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Natural enemies, what with vampires being humanoids and with the Mechanoids wanting to kill all humanoids.

I put 10 bucks in the Vampires

Why?

Immunity to lasers, most MDC weapons and all and the fact they got something that Mechanoids dont have: Magic.

do you feed the vampires the money? How do you get it in them?

the mechanoids win because they EAT PLANETS.

THEY EAT PLANETS.

Sure the metal monsters may eat the planet.. Then you have a bunch of bent vamps floating around in space (now THAT is a safety hazard if I have ever seen one). And if the Mechanoids blow up the nearest star you will have a some really upset and HUNGRY vamps floating around in space.

plus I don't see mechanoids harvesting wood and water and silver for weapons

cool visual though....Mr.Siembieda?

Yep, cool visual. The Mechaniods would likly take the silver though. Kevin makes the best bad guys.

The only real advantage of then

No but I bet my money on then in a open battlefield if they face the mechanoids.

I'm not sure the Mechanoids would know what to make of the Vampires...sure, a lot of them are humanoid, but they're UNDEAD humanoids.....dangerous deadly parodies of humanoids, and predators on the living to boot....sure, in individual cases, the Mechanoids might say to the Vampires, 'sure, keep your cattle, it amuses us to let you kill them', but in the end, the Mechanoid mindset would be the Mechanoids want to DESTROY humanoid civilizations while the Vamps want a reliable smorgasbord available to them...they might cooperate under limited circumstances(like the Mechanoids laying up a giant sunshield so the vampires could walk about unharmed during daylight hours to hunt), but eventually the Mechanoids would want to know what makes these potential rivals tick and try to alter them like they do human slaves...and that's when the fun begins....

I'm not sure a freefloating vampire could survive being exposed to direct sunlight in space, but they certainly could move freely about Mehcnoid ships in animal or vapor form...whether or not they could find enough sustenance feeding off human mutants in the ventilation is another matter, but aside from water and the remote chance of encountering silver, there's little on a Mechanoid ship able to harm them....I mean, what Mechanoid is going to take up agriculture as a hobby and grow wood?

Don't forget the Vamp's dependancy on home soil to sleep on - if the planet's consumed, you can pretty much kiss your vampire population goodbye too.

True but the topic is for a confrontation between the two.

In a planetary battle the Mechanoids win easy because they would cut the planet and the vampires without the home soild would be destroyed. Also in the space they will not have anything to protect then against sunlight.

On a battlefield however the thing becomes completely diferent.

The vampires would clean the floor with the Mechanoids due to the fact that the Mechanoids dont posses anything to fight the vampire on a one to one confrontation.

I'd say eating a planet is pretty confrontational.



Correct, as we've all said above.



Explain where the original post spelled out "ground battle only".

Its inherent to the topic dude. X vs X mean all forms of confrontation even a ground battle one.

Unfortunatly, I'd have to go with Mechanoids on this one, dispite being a fan of vamps. Vamps simply arn't equiped to fight a war on planetary scale (which is exactly the kind of war you'd be having vs. mechanoids). They are better at subterfuge and striking from the inside.

The only exception to complete annialation to this is if vampires knew about the mechanoids and what they hate before they confronted them. they can stay indefinatly in bat/wolf/mist form, and thus wouldn't provoke the mechanoids, allowing them to possibly strike from the inside...but that's a long shot to begin with.

You forget that the Mechanoids would send their troops to the surface of the planet to toy with the humanoid population and in that scenario the vamps will own the day.

In fact the very tactic of the Mechanoids of cutting the entire planet could be jeoparded because of their inability of winning battles in the ground so they would not have much chances to create the cuts and stations on the planet for its anihilation.

I was asking a broad question that covers any number of circumstances.

Vampires couldn't do much harm to mechanoids, not initially.
Vamps tend not to carry weapons, which means that they'd be limited to inflicting around 1d6-2d6 MD on a punch. That's not going to drop any mechanoid very quickly.
After a few encounters, THEN vamps would realize that they really need weapons in order to do any effective damage against the Mechanoids.

