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I just looked at the 7/21 Weekly Update and a few secreat projects were mentioned. What are the chances that Mechaniod Space could be one of them.

Well after sixteen years of promises and no product, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the odds of Mechanoids Space being almost complete are pretty much nil

You mean its the Duke Nukem Forever of PnP RPGS?

It's worse than that, but I don't care too much. KS would make it an MDC universe anyway and...well, ugh.

Only moreso. Mechanoids Space was first announced in '94, four years earlier than Duke Nukem Forever. Which means that even before the Duke was finally cancelled, Mechanoids Space was beating him

Mechanoid space was announced in '92 tentatively scheduled for '94.

My bad. I was too lazy to crack open my copy of Rifts Mechanoids and check what year the first print run was.

EDIT: Oh and I'm with Rhomphaia on not being very enthusiastic about Mechanoids Space anyway. Partly because it'll be an MDC setting (and they'll almost definitely make it Rifts-style MDC where it makes no sense as a scaling mechanic and you've got laser pistols more powerful than rocket launchers existing in the same setting as elephants that can take less damage than people-size aliens). But due in large part to the fact that Palladium's system just isn't kitted out for space opera in general. Between the combat rules (which is basically just house-ruled D&D, only now it's being applied to spaceships) and the stats that ships are given, space combat in Palladium's games tends to be one of their biggest weakpoints. It's neither realistic, cinematic, or tactically deep, so the whole thing becomes an exercise in the players rolling for damage while the GM's ability to spin crap into gold with good descriptions is tested to the limit.

EDIT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: fixed so romphaia's name is spelled properly

No biggie I was reading it.

I would LOVE to see Mechanoids Space be Kevin's step into a new system, or at least the PB system radically altered into something designed specifically for MS.

Space combat most certainly needs a massive overhaul.

If you're very lucky you might see some sort of attempt at a spaceship combat system. If you're very very lucky it might actually do a good job of either making space combat more cinematic or adding some real tactical choices for players.

Don't hold your breath waiting for "Kevin's step into a new system" for the game rules as a whole though. Judging by the way he keeps calling it a perfect system for all genres and saying that it doesn't need anything bigger than the occasional tidying up, it looks like we're stuck with the current so-called megaversal system forever.

Maybe.

I don't know how long PB can survive in the marketplace based almost entirely on fans who have 10+ and 20+ years loyalty to the brand. The economic pain may force him to overhaul and release dramatically new editions to survive in 2015 and beyond.

IF the Rifts film comes out...and IF it is a success...and IF PB does the necessary marketing of their game during the film's promotion...Kevin will certainly need a new system and presentation for those new gamers coming via the film.

Yeah, I know...lotsa Ifs.

Now +1 year.

Space combat is inherently a slug-fest and there's no way to make it interesting for players. Use it as a backdrop for what the players do, but don't get them involved directly.

Capital ship weapons have such enormous ranges and do such enormous damage that if they have line of sight on each other, the battle is determined before any players can even engage the enemy, let alone influence the battle outcome. If there is no LOS (one fleet hiding behind a planet?), then fighters come into play, but on a scale so huge that, again, there's little players can do without plot devices like Luke Skywalker's photon torpedo causing a chain reaction to blow up the original death star.

If they really want fighters to be an important part of space combat, they need to do several things different than they have in the past:
1. Give capital ships some sort of jump drive so that fleets can appear instantly within a range that makes fighters useful (this prevents capital ships from simply destroying incoming fighters at long range with undodgeable mile-wide beams from their primary weapons)
2. Give capital ships some mechanism for surviving being close to other capital ships long enough for fighters to be useful. Something like force fields or defensive screens that near-100% protect the ship against other capital ship's weapons but that small fighters and missiles can fly through.

These changes would give fighters several roles to play in space combat:
1. Defending/Engaging large volleys of missles launched by capital ships
2. Flying inside the defensive screens to cripple ship defenses so that it can be destroyed or captured
3. Protecting their capital ships from enemy fighters

--flatline

amen to all the people who said that PB needs up dated system. Don't get me wrong i still like the PB system some what but heroes wise i went back to old tsr marvel.
i stay away from rifts unless its to use as source material and story telling ideas. I understand KS wants to keep his system as is but if you do not listen to your customers well you anin't gonna hav nun. lol i sold all my old books the only one any one will play now are the dead reign stuff.

KS changes the game on a regular basis, with a new rule or rule change probably every 2-3 books.
Even before RUE, Rifts of 2004 was very different from Rifts of 1990.
KS listens to people.
He updates the system.
He does NOT keep it as-is.
And this is the real problem.
If Rifts had stayed the same (rule-wise) as it was back in 1990, we'd all have house rules firmly in place by now, because the original system only needed a few tweaks here or there.
But pretty much every time Palladium tweaked it, they went in the wrong direction.
And only rarely are the rules changed with significant forethought put in as to how the changes are going to interact with the rest of the system.

A streamlined combat system and magic system is all i feel it would need.....Difficult cause i love the system otherwise.

Oh god the last thing I want to see in Mechanoids Space is a streamlined magic system. Or any magic system at all for that matter.

The original Mechanoids had magic in the trilogy.
And before you say that the "Spells" in Mechanoids use ISP and therefor psionic powers, Kevin makes a note in the Collected Trilogy pointing out that the Mechanoids was originally published BEFORE he introduced the concept of PPE.
ISP based magic system was removed from `88 edition of PFRPG. PPE based magic was introduced in the `87 edition of Beyond the Supernatural.
Having talked to Kevin at various Open Houses and Cons, magic in Mechanoids is going to follow suit and move forward to being PPE based.

It had psionics as well IIRC