Titan Robotics Raw preview...

[tsh77769]

Horribly disappointing.

I was really hoping for more information about golden age technology, more interesting weapons and features. Nope.

Throughout Rifts, Titan's robots, weapons, and tech has been horribly diapointing and I was hoping this book would resolve it. Nope.

The most "interesting" thing was "diamond dust" and the "eclipse" alternate power system. The "eclipse" alternate power system was particularly disappointing, not just in its stats and function but in its description and background

Bummer man!

tsh77769

[kaid]

One thing to note is Archie is going out of his way to disguise the golden age tech in the titan industries vehicles/armor. These are commercial market items. They do have golden age tech but all of it is pretty well disguised most of the fancier stuff is the various bugs/reporting stuff for intelligence gathering. If archie was flaunting golden age tech in stuff sold on the open market all the other forces would stop at nothing to track down the source of the items.

[Warshield73]

Sorry you didn't like it. I have read about two-thirds of the Raw Preview and I love it and for the same reason I loved the two Northern Gun Books. It presents several new robots and power armors that are clear upgrades over previous types but they are not so powerful as to make those previous models obsolete.

NG 1&2, IMHO, ended a long string of Rifts books that wasn't so much power creep as power sprinting which hit its apex in Triax 2 God's Arsenal book. I can't wait to use some of the new Titan bots in my games.

[kaid]

The customer service stuff in there is really interesting as well. They had mentioned stuff like this in the past but was fleshed out well. Titan offers insanely good deals for repair/rearmament of your mechs. It is how archie gets his info but for the people using these things if you are not an operator or travel with one that kind of ability to come in to get battle damage squared away at a reasonable cost has to be a pretty huge selling feature. Funny thing I think even if titan flat told people they were downloading performance telemetry most mercs probably would not mind as its a pretty small cost compared to the sizable repair discount.

[tsh77769]

The customer service stuff in there is really interesting as well. They had mentioned stuff like this in the past but was fleshed out well. Titan offers insanely good deals for repair/rearmament of your mechs. It is how archie gets his info but for the people using these things if you are not an operator or travel with one that kind of ability to come in to get battle damage squared away at a reasonable cost has to be a pretty huge selling feature. Funny thing I think even if titan flat told people they were downloading performance telemetry most mercs probably would not mind as its a pretty small cost compared to the sizable repair discount.

I definitely agree on that aspect. That was a nice touch but that does not a whole book make.

tsh77769

[Hell knight]

This is one of those books i been wanting done for a long time , can not wait to get it .

[Sohisohi]

Not surprised it was a dud, HoH was great, Sovietski was Great, but Atlantis 2 (D15) was awful. I honestly think the same thing will happen with the upcoming NA beastiary, 1 will be really good and the other will be garbage. Still plan on buying both, but man, don't just do a straight upgrade/compile.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Not surprised it was a dud, HoH was great,

Interesting fluff, but the crunch was silly and and unbalanced (AT).

Sovietski was Great,

Interesting lore, terrible, broken-as-hell Crunch. (Armor Piercing attacks that make almost all PA, Robots, and Vehicles sitting ducks? Busted as all get out.).

but Atlantis 2 (D15) was awful.

Eh? It was super inconsistent, that’s for sure. The new/updated OCCs were cool (though I really think the Nomad should have just been turned into the Minor-T-Man (like the “paladin” option) as default, AND still had the “area of extra knowledge”), but the massive nerfs to Tattoo Magic were weird and incosistent (all of a sudden, Tattoo weapons inflict SDC to SDC opponents, and MDC to MDC opponents? What the efff?).

The new Tattoos were great. The expansion of how the Sunaj actually function was good. The part where some (of the major, canon) Atlantian clans have millions of people, but some have like 10,000 was just... i dunno.. it was super inconsistent, and some of it made no sense. (Like, the Aerhiman clan has million of people living on a tiny sub-planet in a hidden dimension... but the Clan that founded the planet of Alexandria (and has been living there ever since, for like 1000+ years) in the Thre Galaxies doesn’t ALSO have millions of people, despite having been safely esconced on Alexandira, a prosperous, fertile and safe planet, that whole time?)

But as a whole the book has more positives than negatives and the negatives are (uncharacteristically for a Rifts/Palladium book) super easy to ignore (just ignore the nerfs to MDC weapon tatoos, move on).

I honestly think the same thing will happen with the upcoming NA beastiary, 1 will be really good and the other will be garbage. Still plan on buying both, but man, don't just do a straight upgrade/compile.

Thats exactly what you’re going to get, though i do expect some new content as well. I mean, look at D-bees of NA. Thats your template for the bestiary.

I haven’t seen the Titan Robotics thing (i most likely wont see it until its an actual release book, as my buddy that sill compulsively buys all things Palladium doesn’t buy the RAW releases)...