Mechanoids couldn't do much harm to gampires, not initially.
Pretty much all of their weapons and melee attacks would be harmless (particle beams being an unknown quantity, but we'll assume that they wouldn't hurt the vamps).
But the Mechanoids DO have psionics.
Overlords, Oracles, and Brutes can use Psi-Swords, which deal Hit Point damage to vampires. Type II Brutes can even weild 4 psi-swords at once.
Likewise, Mind Bolt also inflicts HP damage to vampires.
As can Hydrokinesis, if there is water nearbye (although it may take the mechanoids a while to figure this one out).

Many of the other mechanoids have Telekinesis (minor or Super), which could be used effectively. Either by hurling wooden objects at vampires or by hurling vampires at wooden objects.
This might well be discovered relatively quickly in the first encounter with the vampires.
For one thing, some of the types of mechanoids have Telepathy/empathy, and could pick some of the weaknesses out of the vampires' minds.
Although using Telepathy on vampires has its own problems...

Are we forgetting about the vast amount of psionic POWER that the mechanoids have? I think they would have a great chance of dealing with the vampiric threat. Not to mention I do belive in the Mechanoid books, there have been magic using enemies of the mechanoids and then there is their experience on rifts earth.

You mean night, right?

Anyway there is sure to be some sort of non-humanoid species that hates vamps and/or is willing to work with the mechanoids for their own reasons, who would be willing to explain to the mechanoids how to fight them. And if there isn't anyone willing, the mechanoids could always capture normal humans and interrogate them until they learned the information. So at the very beginging the vamps would be winning, but eventually they would fall to the mechanoids.

Good point.
If the vamps gave the Mechanoids enough problems, then all the mechanoids would have to do is to carve up the planet during daylight hours (not all in one day, of course).

If the situtation was benificial to the vampires they'd stand a chance to win, but the setting and circumstances must be in the vampires favor. So under cirtain circumstances the vampires could win.

Things would have to be
1) a hidden/alternitive food source
2) Definition of "sunlight". Since there is only 1 sun, if the vampires collonized a dead world, would the "star-light" hurt them? Under this argument, no
3) plenty of vampires. Probably 1 vampire for every 10 mechanoids.
4) No outside interfearence. IE: Vampires can't have someone tell them about the mechanoids and vice-versa.

In this example, Vampires would stand more than a chance, yes even with the knowledge that mechanoids have psionic powers...in all honesty while psionics are decent, they are not potent against vampires, but the situation has been changed to favor the vampires.

KC, if you mean a bunch of vamps facing off against a bunch of mechs, without either side knowing anything special about the other, I'd go with the vamps. The mechanoids would think the vampires are normal humans until they realize their weapons aren't hurting the vampires. The vampires would know what their own powers and limits are and use them to gain the advantage until the mechanoids are beat. I doubt the mechanoids would use their psychic powers right away, and this would cost them the fight.
If you mean a war between the two until one side stood victorious, then I will side with the mechanoids for all of the reasons previously given.

I really don’t see any way vampires could compete with the Mechanoids. Vampires are pretty much immune to most of the weapons that the Mechanoids have. Plus they have magic. None of that matters. Here are my reasons.

