Tweaking the old stuff...

[taalismn]

Every now and then I reread the older Palaldium stuff I plucked from the bargain/dustbin at my local gaming store and find a few gems of ideas to mull over...Having both the Collected Mechanoid Trilogy re-issue and the old re-issue The Mechanopids(which, for some reason, KS wasn't happy with), there's a lot to mull over...

Though the future Mechanoid Space(if and when it ever shows) will probably bear a closer resemblace to Phaseworld or Aliens Unlimited than anything else, I do like to tweak the older stuff to bring it up to date to what the rest of the Palladium Megaverse is capable of...Mechanoid Trilogy had soem very quick and dirty conversion rules but I still saw som,e gaps for the detail-minded in me...
So here's a few general ideas...those of you who have either of the aforementioned books probably have your own ideas/observations, and if so, feel free to share...

EBA----The old EBA troopers as a separate division makes Rifts-born folk who live their lives in their suits wanna cry...All that hoopla over an armored suit? Yeesh...
So give the old EBA Division an upgrade...Convert the basic 180 SDC to MDC like they suggest, THEN give the bugger a light exoskeleton, like the heavy CS and Triax body armors...PS30 and some extra speed/leaping....maybe battery/e-clip-power it like a Challenger suit, or treat it like an armored spacesuit in Mutants in Orbit and give it the option of extra slife support and a lser-resistant exterior coating... This makes the EBA Division essentiall Light Power Armor/Heavy Weapons specialists, as opposed to more sophisticated full power armor specialists...
This applies to ALL the heavy EBAs in Mechanoids, even those used by the Ostrac, Gendo, and especially the Nigellian Reaper(which looks like an early prototype of the later Rifts Coalition suits), since it already looks like it has exoskeletal augmentation...
Borellian EBA doesn't benefit from this...they already have a forcefield shield(though I'd tune that down to 300 for the forcefield that goes first and maybe 50-60 for the actual physical shield) because it's s[pecifically referred to as a lighter suit...
LBA is unchanged...LBA is the new (unaugmented) EBA

Borellians...I'd give these guys on top of their extra PP and speed some limited nightvision...they got large eyes, they live underground, they look like lemurs...just my opinion


Borellian Fighters---like all the ealy-generation Palaldium ships, soem upward improvements in speed are necessary...liquid-fuel is alright for surface launch or fusion-torch drive, but if the Borellians ever upgrade to more modern Contra-gravity systems, that massive fuel tank can be removed, or ideally converted to cargo space, a personnel compartment, or a bomb-bay...retain the particle beam cannon, but make the wingtip IRLM launchers more standard multi-munition hardpoints or cruise-missile launch rails...

Borellian Assault Cannon---I love this thing...200 tons and 1000 SDC/MDC of heavy artillery grav-panzer...keep the long ranged main cannon(with 3d6x20 MD of slugging power and over a mile of range), good secondary backup weapon, and squad of 10 troopers for infanry support...drop the range limitation...the thing's powered by a nuke...I want the Borellians backing my advance if I can assured of a line of these black monsters for heavy backup...but I'd keep a few fast-movers handy in case the opposition starts tac-nuking the Borellian line of battle just to kill the panzers...

Starships---most of the ships of Mechanoid Trilogy, with a little tweaking(or some infusions/conversions from AU Galaxy Guide and Phaseworld) actually hold up rather well, especially the freighters, which can be dropped quite ably into other settings...Most of them are trampers and light craft, but they have potential..

Ranged Weapons---I'm not put out by the long range KS assigned his early weapons, but if you are, just use his rules and halve the range...Me, when converting to an MDC setting, especially Phaseworld, I made the Borellians new buddies of Hartigal Combine(who were founded as an R&D network and have been hinting at 'breakthrough technologies') with the Nigellians as Hartigal's new grinning frontmen and inventory movers...
Still, though, the rapid-fire plasma guns give me the willies....

The Balrog Destroyer....KS's BOLO...I love these things, and I'd love to see a Next-Generation BD...use the original stats for the old model and treat the AI as a Robot INtelligence for purposes of skill selection...likewise the two drones...But the NG-BD should be a nueral intelligence, the hover-drones hsould be upgraded to more than 50 SDC/MDC, there should be more missile armaments, and more sensor clusters for remote operations...Basically, this think should be able to take on a Naruni or Kreeghor Deathmachine, or be able to breach a Splugorth city-wall and slay hundreds if not thousands of minions...


Any drivels of your own, any of you?