are largely expected to be covered by their regular military... otherwise, those 8.2 million would not be reserves, they'd be regular troops. they would not, for example, be likely to launch a 3 year long military campaign and send all their regulars out of their territory for that entire period as well as constantly feeding more into the meat grinder from home constantly.

I'm pretty curious about their active:reserve ratio. It seems unusualy high, though I'm not really sure.

also, i'm not sure if that's quite the picture i presented... that ~411 million was for an army roughly equivalent to the US, and was assuming you wanted 9 million fighting troops.

I actually assumed pretty much the same thing when I asked it, actually; I remembered the 1.1 million number as active soldiers, not just personnel.

for 1 million fighting troops with a similar sized t3r (that's tooth-to-tail ratio), that number goes down considerably... about 45.7 million would be expected. if we presume that because of a different military philosophy (for example, fewer vehicles or lower tech/simpler vehicles, resulting in less effectiveness per soldier but a more favorable t3r) they don't need as many support personnel per soldier, the number needed goes down further... although i have no information on that number for the north korean army.

if we work on what i consider to be the even more likely scenario, specifically that those 1.1 million active duty soldiers are not all front line combat troops (though they may be able to perform that role if needed), but rather the *entire* military organization including support, then you'd only need something like 5.7 million population to get to USSR levels (though again, i suspect the USSR information is still a bit favorable). of course, if we presumed an army with roughly the same t3r as the modern US military is reported to have, that would mean only 125,000 of those are combat troops... though again, i lack the information to tell if north korea has a similar t3r as is reported on the internets for the US (and i also lack what i consider a strong source for that t3r mentioned for the US on the internets, so take that with a grain of salt).

now, it's hard to say what exactly the t3r we might expect from the CS would be.

Definitely.

however, we can make some rough estimates there. in fact, i feel much much better about the quality of these estimates. all we have to do is look at the CS, and try to figure out if they differ in any major way from the US in terms of how many people it should take to maintain the services.

for example, have the CS made major strides in intelligence, that would drastically reduce the numbers required? i see no indication that they have.

Well, if you mean "intelligence" as in "spying/espionage," they do have quite a lot of psychics.
Powers such as astral projection, object read, etc. etc. can help out a lot.

If you mean "intelligence" as in "brainyness," as in, "they're smarter than us and better organized," I'd say that it's quite possible that they have super-computers that put ours to shame, although actual human intelligence would be about the same.

have the CS made major strides when it comes to vehicle maintenance and repair? i see no indication that they have, and every indication that their need for these or equivalent services (body armor is not a vehicle, but if they were supposedly holding on to 3.2 million SAMAS... well, i could be wrong, but i don't think the US has anything equivalent to that sort of stockpile).

This is an area where there are at least two different viewpoints, and which view you hold will drastically alter your perceptions of the effectiveness of the CS.
View 1: MDC items are not affected by SDC damage, and general wear and tear is SDC damage. Therefore, MDC armor, weapons, and vehicles are pretty much unaffected by general wear and tear.
It takes a hell of a lot to break an MDC axle, for example.
Likewise, modern machinery requires a lot of lubricant, but MDC machinery wouldn't necessarily require much.
A modern car needs to have its oil changed regularly, for example, because the oil slowly fills up with bits of worn-off flecks of metal and other bits that wear away just in normal operation of the machinery. This wouldn't happen with an MDC engine; two MDC components rubbing against each other won't cause ANY damage unless Mega-Damage force is applied, and if Mega-Damage force was applied, the engine would fall apart in short order as its MDC was depleted. Oil is also used to reduce friction in order to reduce heat build-up, because over-heating can cause engines to fail. But a MDC engine would require mega-damage levels of heat in order to sustain any damage, and that's one heck of a lot of heat. For that matter, friction from rubbing parts is caused because on the microscopic layer, the machined parts surfaces are pretty rough, with lots of grooves, pits, etc., but we know that the Golden Age of Man had the technology to make entire suits of power armor out of molecularly-bonded materials, and such materials would have a much, much smoother microscopic surface. Of course, not all MDC materials are molecularly bonded, but that doesn't mean that their surfaces are not drastically smoother (therefore more slippery) on the microscopic level than what we have today.
Another common issue with maintenance is rust and corrosion. As with wear and tear, both rust and corrosion would seem to be SDC damage, not Mega-Damage. Even it was mega-damage, most mega-damage materials used by the CS are non-ferrous (CB1 48), so they're not going to rust. Corrosion wouldn't be a problem for MDC plastics or ceramics at all. There might be some sort of corrosion that could affect non-ferrous metal alloys, but then again, without knowing what alloys are being used, there might very well not be. I'm not sure if corrosion affects cermet at all or not.