1. With as old and universally known and feared as the Mechanoids are, they’ve probably fought vampires before. But lets say they haven’t. They have allies that are inhuman supernatural magic wielding demons and monsters. I’m not saying they fight. But they have knowledge of them. And with as widespread as vampires are, somebody would know what is effective and ineffective in combat against them.
2. Mechanoid could pick and choose when and where their battles took place. Vampires are limited to fighting at night and close enough to shelter to be able to return before dawn.
3. Overlord: Top Speed-mach 1 Max Alt-20,000ft
Oracle: Top Speed-mach 1.2 Max Alt-1,000ft
Brain: Top Speed-200mph Max Alt-20,000ft
Runner (requires hover platform) Top Speed-200mph Max Alt-20,000ft
TP 1 Brute: Top Speed-90mph Max Alt-2,000ft
TP 2 Brute: Top Speed-500mph Max Alt-20,000ft
Wasp (talk about later)
I could keep going but I won’t. Mechanoids are very sadistic, but very intelligent and very clever. It wouldn’t take them a long time to figure out a standard assault would be ineffective. And they would not continue to do so. So they would just fly/hover out of reach of the vampires. (I don’t care about bats or other things of that nature)
4. Wasps. I don’t care if all the vampires can fly and are as agile and have the same altitude as the rest of the Mechanoids. A Wasp has a Top-speed mach 3 Max Alt-“virtually unlimited” I’m sorry but vampires have nothing to compete with that.
5. The Mechanoids (mainly wasps) should be able to trace the vamps back to wherever they hide. They might not be able to destroy vampires but they can level their shelters, thus exposing some to sunlight, drag others out cook them underneath the midday sky.
6. Why are nuclear explosions so bright? Because you are basically getting the same reaction that powers the stars (aka sunlight). If they are affected by sunlight they would be affected by a nuclear explosion too. If the are affected by a nuclear blast they would be affected by the Hydrogen blasts that come from the Mechanoid diggers’ hydrogen fusion chamber. It might not be as effective as true sunlight, but the main body has around 180,000 MDC. It would take vampires a long time to destroy it, in addition to all the other Mechanoids protecting it.
7. Lastly, the Mehanoids could just slice up the planet. No planet, no earth/dirt to return to when its bedtime. Besides, if you destroy a planet there is no atmosphere to break up the suns deadly rays. Direct sunlight in space should be twice as deadly to a vampire.
Well there you have it. Vampires are good. But not as good (or bad depending on how you look at it) as the Mechanoids

Nice analysis!


The only thing I disagree with is #6.
Vamps are harmed by sunlight for magical reasons, not chemical or physical.
It has to be actual light from the actual sun.

I never thought about it that way before. But if it isn't a chemical or physical reaction to the light, What is it? Sunlight in and of itself I doubt is magical. So does it say why light would effect vampires?

(It's been several years since I've read vampire kingdoms)

Because vampires are magically vulnerable to it.
The weakness isn't in the substance (wood, silver, etc), it's in the vampire.
Look at it like a curse.

I feel like trying to expand on that. (key word, "trying")

Doesn't VK also mention somewhere that it's also because of vampires being grounded to the elements, such as why they need the soil of their homeland in the coffin, and that they are vulnerable to elements that represent "life" and "holy" things? (It has also been a while since I really looked at VK)
Trees are a major symbol of life to some cultures (hence wood)
Silver is apparently considered pure and holy to some.
Moving water represents rain and rivers, which bring the needed source of life to where it is needed (and why still water still does damage, but not as much, and fog/mist is considered to be scary or bad to some, hence why a vampire can turn into mist despite normally being vulnerable to water)
The sun is an all mighty source of life to some cultures, such as the ancient Egyptions, hence why sunlight does a hefty hit to them, but why stuff like UV lights and sun lamps have no effect on them...
IIRC, Garlic is said by some cultures to drive away evil spirits
Similar for Wolfsbane or whatever it is called.

Although, if the Mechanoids learned magic...
I consider a TW laser weapon utilizing multiple Globes of Daylight, Energy Field as a booster, and impervious to energy to keep the weapon from melting down, to create a TW "sun bolt" weapon that can and will harm vampires, and be instant kill if a "sun bolt" strikes a vampire in the heart... also have a "sun light" flashlight that also will cook vampires (but not as fast as real sunlight)

If you want a fusion attack to kill a vampire, have a sun god or some other divine being that symbolizes light/life, whip up a minature sun and toss it at the poor vampirw...

Why do people seem to think that the Mechanoids are not as smart as people and cannot figure out vampires' weaknesses? Is it because of the fact that we are human and that allows us to understand ourselves better? The Mechanoids created their entire race, they created their technology and unlocked their psionic abilities. They are extremely smart and I do not think they would have a problem dealing with vampires.

Well that analysis work for me. Thanks
I also find your idea for the TW laser weapon to be a pretty interesting idea in and of itself.

Thanks.