But as long as it is a good “tech goodies” book that fits Titan Robotics’ outward technology level... thats really all it needs to be. (Keeping in mind that Titan Robotics, as an entity, is portrayed by Archie as having tech slightly below NG/FQ in power, despite Archie having post-Golden Age tech himself, so as not to raise suspicions).

Like one of the previous posters, i was glad to see that NG1/2 didn’t suddenly increase NGs tech level (with the exception of the UEL, which i feel probably should have been a Triax innovation as their tech is supposedly Golden Age + 300 years) but rather provided a good suite of tech, PA, and Robots/vehicles that really fit with NGs power level and tech level.

Unlike the previous poster, i dont feel that the Rifts “power creep” thing is as real as i used to. The problem was really only ever CJ Carella’s books. If you ignore CJs work, the power level from launch didn’t go up too much. The CS got better... but mostly in terms of Armor. Their weapons didn’t get a lot more powerful (their Rifles went from 4D6 MD on a burst to 6D6 per pulse - the same as the RMB-canon L-20 pulse rifle- just with a slightly better range.), and even their robots didn’t get massively damaging robots... just armor numbers more appropriate to big robots. New West didn’t really increase that power level much.. (if at all; it did include some heavier body armor that wasn’t stolen from the CS, but that was about it) and even Mercenaries only moved the needle a little - and only with Naruni stuff, which always came with the “the CS will kill you on sight” drawback. The only other core Rifts-Earth related books that had a lot of tech (pre-“modern era”/post CJ era) were Free Quebec, which showed pretty clearly that FQ was less powerful than the CS as a whole - the only thing keeping them afloat was their knowledge of Chromium armor creation and Glitter Boy techd, and Merc Ops, which brought Wilks up a bit (the Laser Pulse Cannon is pretty powerful, though i stand by my assertion that the pulse damage is simply a typo) but didn’t really add a lot of power top-end, and Black Market... which just provided a bunch of alternatives to other weapons that really werent more powerful. (Though Big Bore’s knockdown can go DIAF, but that started in New West).

Triax 1... honeastly, in retrospect, is underwhelming. Triax 2, though full of SUPER powerful PAs and gear.... is probably what Triax 1 should have been. Remember, tbey never suffered a Dark Age. They are Golden Age tech + 280-300 years. If anything, it should probably be more powerful. Or a story should be ret-conned as to why Triax didn’t advance nearly as much as they should have (i’d actually go with the ret-con if i were the one in charge, and would kick them to somewhere in-between Traix 1 and 2 in terms of power).

All the other books that really added to the perception of “Power Creep” can kind of be ignored. South America 1/2 are basically a self-contained setting, and are relatively internally consistent, at least, and CJs other work is either fine (New Navy’s best weapon is only as good as a Wilks pulse rifle, and NN is supposed to have GA tech) or is Three Galaxies (and can be ignored as a standalone setting, where, again, it is relatively internally consistent). Only exception is Juicer Uprising, and that book only has a few notable issues (The JA-12) - most of the book is actually fine. Federation of Magic and Psyscape certainly made Magic Users and Psychics more powerful... but that was needed, as it simply brought them in line with tech based characters, whereas before, Psychics particularly were kinda weaksauce.

Anyway. Ramble over.

To sum up...

If the Titan Robotics book adds a pile of tech goodies that are consistent in power (or just a little better) with the “public” level of tech Titan is supposed to possess... thats all it really has to be to be a decent sourcebook.

Anything that prevents every tech-based character from being a clone wearing (stolen/knocked off) Heavy Old Style CS Armor and using an L-20/Wilks 457 is good by me.

[kaid]

Actually titan robotics displayed power level is above NG but below the CS. Their units tend to be some of the fastest robot vehicles for their sizes around with only a few CS and triax units being faster. Their armor tends to be somewhere between NG and CS armament wise they are on the higher end of NA providers most of the units are pretty missile heavy.

NG are your ford pickups big and chunky and strong but probably are not going to win any races and are not super advanced.
Titan robotics are your sporty coups and sedans with lots of gadgets and gizmos. For the customer that just wants something faster and a bit more sporty and does not want to go digging around under the hood themselves. What other combat vehicle offers a freaking warranty! Honestly I can see a lot of smaller towns really liking this setup. Strong enough to defend the town but you are not engaging in hostilities that often so being able to just run it to the nearby titan repair station and then back cuts the logistics and support staff needed to run it by a ton.

[glitterboy2098]

NG are your ford pickups big and chunky and strong but probably are not going to win any races and are not super advanced.
Titan robotics are your sporty coups and sedans with lots of gadgets and gizmos. For the customer that just wants something faster and a bit more sporty and does not want to go digging around under the hood themselves.

and Triax is the expensive but high quality import.