Weapons maintenance is another issue for the military, but the same logic applies: wear and tear, rust, corrosion, and most other maintenance issues are an SDC problem, and would likely have little impact on a mega-damage military. Modern rifles have intricate SDC parts that can wear out, and modern rifles require regular cleaning, but modern rifles are quite different from the weapons of the CS military.
Again, there is the issue with MDC materials being unaffected by SDC wear and tear. If one were to make a modern assault rifle out of MDC components, that alone would drastically reduce the amount of time, effort, and expertise required to maintain the weapon. You wouldn't have to use gun oil, because you wouldn't have to worry about rust. You wouldn't have to worry about cleaning the barrel as often, because buildup in the barrel wouldn't cause the barrel to explode. For that matter, you couldn't overheat the barrel by extended firing: even if the barrel glowed white-hot, that'd still most likely be SDC damage.
Of course, the CS doesn't rely on modern rifles, so most of the above wouldn't be issues in any case.
The primary weapon in the CS military is the laser. Laser rifles don't have to worry about rust or corrosion, because they're MDC materials. They don't have to worry about moving parts getting jammed or clogged by powder buildup, because there is no powder buildup, and the weapons won't have much in the way of moving parts.
If you jam the barrel of your laser rifle in the mud, then try to fire it, that might cause some issues... but probably not. A mega-damage laser is likely to self-clean the barrel every time the weapon is fired, at least as far as SDC materials/buildup/whatever is concerned. A bit of mud isn't going to slow down even 1 MD worth of energy blast, much less a laser blast that's 2 MD minimum.
For that matter, the barrels might not even be actual barrels as we know them: the end of the barrel might well be a transparent wall that the laser either comes through or is created out of. Without rifling being a concern, I'm not sure what the length of the barrel is really used for in laser weapons.
Ion and plasma weapons would be similar, I believe.
The closest thing that the CS has (and regularly uses) to modern firearms would be rail guns.
Again, MDC weapons, so no worry about rust or corrosion.
Again, no powder buildup.
A clogged barrel might be a problem, but (again) with mega-damage force coming out of that barrel, it'd probably have to be one HECK of a clog.
Barrel friction might be an issue... but it might not. I'm not sure if there would be enough friction for the barrels to reach mega-damage level heat.
In fact, I'm not sure if the ammunition in a rail gun would actually come into physical contact with the walls of the barrel.

View 2: MDC items are affected by SDC damage, including general wear and tear, rust, and/or corrosion.
In which case a lot of the above doesn't apply, and the world of Rifts as portrayed in the books makes a lot less sense.

have the CS made major strides in medicine? well, in certain areas of medicine, yes. cybernetics, specifically, as well as emergency untrained trauma treatment (the nanobot medical kits). otherwise, they appear to not enjoy any bonuses as compared to palladium RPGs set in modern or equivalent settings.

Well, they can create Dog Boys, which indicates some pretty good technology and knowledge when it comes to advanced biology, but I agree this doesn't necessarily mean that they're incredibly advanced when it comes to everyday medicine.
The CS also has a crap-ton* of psychics, many of which will have healing powers such as psychic diagnosis, psychic purification, and psychic surgery. However, their distrust of psychics means that they're probably not using this powerhouse of medical potential.

So let's look around a bit, and see what we find:

RUE 27
Although much of Iron Heart's technology remains about 100 years behind Chi-Town, it is advanced compared to most people on Rifts Earth and provides its people with the high life. Employment is at 98% and the City of Iron offers all the luxuries of civilization: ...high tech imports from Chi-Town (computers, voice actuated computer and electronic systems, bionics, medicine, etc.)...
So we know that the City of Iron is about 100 years behind the CS, and that they're still ahead of most people on Rifts Earth. Therefore, the CS's technology is overall 100+ years superior to most of the planet.
Granted, much of the population of North America is made up of wilderness folks and such, but there are quite a few high-population tech nations/powers as well.
This kind of indicates that the CS has some pretty good medical technology, although it's not necessarily the only possibility.
The one thing we know for certain about CS medicine is that it's considered to be a high-tech import on par with bionics, computers, etc.

RUE 263-264
Bio-Comp Monitors, compu-drug dispensers, hypodermic guns, IRVTs, RAUs, RSUs, portable bio-can & bio-labs, and portable laboratories all seem to be high-tech medical devices that the CS would use, that are useful in areas other than wound trauma.

CWC 100
All new Dead Boy body armor has the following features...
Computer controlled life support system that monitors and displays bio-data of the wearer...
Internal, voice actuated support computer and data base.

The bio-data that the armor provides would give troops a heads-up regarding their own medical condition, helping soldiers be more self-aware regarding their own health.
The fact that this level of technology is built into the armor as standard indicates that the CS has superior technology available for their doctors and medics.
The internal computer is mentioned to serve as a database and reading-machine, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that the bio-data that the armor obtains from the wearer is recorded into the computer, for later retrieval and analysis, which would provide the CS with an incredible advantage when it comes to analyzing and predicting diseases and other illnesses.

RGMG 186
We have shied away from giving specific stats on Rifts computers because by the time this book sees print, those figures will be wrong, and in c a ouple of years, they will be laughable. A good rule of thumb for gauging what computers can do in your campaign is to consider what computers can do at the moment you are running a game, and magnify that potential by about a hundred.