I had other ideas also.
Two type of TW "grenades".
The first is just a GoD spell that is on a small sphere with a fragile shell. Throw it against something hard or against the ground, shattering the shell and revealing an active GoD effect to drive away vampires.
The second is like a TW hand grenade, has the same basic stuff as the TW rifle. (was checking notes, Energy Bolt was the booster, not Energy Field). When it goes off, it creates a powerful sphere of light that causes a good bit of damage to vampires, and if a vampire is brought to 0hp, there is a chance it will be killed as if exposed to sunlight. (20% chance at 0 to -14hp, 30% at -15 to -29 hp, 50% chance at -30 hp or less)

For the tech side of thing, some ideas the Mechanoids could use without using magic.

A "sabot" round for shotguns or other ballistic weapons, it has a long silver tipped spike and spring out fins, the fins prevent the round from penetrating easily, making it a good way to stake vampires from a safe distance.

A grenade, bouncing betty mine, bomb or warhead that consists of a high powered concussion charge in the center of a hollow cavity, and a frail outer shell, the empty space can be filled with stuff like chunks of hard wood, silver pellets, etc, making them lethal to vampires, or filling them with other things for use against other targets..

A fragmentation grenade/warhead that replaces the shell with silver.

A "splash" round, it has a hollow cavity that can hold a liquid or other substance, when it hits, a small charge bursts it, releasing the contents. Sort of like a high tech spin on a water balloon.

A special warhead/bomb or large round, it has multiple small nozzles and a compressed air charge, when it gets to a pre-set distance (or after a set amount of time), the air charge goes off, spraying liquid all over the place.

An idea that just popped into mind. A round/warhead with an air charge and a capacity to hold a liquid. When it hits, the air charge shoots a jet of liquid out of a nozzle (where ever it is and where ever it is pointing)... might be painful if a vampire got a booster shot of water right into the chest.

They're two different styles of villains so it's hard to really weigh them vs each other. One tends to be blunt (subtlety is used.... but overwhelming force and vivisection is much more fun!) and into wholesale extermination, the other prefers subtlety and parasitism (vamps don't want to kill... only to enslave and feed). I guess conflicts would come if mechanoids decided to destroy a vampire settlement (which they would), I can't imagine the 'Noids not scouting, learning weaknesses, and exploiting them. I'd imagine ARCHIE-3 would do the same thing for robots he sends out west. Then it's just ugly. Give a thinman a wooden stick, and he's knocking vamps silly, add some vamp-extermination ability (like enough AI to know to cut off heads and burn bodies), and you got yourself one ACE vamp killer! Immune to mind control, doesn't sleep, the rest of the 'noids' are just amazinly resistant (most borgs are weak to mind control.... mechanoids aint 'most borgs'), and the vampire 'infiltration' bit doesn't work if the bad guys don't have anyone who can be turned.

The vamps are kind of under-developed though, they are seen as a 'megaversial scourge' but everyone and their mother has vamp-kicking abilities so they really haven't taken hold anywhere big (when your big selling point to your empire is that it's 'hidden' so no one has any desire to wipe you from the face of the planet..... it's not a good testament to your strength as a power).

Worse comes to worse, nuclear warheads, uranium, and radiation are all viable high-tech options, and I can imaging the Mechanoids really going for that level of the old ultra-violence.

Mechanoids... one of the nastiest villain ideas to hit Rifts... vamps... kind of underwhelming.

Seeing as how Vamps wouldn't care much about a mechanoid base if it didn't cause them trouble (can't infiltrate... but no feedable stock.. etc..)

Putting a mechanoid base in Mexico may be a good 'bait and switch' to do to a party. The Mechanoids wouldn't mention their desire to exterminate all humanoid life... at least not until their plans are in place to carry the task out. Your intrepid band had their vamp fighting gear all set up, and just wants to explore that one small section of mountain that the vamps have marked off as 'more trouble than it's worth', and badda bing, that's then the killer psionic cyborgs make their move. Then all of a sudden it's 'we humans and vamps gotta stick together cuz these guys are PSYCHO!'

Never bring a watergun to a particle beam fight...

I find amusing the very concept that the mechanoids are so wise. Give me a break...

They are schizofrenik to begin off.

They do scout ahead but ony to find a humanoid populated planet. They dont give a damn about the culture, technology or size of that humanoid settlement. After all their numbers are in the trillions while the punny humanoids are only in the millions.

They do have psionic powers, but that wont give then capacity to learn about the Vampires true nature, powers and weakness.

