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the DC version of superheroes vs Mechanoids? Are you kidding? the mechanoids weapons are insanely powerful, More powerful then the average weapon of Khundians who nearly wiped out earth's superheroes. Now Granted, DC has supervillains who could take over the mechanoids but the end result is the same, Destruction of earth.

to Give a comparison, Each Wasp has particle beams that can Vaporize half of an Aircraft Carrier. An invasion fleet has 10 Billion of These. that means on average, each Wasp packs enough power to Penetrate the average Green lantern's Energy shield in under 15 seconds. Each wasp is on par with a manhunter drone in energy output, if not more son on bigger models.

in terms of bigger weapons displayed by the powers that be, Marvel has more of that. During the latest pheonix saga,and Infintiy event, We have seen the Shi'ar empire launching multiple Supernova bombs with the casual attiude we have toward tomahawk cruise missiles. Them Being in another galaxy helps their Casual Attitude too.

That tends to put it into perspective.

I just realized: This would only apply to The RIFTS mechanoids to a superhero world.
The Original SDC Mechanoids are quite Flimsy and Defeatable. Except for the Numbers game... it would be a horrible war of attrition. you'd kill a million, 2 million would take it's place. It'd be like the annihilation wave in the Marvel continuity.

Since H.U. is sdc and the Mechanoid trilogy is sdc..... kinda my plan to play the first book out.

You mention 3 books and 2 powers... did you have a category from PU2 in mind?


Okay um... what if TGE somehow allied with CCW and UWW? How much better would they fare?

I think I need to ferret through Rifts Sourcebook 2 and the Trilogy for more specific numbers. I took only a cursory glance and thought "wow, they have a lot of ISP, but I bet a god can beat them 1 on 1, so not that scary".

But the sheer numbers I'm hearing... gamechangers. Gods don't exist long without worshippers... and I feel like the Mechanoids could wipe out a worshipper base with minimal casualties. These wasp have maneuverability exceeding a beginner Cosmo-Knight, who can themselves trump gods in guerilla.



Why did Kevin even write this game? It sounds like nobody stands a chance, like some kind of Call of Cthulhu horror RPG where you just get to find out how long it is before some .... THING just... devours you.

Mimics would obviously be paired up with people who have really good powers so they can copy them, think of a better example. =/

It could be possible to discuss this without directly converting DC chars. It's not as if most top-tier DC guys could be made via Palladium's rules anyway. Are you saying Superman could beat a mothership or something?

I have my norse giant. Cutter he uses his temporal magic and giantness to travel the megaverse fighting Mechanoids. So far I have yet to achieve any sort of victory but I have saved people. Thats good too.

I've added Supers to a Mechanoid Invasion campaign and they work fine IF you are cool with a mixed power group. Depending on how you limit the powers, it doesn't have a major change on the tone of the game.

Cutter is a greater norse giant reaver assassin with the yggdrasil gift of knowledge and an army of Algor Delphi Juicers.
Like I said before I have managed to save people but have YET to achieve anything resembling a victory. Mechaoids are Chuck Norris with it! !

I thought JU said giants couldn't do normal Juicing, much less a rare psychic variation.

They might be able to Maxi-Kill tho.

Funny the Delphi upgrade seems to work fine on Algor. Good strong agile psychic soldiers, sdc so if you gotta put em down. You can with minimal struggle. My Algor-Delphi are also all female. Maybe thats why it works?? So far the 15 year lifespan hasn't come into play, mainly because The Mechanoids kill them.

I was banned for 3 months:
with those 3 powers the super could 1. hijack the Entire ship, or what ever section of the ship he's on, and activate the defenses against the Masters. Add in Personal recognition and the "Mothership" would work for him.

As for DC. I was going by pure damage basis. rifts Particle Beams are roughly equal to 11-12 APs of power The SDC version of this is only about 9 AP's. Khundian blasters are 9 APs. The Digger Beam is clocking in at 25 to 30 AP's of Disintergration... Superman could fend these off, but not the run of the mill Characters from DC.

In an Mdc setting a high tech populace, like rifts Earth could hold them off. Added benefit the satellite defense system. Good luck using handwavium to knock them outa the sky. Jussayin.

I came to the conclusion mechanoids blow.