So let's look at a couple modern medical computers (and/or computers that affect health/medical care):
http://www.cybernetman.com/en/all-in-on ... iOne-MP171
This medical computer with antimicrobial coating helps keep sterile environments germ-free. The iOne-MP171 medical grade computer is also an IP65 all in one PC. It has a sealed front bezel that's waterproof to facilitate cleaning, in accordance with IP65 standards. This versatile all in one computer can be used as an EMR computer at the point of patient care, enabling health care professionals access patient records wherever and whenever needed. The iOne-MP171 is also a touch screen PC, making it easier to enter to enter data and saving time.

Not a lot of info on this, and I'm not sure what that computer would look like if it were 100x more powerful.
Maybe it's just 1/100th the size, basically being able to fit into a CS Medic's cell phone (or equivalent).
Or maybe it's the same size, but 100x faster, with 100x the storage space, etc. etc.
Either way, it's better than what we have now.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technol ... point.html
Watson is an artificial intelligence computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language,[2] developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's first president, Thomas J. Watson.[3][4]

In 2011, as a test of its abilities, Watson competed on the quiz show Jeopardy!, in the show's only human-versus-machine match-up to date.[3] In a two-game, combined-point match, broadcast in three Jeopardy! episodes February 14–16, Watson beat Brad Rutter, the biggest all-time money winner on Jeopardy!, and Ken Jennings, the record holder for the longest championship streak (74 wins).[5][6] Watson received the first prize of $1 million, while Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter received $300,000 and $200,000, respectively. Jennings and Rutter pledged to donate half their winnings to charity, while IBM divided Watson's winnings between two charities.[7]

Watson had access to 200 million pages of structured and unstructured content consuming four terabytes of disk storage[8] including the full text of Wikipedia,[9] but was not connected to the Internet during the game.[10][11] For each clue, Watson's three most probable responses were displayed on the television screen. Watson consistently outperformed its human opponents on the game's signaling device, but had trouble responding to a few categories, notably those having short clues containing only a few words.

n September 2011, IBM and Wellpoint, a major healthcare solutions provider in the United States, announced a partnership to utilize Watson's data crunching capability to help suggest treatment options and diagnoses to doctors.[68] Just as Watson analyzed massive data in Jeopardy! to reach a set of hypotheses and list several of the most likely outcomes, it could help doctors in diagnosing patients. Watson could analyze the patient's specific symptoms, medical history, and hereditary history, and synthesize that data with available unstructured and structured medical information, including published medical books and articles.

From another article about Watson:
One of the greatest hopes for Watson’s technology is in the healthcare industry. Imagine a computer system loaded with every medical paper and record in existence and then having it on hand to help answer diagnosis questions during an emergency room crisis, or at the pharmacy to evaluate drug interactions and medication discrepancies. Because the medical field constantly produces new findings, drugs, and procedures, it’s nearly impossible for a person to keep up. But a mini Watson replica could. Already, IBM is working with medical experts at the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine to identify the best ways to incorporate Watson-like technology to the practice of medicine.

And another:
Watson will be able to analyze 1 million books, or roughly 200 million pages of information, and provide responses in less than three seconds, according to leaders of the project.

Now the CS doesn't necessarily HAVE a specifically medical supercomputer able to analyze roughly 20 billion pages of information in three seconds, and they don't necessarily use this computer to analyze the bio-data that's collected by the new suits of EBA... but they most certainly could have that according to canon, and it seems like a pretty logical and reasonable thing to do.
Moreover, if this possibility would explain away a lot of the support issues that you see with the CS military, it's even the most logical in-game conclusion to draw.

Lonestar 66-69 discusses Practical Genetic Engineering.
Here are some passages:
The mutants presented throught this book, from Dog Boys to the Xiticix Killer, are all extreme examples of genetic engineering, manipulation and research that have effectively created new species of intelligent, humanoid life forms. However, there are hundreds of more subtle and amazing things that can be done through genetic engineering. This book only touches only lightly upon some of them.

This is a perfect example of how knowledge translates into power. The Coalition States expertly uses their superior knowledge and technology (and the power they breed) to their maximum advantage.

The Coalition's secrets of DNA gives them incredible knowledge and a tremendous power, not just over their enemies, but over their allies and their very own citizens! Even the elite citizens of the States don't know anything about these things. They don't know or care that the CS government controlled cattle ranches have genetically improved cattle (larger, healthier, tastier). Nor do the ranch or slaughterhouse workers, or anybody outside the CS, because genetic enhancements are used subtly and secretly. All the CS citizens know is that Coalition Beef is plentiful, inexpensive and
DEEE-licious."

Likewise, CS citizens don't question why they don't get the same diseases that plague communities outside the States. Heck, most of them have never even heard of diseases like Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, muscular dystrophy, MS, AIDS, various types of cancers, and other diseases and ailments which the CS has learned to eliminate or control with drugs and treatments discovered from their genetic research. Even obesity and dieting is a thing of the past, at least for citizens of the Coalition States.