They would be unable to destroy the planet because of one single reason: Their stations build on the intersections created by then to break the world shell apart would be destroied at night by the vamps and destroying is 10 times more fast than constructing so they would not be able to effectively destroy the planet. They can bomb the surface to destroy everything in it but that would not destroy the planet.

They dont believe in magic or the supernatural. Period.

The majority of their forces, about 90%, are simple robots. Advanced yes but only robots.

To sumarize: If the planet is in control of the vampires, with millions of then over the planet, then the Mechanoids will have no chance of destroying it.

Don't the Mechanoid Motherships possess large beam weapons capable of and designed to actually carve up planets?
Or am I thinking of something other than the Mechanoids?

Even if they have, the carving of the planet is only a part of the destruction procedure. The other part call for the intersection station to be constructed and then detonaded. If there is no stations then there is no destruction of the planet in the end.

Unless they use telepathy during combat and catch the vampires thinking, "Ha! These guys don't even know enough to use wood!"
Or unless they use empathy, and catch vampires' fear of certain substances.



Not if the vampires had to fight their way through hordes of mechanoids every night, just to get to the bridge.
Or unless the mechanoids figured out the vampires' weaknesses, which they would.



Completely untrue and unfounded.



Sure they can.
If nothing else, they can kill the vampires' food supply.

The mechanoids could also just do orbital bombardment during the day, including use of ion cannons to try and cut down on dust in the sky... That will kill vampires... especially if they do it in morning, because vampires will be killed rather fast if they suddenly get caught out in the open when their cover is literally blown...

If the Mechanoids run into to much trouble with vampires, they will do what they can to learn as much as possible about their new foe, even if it means setting up temporary and heavily fortified positions to act as a staging point for capturing, studying and interrogasting the vampires and their food stock, or evne just observing things from a safe distance and using their brains rather than mass amounts of forces and firepower.

If they find people hunting vampires, they might decide to capture and interrogate the vampire hunters, find out what they know, what equipment they have/use, etc.
If the Mechanoids keep a record of past conquests, they might have "tales and lore" of other worlds.
That is, info from people interrogated, stumbling upon stories/lore while looking for any useful information or schematics in stuff they might have acquired before destroying a planet, etc, and stumble across a way to deal with vampires that way.

Although... if the Mechanoids learned about the vampires weaknesses in such ways, what are the chances they could build a massive space mirron, lure the vampires out at night, then use the big mirror to reflect sunlight onto the dark side of a planet? Or the mechanoids could just get a few comets or ice asteroids and bomb a planet with those, and flood out the vampires... or just do the big space mirror trick with a big holy symbol icon on it... a several hundred mile wide cross shaped shadow should have interesting effects on vampires... or they could just have some other ships go fetch a few million metric tons of silver from some other planet... or go after a lot of wood and give them iron cores or rings so they could be used in rail guns...

You guys are forgeting that when defeated by humanoids the mechanoids react in silly and irrational ways.

Also their quest for knowledge although would give then a chance to gather info from previous conquests, would be a lot inacurrated and even wrong, because they would need to understand first what they are fighting and only after that they can research for ways to deal with the vampires.

That is not a easy task (I find it really a herculean task), principaly when all their knowledge is focused on technology and not on culture, religion, myths and etc from the civilizations they have destroyed.

Now their only real chance for learning the nature of the vamps and so learn their weakness is to find vampire hunters at work, and that in a world dominated by the undead would be impossible. Also even if they do find vampire hunters at work, they would need to use some restrainment so that they dont kill then on sight (after all they are irrational in their hatred for humanoids) so that they can capture and interrogate the vampire hunters (Remember that in their sick minds, seeing humanoids defeating the enemy that they, mechnoids, cant defeat can be a humiliation too great to bear).

Otherwise the vamps would not be a problem to deal since in a world not under their control the undead could be powerfull but would not pose a treat to the Mechanoids in the overall. They would not have the numbers to hinder the mechs planetary destruction procedure and so they will be destroyed when the planet is destroyed.

Some of the Mechanoids do in fact love to capture and torture/experiment on humanoids, so the Mechanoids don't always shoot humanoids on sight.
They may hate humanoids, but they are not stupid.