In an sdc setting, Bwahahaha supers would own them.

Bullies are only strong against the weak.

Mechanoids=space roaches.

all the giant races are now mdc in rifts thus negating Juicer conversion. That includes the minotaur and troll in revised conversion book. IF you don't keep them MDC, don't see why not otherwise.

I didnt know Algor became mdc I guess my ladies are an sdc tribe. So now since I based them on cb1 Algor maybe a dimensional anomaly??

Is there any book source supporting this?

MDC creatures can become Maxi-Killer Juicers.

Supers do great 1v1 with Mechanoids, but the Mechanoids have the overwhelming numbers that become an issue for Supers. However, I have found Supers make great additional characters to a Mechanoid Invasion campaign.

And yeah, HU should be used with the original SDC Mechanoids books. The conversion stuff is just that much easier.

The Earth Containment system is not anti-invasion, it is containment. The satellite defense system didn't do jack to the Arkohn invasion fleet until they started to land on Earth. The only reason the Arkohn did not completely destroy the orbital community is because the Rifts caused them to separate by decades and they were defeated piecemeal. If a small Arkohn force can hurt the orbitals that bad and get a force that large onto the Earth's surface a Mechanoid Mothership can slice and dice.

The Earth orbital stations don't have the numbers to even slow down the Mechanoids and long range missile bombardment by a mobile force against fixed stationary defenses is not handwavium, it's just good tactics.


A tad harsh, but some of us still love them. To me they are like technological demons or a force of nature. You can't reason with them and you can't beat them. All you can do is run and survive. But I do understand why some people don't like an enemy this powerful.


Each Mechanoid is the equivalent of psionic tank with energy weapons, only a few supers in any of the Heroes Unlimited books can stand up to the SDC Mechanoids.


True of Mechanoids, true of supers too.


OK, very harsh. Wow.


Mechanoids are like demons, Splugorth minions, CS soldiers, or even super heroes. A player group can beat them if the numbers are not to high and they have to run if the numbers are.

Supers, psychics, mages, veritech fighters are all great additions to a Mechanoid campaign. I have always wanted to do an Aliens Unlimited campaign where a Mechanoid invasion is part of the plot.

If you are going to put Mechanoids in an SDC setting they should be SDC, but I really like the new body styles from the Rifts SB2, so much more imaginative. I prefer to use those instead of the old style.

From a player's perspective, the thing that sucks about the Mechanoids is that it's extremely difficult to make a profit from fighting them.

--flatline

Unless you use missiles and completely obliterate them there are always parts. Examples of advanced robotics, advanced particle beam technology, new alloys and if they hit a robot or a mechanoid with a lucky shot and it shuts down, you get a reasonably intact mechanoid or combat robot.

My players made millions selling parts and weapons to Northern Gun, Wilks, Triax, even Bandito Arms. Players just have to be imaginative and spend some time making the right contacts.

By contrast they never made much money fighting demons. Even if a demon had a magical weapon that they could take it was usually so evil that the only people that might use it would be people that they would never want to have it.

Three Words. "Mechanoid Power Crystals"
So every mechanoid is a wandering loot piñata (to steal a term from elsewhere). That's BEFORE the value of salvage, or bounties, or rewards......

I had forgotten all about this, mainly because my players never sold them (1 or 2 to Wilks, NG, or Triax) they just used them for there vehicles. But you're right, these are the most important items to recover.

How do your players learn about the existence of the mechanoid power crystals?

--flatline

The most common way was finding out when the mechanic/scientist/scholar in the group studies a downed Mechanoid. This is usually done rather quickly so they can understand what they are facing. Its pretty easy to find the power source of something after all. In places where Mechanoids are common enough to warrant bounties or such, its usually already well known enough. If for no other reason than they power crystals are valuable enough to have bounties on them in their own right. (I am talking the smaller crystals that power each individual mechanoid, not the giant mother crystal on the ship btw.)

We tend to dissect and analyze what we kill.

Not to mention sell all the parts.

Yeah, most of my players even chop up the monsters to sell to scientists and mages. Kind of disgusting to me but as one of players liked to say "medium range missiles aint cheap."

Tech stuff always got chopped up, by every player group I ever ran. Even some of the convention games I have run some players still try to do this, even thought they will never play the character again.