The existing level of medicine combined with the use of cybernetics (mechanical and bio-systems), nano-technology and medical treatment in the Coalition States provides the typical human citizen an average lifespan of 100-130 years...

have the CS made major strides in food preparation? i don't see anything indicating they have.

Well, they have genetically engineered food animals that are designed to be healthier and tastier, and they've eliminated obesity in the Coalition States.
That alone indicates that they're got a pretty good handle on the food situation.
I'll also point out that a lot of our modern produce is genetically engineered to be more durable and to last longer in storage, and that the CS takes every advantage of their genetic engineering programs, so it's logical to assume that they have some pretty good GM super-foods for their troops.

have they made major strides in military HQ organization? none that i'm aware of.

Well, we know that they have computers that are 100x better than our own, and that most of their population is illiterate.
It's pretty safe to assume that they have computers do a lot of the "paper"work, which would cut down on the bureaucracy (and manpower required for it) incredibly.

have they made major strides in communication? none that i'm aware of.

Computers are 100x better, and that would affect the communications industry.
The lack of satellites would hurt them, though, when dealing with long distances outside their territory.
Within their own territory, which is where the bulk of their army stays, communications should be pretty well under control.

have they made major strides in military police duties? if anything, i suspect they use more MPs than the modern US.

If you mean "higher numbers of MPs, because their military is larger," then I agree.
If you mean "more MPs per capita," I'm curious as to your reasoning.

have they made major strides in transport? well, yes and no. they have some really good transports for troops, which maybe they might use for other things as well. but then again, they also have increased needs, because there's a lot less support infrastructure they can use... for example, they don't have the highway system that the US has (which connects every major military base, if my understanding is correct).

Lonestar 13
Old Highway 87 ran from Amarillo through Lubbuck and down to Big Spring and Highway 20. Much of it survived the Coming of the Rifts and has been used as a trail path for hundreds of years. When the CS laid claim to the region, they repaired much of the road and use it regularly.
I've seen nothing to indicate that the CS doesn't do the same thing to other ancient highways in other regions, nor to indicate that they don't have their own system of highways.
But with massive hover-vehicles, it's not necessarily that essential.
The CS has nuclear-powered hover cars that can fly 200 mph, with a max altitude of 500' (CWC 165). Where they're going, they don't need roads.

really, i see nothing in the CS that leads me to believe they'll have a better t3r than modern US. if i could find what i consider a reliable source for a number for the t3r of the modern US, i'd be a lot happier though

Let me know if you come up with anything; I'm interested!



*metric

[Mack]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

It's Rifts. It doesn't have to make sense.

Or if you prefer, the support structure simply hasn't been detailed because it's irrelevant to the game. Is there a "CS Cook OCC"? No. Does that mean all CS troops are starving? No.

[Killer Cyborg]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

I'm pretty sure I just did.

[Shark_Force]

lot of stuff there, not all of it i have answers for, but i'll answer what i can.

on VR training: no indication the CS tech in this regard is particularly good. or anyone's, for that matter. frankly, the only rifts book i can think of offhand that mentions VR particularly is mutants in orbit, and i think we can safely say that the CS probably doesn't have access to orbital resources (which is not the same thing as saying they don't have any VR capabilities... merely that the fact that the moon has them doesn't mean anything for the CS). actually, now i think of it, i can remember only one other place it is mentioned: south america 2, the... destroyer 'borg OCC, i think it's called? anyways, it's the megaversal legion's stealth 'borg. it has a VR unit to keep the 'borg from going stir-crazy in the event it has to sit around somewhere without moving at all for months at a time.

as to the difference between having and being able to deploy, that should have been reserves, not troops. my bad.

by intelligence, i do mean spying. and they have lots of stuff that helps them do it. but i don't see much that helps them do it with *fewer people* which is the key element. also, information gathering is only part of it. you have to process that information, analyze it, figure out what it means, how you can potentially use it, etc.

for corrosion etc, i'm not convinced friction is not a problem. it will still impact the performance of the equipment, whether or not it destroys it. i'm also not convinced wear and tear, at least from chemical causes, can be completely ignored. it's not really a matter of dealing damage at that point, it's merely changing the chemical composition of the material. even plastics can degrade. pottery, and therefore potentially MDC ceramics, tend to whether the elements extremely well however, compared to most other things. furthermore, there's the possibility that all the little damage gets added up for a bit of MDC every so often. i've even seen rules for crashing into trees and such that deal MDC to a crashing vehicle in PB books, though that might have been robotech as opposed to rifts, so MDC immunity to SDC stuff is a little screwy, at the very least. i'd have to dig around to find it... thought i'd seen some examples of that in rifts, but can't remember where.