For example, the Rifts Sourcebook 2: The Mechanoids. It shows that the mechanoids do in fact have some restraint, and that they won't always shoot on sight. If they have to do something other than wiping out humans left and right until they can feasibly achieve that goal, then they will try to do so.

The Mechanoids might easily figure out some things for themselves.

1: The Vampires seem very insistant on never being outside during daytime, and that vampires that are inside yet awake, are very sluggish.

2: For food stock (if allowed to have any sort of "personal" lives, like the one city in Rifts Vampire Kingodoms, or vampires who simply prefer communities for food stock for that "raised in the wild" taste and the thrill of the hunt), vampires might have laws in place for people to not allowed to posses anything made of wood or silver that could be turned into a stake, or perhaps even the vampires going out of their way to keep food stock from even being in possession of wood and silver in general. If the Mechanoids found the vampires have a stockpile of silver that was treated like a toxic waste dump, the Mechanoids might be a bit curious.

3: Observing that the vampires never allow their food stock to have garlic a day or two before someone is due to be fed upon... or just the Vampires burning patches of wild garlic if they show up anywhere near the places they occupy.

4: Vampires banning certain symbols from being near or in possession by their food stock.

5: Vampires steering clear of running water, and otherwise seeming to be unable to go over water. For the Mechanoids, seeing a vampire turn into a bat and fly around, this might peak the Mechanoids interest as to why Vampires avoid running water like rivers, and why they never simply fly over water. Also, vampires not going outside if it is raining.
If Mechanoids are trying to defend a location while preparing to blow up the planet, and the vampires run away scared when storm clouds start coming in and it starts raining, the Mechanoids might also get the point that way, especially if they see vamps having a not so good time in the rain.

6: Vampires shape shifting, most humanoids normally can't do that, if they see vampires turning into bats, wolves, or mist, the Mechanoids will probably want to some experiments to see what makes vampires tick, and probably stumble upon a weakness or two that way, perhaps in combination with the previous points.... like a Brain going "Let take this test subject outside during the day, and see if we can find out why these things don't ever come out during the day."

But they are insaine.



2-4 are not gonna be easy assessments. 2 and 3 for example, such minute details are gonna be oblivious to nearly everyone. Do you, for example, find it odd that a friend owns no silver or lacks garlic in the house? Crosses are more mythological and in an alien world, I don't believe they will have the knowledge to know that crosses (not holy symbols) are missing in the world.

I give that 1 and 5 might be slightly easier to figure out, with 5 being somewhat more difficult depending on circumstances.



This is difficult as well being that catching a vampire is not gonna be easy. If the mechanoids don't have a way to KO a vampire, capturing one (especially with their ability to turn into mist) is gonna make it impossible to experiment on them.

I'll agree....improbable of catching and interrogating a vampire.

Their human food supply is a different matter. Humans might welcome death and be very forth coming on vampire rules/laws/habits/locations/weaknesses.

True, but variable. In one instance, the life of the food supply may not be so bad, in another death could be welcomed. In one instance, vampires may be worshiped as gods, thus other than rain and sunlight, their weaknesses may not be well known, in another instance, the world could have just been taken over leaving a plethora of people who know the weaknesses but can't do anything about it. In this case, Mechnoids would probably have fun extracting the information painfully, even if it is offered voluntarily.

Example.



Where does it say that all their knowledge is focused on technology, and not other things?



Impossible how?



They routinely capture humans and interrogate them.



No, you're just making that up.
It's an assumption based on a bizarre exageration.



They wouldn't have the numbers regardless.

Psi-swords, mind bolt, and other psionics can temporarily take down a vampire. Sure, it would regenerate.. but it wouldn't take a genius to figure out to just keep hacking at it until you get it someplace else.

One more point for the mechanoids is, they harvest planets. All they have to do is get there really big straw and empty one of the lakes out and poor it onto the battle field. Good by vamps

Already addressed.

Read again Rifts Sourcebook 2 and pay close atention to the description the KS gives about the reactions that a mechanoid would have if outsmarted or defeated by humanoids. Not bizarre exagerations.