anyways, regarding medical tech: sure, their scanners are pretty good. most of that is stuff we have today. they may have portable models, but that isn't likely to drastically reduce the number of people required. the psychics, as you said, they probably don't use (there's also a significant difference between having lots of psychics and having lots of psychics with the specific powers listed and who have the desire to serve in the military etc etc... when you start looking at all the subdivisions, it gets quite a bit reduced, though since you're starting with a very large number, you do still have quite a few left at the end of it all). their tech may be advanced (mostly it is just not detailed at all, actually)... but not advanced enough that they get a different skill roll from someone using modern tech. a person being treated at a modern hospital recovers at a certain rate. a person in a CS hospital recovers at the same rate (barring the potential use of psychic powers).

also, while the CS is supposed to have much more advanced computers, well... 100 times faster is nice and all. but doesn't really do that much. nor does having 100 times the storage. based on the fact that their skelebots are pretty stupid, i don't think their AI is nearly 100 times as advanced as modern times, in any case; i would expect their computers to still rely on human controllers for the most part. even the smartest drones in rifts are generally assumed to require human supervision, and if you need someone to supervise a medical drone, that person is basically capable of doing the medical drone's job. at which point you have a doctor and a drone, whereas you could just do it with only the doctor and get pretty much identical results.

certainly, i wouldn't expect the CS to *trust* any super-intelligent robots or AIs, even ones they make. they're pretty paranoid about anything and everything, really. (and frankly, looking at ARCHIE... i'm not sure i would blame them too much ). there is also the possibility that ARCHIE is sabotaging any efforts in that direction covertly, to keep his main advantage.

in any event, sourcebook one has rules for robot characters and gives examples of what sorts of robots can be built by what organizations, doesn't it? i don't have SB1 (an old friend had it, moved away, and i haven't bought my own) but i do remember there being a part about that... it would seem a good place to look if you want to find out what sort of AI the CS is capable of producing.

i do have to say, the genetic engineering stuff i didn't remember though. so at least that will reduce some of their medical needs.

i'm not convinced that it somehow translates to needing fewer people to cook their food, or otherwise be in food-related jobs.

for communications: faster computers is nice and all, but... we already communicate information at a ridiculous rate. their may be times where there is a huge difference between a 1 second wait for information to reach a person vs .01 seconds, but i don't imagine it comes up very often. the human on the other end still has to process that information, plan a reaction, and then execute it.

as to policing duties: the CS is pretty danged paranoid. they have an absolutely *ridiculous* amount of civilian police (by which i mean people assigned to police duty for civilians, not police who are civilians... as i've already mentioned, the line between police and military is extremely thin in the CS). in fact last time i did some fairly basic research i seem to recall finding the CS had several times more than most "police states" per capita, although i'd have to do more research to really back that up the odds of them not carrying that policy over, at least to some extent, in the military, just... well, it seems really slim. but bear in mind, if they feel the need for 1.6 million SAMAS to go to the ISS, and we figure that's only for the human ISS officers (ie not dog boys assigned to the ISS), we can figure they're supposed to have about 1.6 million human officers (and an unknown number of dog boys and psi-stalkers). going by the 12 million population figure presented earlier, well... imagine if one in every 8 people you knew was a police officer. even if you figure the population doubles once you account for residents who are not citizens, that's still one in sixteen.

anyways, long story short: even if they have less military police ratio than their civilian police, it seems likely that they will have more than the modern US.

also, i do believe i indicated that i thought the transport thing was pretty much a wash... less infrastructure, but more capable vehicles (although i doubt the CS is using a car costing that much to transport stuff one carload at a time).

[Pepsi Jedi]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

It's Rifts. It doesn't have to make sense.

Or if you prefer, the support structure simply hasn't been detailed because it's irrelevant to the game. Is there a "CS Cook OCC"? No. Does that mean all CS troops are starving? No.

Actually there is.

[Killer Cyborg]

lot of stuff there, not all of it i have answers for, but i'll answer what i can.

on VR training: no indication the CS tech in this regard is particularly good. or anyone's, for that matter. frankly, the only rifts book i can think of offhand that mentions VR particularly is mutants in orbit, and i think we can safely say that the CS probably doesn't have access to orbital resources (which is not the same thing as saying they don't have any VR capabilities... merely that the fact that the moon has them doesn't mean anything for the CS). actually, now i think of it, i can remember only one other place it is mentioned: south america 2, the... destroyer 'borg OCC, i think it's called? anyways, it's the megaversal legion's stealth 'borg. it has a VR unit to keep the 'borg from going stir-crazy in the event it has to sit around somewhere without moving at all for months at a time.

Triax, I believe, has pretty much the same VR tech that the orbiters do.
But again, we can look back to the computer rule.
We have some VR tech today, and the rule of thumb is that the computers of Rifts Earth are 100x more powerful than what we have today.
Ergo, their VR tech is at least 100x better than what we have today.
I haven't personally messed with VR since Dactyl Nightmare, but 100x Dactyl Nightmare would still be pretty impressive.

by intelligence, i do mean spying. and they have lots of stuff that helps them do it. but i don't see much that helps them do it with *fewer people* which is the key element.

How many regular intelligence agents do you thing could be replaced by one mind-reading intelligence agent that could fly invisibly at Mach 1?

also, information gathering is only part of it. you have to process that information, analyze it, figure out what it means, how you can potentially use it, etc.

Computers are good at processing information.

for corrosion etc, i'm not convinced friction is not a problem. it will still impact the performance of the equipment, whether or not it destroys it.

Oh, it would still possibly be a factor, depending on the designs of the machines.
But it would be one heck of a lot LESS of a factor.

i'm also not convinced wear and tear, at least from chemical causes, can be completely ignored. it's not really a matter of dealing damage at that point, it's merely changing the chemical composition of the material. even plastics can degrade. pottery, and therefore potentially MDC ceramics, tend to whether the elements extremely well however, compared to most other things. furthermore, there's the possibility that all the little damage gets added up for a bit of MDC every so often.

That's getting into the esoteric philosophical questions about the nature of MDC, so it's not anything that we have a hard answer for.
But, again, the point is that it would be a LOT less of a factor for mega-damage gear than for normal gear.
Which is all we're looking for: indications that the CS wouldn't have to spend as much time and manpower doing routine maintenance.

[qutoe] i've even seen rules for crashing into trees and such that deal MDC to a crashing vehicle in PB books, though that might have been robotech as opposed to rifts, so MDC immunity to SDC stuff is a little screwy, at the very least. i'd have to dig around to find it... thought i'd seen some examples of that in rifts, but can't remember where.[/quote]

There's a rule in Rifts for aircraft crashes that would have MDC vehicles totaled if they crash into the ground.
That's the only one I can think of, though.
But as long as you don't crash into things at high speeds, you won't have much problem.
A CS Command Car with 180 MDC is going to be flat-out superior to a Humvee with like 500 SDC, and in most situations where a Humvee would need to have some dents hammered out, the Command Car won't have a scratch.

anyways, regarding medical tech: sure, their scanners are pretty good. most of that is stuff we have today. they may have portable models, but that isn't likely to drastically reduce the number of people required.

There's the difference between "putting on the armor that you wear every day" and "going to the doctor."
There's the difference between "going to the doctor, spending 20 minutes getting weighed, getting your blood pressure checked, etc. etc. etc." and in "Going to the doctor and the doctor getting a readout from your armor's computer."
Remember, your claim has been that it's not possible for the CS to maintain their large army.
We're not looking for 100% proof that the CS necessarily does everything that I described, only for indications that it IS possible that they do that stuff or similar stuff.

the psychics, as you said, they probably don't use (there's also a significant difference between having lots of psychics and having lots of psychics with the specific powers listed and who have the desire to serve in the military etc etc... when you start looking at all the subdivisions, it gets quite a bit reduced, though since you're starting with a very large number, you do still have quite a few left at the end of it all). their tech may be advanced (mostly it is just not detailed at all, actually)... but not advanced enough that they get a different skill roll from someone using modern tech. a person being treated at a modern hospital recovers at a certain rate. a person in a CS hospital recovers at the same rate (barring the potential use of psychic powers).

Not exactly, not that I'm aware of.
The rules barely mention any recovery time or medical treatment that I'm aware of.
There's the Hit Point recovery rules in RUE, and those rules don't differentiate between the CS hospitals and a backwater doctor with a staff of two.
This doesn't mean that the CS hospitals aren't superior. It just means that the only thing we have to go on is a brief guideline.
Just look at the jump from "Non-Professional Treatment" to "Professional Treatment"... you go from "first aid by oneself, or non-medically trained people" to "medical treatment from a doctor, clinic or hospital."
The best hospitals in the world are lumped in with "some random guy with a degree, and no staff or supplies."
Obviously, this isn't supposed to encompass all situations. This would be one of those times where we "use common sense."

Moreover, this is Hit Point recovery, which doesn't factor into recovery from disease or other illnesses, except in the arena of HP recovery.

In any case, recovery isn't even as much an issue as the fact that people in the CS just don't get sick as often in the first place.

also, while the CS is supposed to have much more advanced computers, well... 100 times faster is nice and all. but doesn't really do that much. nor does having 100 times the storage.

http://www.ehow.com/list_6523687_10-way ... icine.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/importan ... icine.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/th ... too/12096/

"Doesn't really do that much" other than reduce time and manpower drastically, which is what we're looking for, as well as speeding up the whole process.
Having instant access to information on every current treatment available, as well as every known disease, as well as every patient's complete medical records is a BIG deal.

based on the fact that their skelebots are pretty stupid,

I'm not sure that's a fact.

i would expect their computers to still rely on human controllers for the most part. even the smartest drones in rifts are generally assumed to require human supervision, and if you need someone to supervise a medical drone, that person is basically capable of doing the medical drone's job. at which point you have a doctor and a drone, whereas you could just do it with only the doctor and get pretty much identical results.

Uh.. no.
You have a doctor and a computer instead of a doctor and 2d6 support staff.
You don't need nurses or interns to run tests or look up information.

certainly, i wouldn't expect the CS to *trust* any super-intelligent robots or AIs, even ones they make. they're pretty paranoid about anything and everything, really. (and frankly, looking at ARCHIE... i'm not sure i would blame them too much ). there is also the possibility that ARCHIE is sabotaging any efforts in that direction covertly, to keep his main advantage.

They don't trust robots; that's clear.
But we're not talking about robots.
We're not even talking about truly INTELLIGENT computer; we're talking about EFFICIENT computers.
Watson can process information, that's it. It's not aware of anything.
It's just a powerful computer, not really any more intelligent than Google, just much easier to interface with.

in any event, sourcebook one has rules for robot characters and gives examples of what sorts of robots can be built by what organizations, doesn't it? i don't have SB1 (an old friend had it, moved away, and i haven't bought my own) but i do remember there being a part about that... it would seem a good place to look if you want to find out what sort of AI the CS is capable of producing.

As pointed out, I'm not looking for AI in the sense described in SB1, just computer capabilities.

i do have to say, the genetic engineering stuff i didn't remember though. so at least that will reduce some of their medical needs.

Soldiers not getting sick very often would reduce their medical needs a LOT.
Remember, that list of diseases is just some of the major diseases we deal with today that most CS citizens have never even HEARD of.
It's hardly a comprehensive list.
For all we know, they have a cure for the common cold.
For all we know, flues and other common viruses can be fixed by taking an over-the-counter pill.
For all we know, people don't get sick at all as a rule, and when they DO get sick, they're usually easily cured with little to no help from a doctor.
Of course, it ain't necessarily so... but again, you're looking for indications that the CS might require fewer support staff, not 100% proof.
This certainly counts as a huge indication that medicine-wise, they have one heck of a lot less requirements than we do.

i'm not convinced that it somehow translates to needing fewer people to cook their food, or otherwise be in food-related jobs.

They'd still need cooks, but the job would be easier with superior ingredients.
The difference wouldn't have to be anything as big as reducing support needs from 6 support staff per 1 soldier to 5 support staff, and I'm wouldn't even try to argue that would happen!
But even if it reduced their needs from 6 support staff to 5.999 support staff, when you're talking about millions of soldiers, that adds up.

for communications: faster computers is nice and all, but... we already communicate information at a ridiculous rate. their may be times where there is a huge difference between a 1 second wait for information to reach a person vs .01 seconds, but i don't imagine it comes up very often. the human on the other end still has to process that information, plan a reaction, and then execute it.

Not just faster.
The exact phrase is:
magnify that potential by about a hundred.
Next time you try googling for information, picture for a moment if the computer was 100x better at knowing exactly what you were looking for.
Next time you look at a picture, imagine if that picture was 100x clearer.
And so on.

And while there's not necessarily much difference between 1 second and .01 seconds, there IS a lot of difference between 1 minute and 100 minutes.
Or even 1 second and 100 seconds.

as to policing duties: the CS is pretty danged paranoid. they have an absolutely *ridiculous* amount of civilian police (by which i mean people assigned to police duty for civilians, not police who are civilians... as i've already mentioned, the line between police and military is extremely thin in the CS). in fact last time i did some fairly basic research i seem to recall finding the CS had several times more than most "police states" per capita, although i'd have to do more research to really back that up the odds of them not carrying that policy over, at least to some extent, in the military, just... well, it seems really slim. but bear in mind, if they feel the need for 1.6 million SAMAS to go to the ISS, and we figure that's only for the human ISS officers (ie not dog boys assigned to the ISS), we can figure they're supposed to have about 1.6 million human officers (and an unknown number of dog boys and psi-stalkers). going by the 12 million population figure presented earlier, well... imagine if one in every 8 people you knew was a police officer. even if you figure the population doubles once you account for residents who are not citizens, that's still one in sixteen.

What's the source for that 12 million figure again?

anyways, long story short: even if they have less military police ratio than their civilian police, it seems likely that they will have more than the modern US.

Hm. I don't know that there's enough information on that to really say.
Remember, the ISS patrols the Burbs and other danger zones, and their job is to protect the CS cities from all non-military threats.
A rift opening up inside (or just outside) a CS city, spewing forth swarms of demons, is only considered to be a military matter IF the ISS can't handle the job, and IF the ISS requests aid from the military.
That kind of range of duties requires a lot of manpower, far more than simply policing their own soldiers.

also, i do believe i indicated that i thought the transport thing was pretty much a wash... less infrastructure, but more capable vehicles (although i doubt the CS is using a car costing that much to transport stuff one carload at a time).

I don't know that it IS a wash; the CS could net out ahead.
I'm not sure that they have significantly less infrastructure when it comes to roads and highways- if you have a source for that claim, I'm unaware of what it is.
I agree that they probably don't transport stuff one carload at a time, though. Your post indicated that you were already fully aware of Death's Head Transports, Sky Lifters, and other transports used for massive hauls, so I focused more on smaller scale stuff.

[Mack]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

It's Rifts. It doesn't have to make sense.

Or if you prefer, the support structure simply hasn't been detailed because it's irrelevant to the game. Is there a "CS Cook OCC"? No. Does that mean all CS troops are starving? No.

Actually there is.

Where?

[Pepsi Jedi]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

It's Rifts. It doesn't have to make sense.

Or if you prefer, the support structure simply hasn't been detailed because it's irrelevant to the game. Is there a "CS Cook OCC"? No. Does that mean all CS troops are starving? No.

Actually there is.

Where?

Mega Steel Cheft article. "CS Cookie" I think is the name of the OOC. It goes into detail of feeding the CS in the field and even mentions how sometimes the troops will forrage for fresh meat and such and how Xititic fried steak is a favorite.

I've got the proof reader's copy of that one.

[Mack]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

It's Rifts. It doesn't have to make sense.

Or if you prefer, the support structure simply hasn't been detailed because it's irrelevant to the game. Is there a "CS Cook OCC"? No. Does that mean all CS troops are starving? No.

Actually there is.

Where?

Mega Steel Cheft article. "CS Cookie" I think is the name of the OOC. It goes into detail of feeding the CS in the field and even mentions how sometimes the troops will forrage for fresh meat and such and how Xititic fried steak is a favorite.

I've got the proof reader's copy of that one.

Rifter? I don't count anything from a Rifter.

Regardless, my original point stands.

[Pepsi Jedi]

]
It's Rifts. It doesn't have to make sense.

Or if you prefer, the support structure simply hasn't been detailed because it's irrelevant to the game. Is there a "CS Cook OCC"? No. Does that mean all CS troops are starving? No.

Actually there is.

Where?

Mega Steel Cheft article. "CS Cookie" I think is the name of the OOC. It goes into detail of feeding the CS in the field and even mentions how sometimes the troops will forrage for fresh meat and such and how Xititic fried steak is a favorite.

I've got the proof reader's copy of that one.

Rifter? I don't count anything from a Rifter.

Regardless, my original point stands.

Your question was "Is there a CS cook OOC". You said there wasn't. There IS. It's just not 100% cannon. Your point does stand. I get what you were sayin'. I was just saying there IS an OOC out there.

[Colt47]

One thing my husband said that is hilarious about the Coalition military.

The Coalition military may have millions (anything over 1 million+) and normal militaries have a ratio of 2-5 soilder's to support 1 field soilder. Depending on their job.

The Coalition has no one to support that field soilder. The whole military appears to be field units.

He said this is a military impossability. Can anyone explain that to me ?

I'm pretty sure I just did.

Probably a little bit off topic, but I've always thought about that number as including the support. After all, the support staff are military as well and even mercenary units have a crew to support them.

Also on the subject of Wilks:
-Wilks field laser grill: Built to grill food to perfection! Heat sensors detect the temperature of the grilled item and adjust intensity and direction to provide even heating. Several Presets included, others sold separately.

-Wilks Pocket Laser Pen: Why use paper when you can use everything? With this handy little tool skilled writers can now leave their caligraphic creations on any surface! Includes both SD and MD setting levels. NOTE: Wilks takes no responsibility for personal injury due to misuse of their writing product. Product comes with a sample of Wilks special laser paper; designed for... err... perfect penmanship!

-Wilk's Halloween Party Pack: Spice up this holiday season with Wilk's seasonal combination package! The party pack includes one Wilks Laser holographic projection system capable of projecting up to ten ghouls and ghosts in an area of up to 100 square feet with special behavior presets, Wilks Laser Disco Ball, and Wilk's Laser powered fog generator! Change of season? Load up our Christmas presets and enjoy reindeer and Christmas Cheer! (Sold separately)

[Killer Cyborg]

Also on the subject of Wilks:
-Wilks field laser grill: Built to grill food to perfection! Heat sensors detect the temperature of the grilled item and adjust intensity and direction to provide even heating. Several Presets included, others sold separately.

-Wilks Pocket Laser Pen: Why use paper when you can use everything? With this handy little tool skilled writers can now leave their caligraphic creations on any surface! Includes both SD and MD setting levels. NOTE: Wilks takes no responsibility for personal injury due to misuse of their writing product. Product comes with a sample of Wilks special laser paper; designed for... err... perfect penmanship!

-Wilk's Halloween Party Pack: Spice up this holiday season with Wilk's seasonal combination package! The party pack includes one Wilks Laser holographic projection system capable of projecting up to ten ghouls and ghosts in an area of up to 100 square feet with special behavior presets, Wilks Laser Disco Ball, and Wilk's Laser powered fog generator! Change of season? Load up our Christmas presets and enjoy reindeer and Christmas Cheer! (Sold separately)

Brilliant!