Coalition Supply Issues

[LostOne]

What materials would be critical to maintain the war machine during a war?

Food and water, obviously. But I'm more curious about critical materials for the weapons and power armors and such. If it were WWII I'd say steel and ingredients for gunpowder.

CS needs materials for reactor cores, high energy capacitors for weapons, materials (gold/copper/whatever) for circuitry and such to operate every piece of a equipment a soldier takes into battle from infantry body armor to energy weapons to power armor and vehicles.

What materials would be in short supply before/after the siege on Tolkeen and could possibly be made worse by a group of plucky Tolkeen operatives/survivors somehow to hurt the CS resupply?

[Grazzik]

When it is related to Rifts weapons and armor, since we don't know the underlying science or tech, it is up to the GM. The level of energy that is channeled by Rifts mega-damage war materiel is so high, it probably relies on some yet to be invented alloy. Pick a few rare earth minerals, ignore real world science, and look up where they can be mined or extracted. Recycling is probably pretty extensive to mitigate any risk of attack on the harvesting of resources - right down to reclamation of the chemicals and minerals in a human body.

More important than raw materials, consider the impact of scarcity re medicine and pharmaceuticals. Most would be supplied to the war effort, so life on the home front would be exceptionally hard should resources get redirected away from basic sanitation, hygiene, and preventative care. Even emergency care would be severely restricted and rationed. This would likely lead to civil unrest in the Burbs and even the lower levels of the megacities. Releasing biological weapons or simply inducing a localized health crisis by poisoning a water supply or spreading the use of recreational drugs can be crippling in a time of scarcity.

However, consider the importance of production infrastructure vs resources scarcity. Blow up a downstream factory or foundry and all the effort to gather resources are wasted. But to achieve the same effect upstream, you'd need to target all the mines that feed raw material to the factory or foundry. And even then, alternate sources can be rerouted to the factory or foundry to keep production up.

Don't overlook labor. While factories and foundries are likely automated to a large degree, labor is still needed. But if people are war weary, afraid of attack, conscripted, or apathetic, then the state might need to resort to forced labor. Tolkeenites keeping the pressure on workers by random workplace attacks, targeted assassinations, threatening family, bribery and other nefarious means of coercion can seriously hamper the war effort.

[taalismn]

Sink a few ore shipments or lace the unrefined material with something that will interfere with the refineries or foundry processes.
During the American Civil War and later in WW2 bombs disguised as coal were favorite tools of industrial sabotage....an exploding boiler or contaminated batch of metals can do wonders for industrial Inefficiency.

[Library Ogre]

I have a fairly common industry among former soldier being materials acquisition... specifically, taking a big robot out to ruined cities and gathering building materials. Intelligence goes through any data they recover, obviously, but it's good money for necessary work.

[Aermas]

Doesn't Heroes of Humanity or maybe Megaverse in Flames go into this? It talks about how the CS is always desperate for resources & recycles & reclaims every scrap they can

[Grazzik]

Doesn't Heroes of Humanity or maybe Megaverse in Flames go into this? It talks about how the CS is always desperate for resources & recycles & reclaims every scrap they can

HoH pg 67-68

I have a fairly common industry among former soldier being materials acquisition... specifically, taking a big robot out to ruined cities and gathering building materials. Intelligence goes through any data they recover, obviously, but it's good money for necessary work.

Yeah, can see retired FC Borgs doing that too. Cheaper since you get similar mechanical labor without the many millions in capital outlay. Most cities in and around the CS have probably been strip mined over the centuries for MDC material, except for large metropolises, like Chicago, St Louis, and Detroit, which are demon plagued. Indianapolis might be the site of a lot of competition between CS-sponsored reclamation crews and FoM-sponsored crews - maybe even Cincinnati as well. Toledo has a Hovertrain terminus, so likely a local industry (given the access the hovertrain affords) is reclamation of resources for processing in Northern Gun or New Lazlo. Cities on the western borders like Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha and Springfield MO are probably ongoing projects for reclamation. Despite that, regular SDC materials like concrete may have seriously degraded over the centuries but could still be reclaimed as gravel or aggregate.

My preference is chasing after ancient parking lots and parking structures for EVs and their batteries, particularly if on a ley line. The Create Steel spell (BoM pg 127) comes in handy to sort the metals into pure ingots, as the EV is likely nothing more than a pile of metallic rust and plastic parts. I'm no expert, but I've estimated the following to result from one agv EV:

Recycling Rules
A Pre-Rifts EV NMC battery results in:
11lbs Iron
44lbs steel
17lbs cobalt
22lbs manganese (worthless)
64lbs nickel
44lbs copper
77lbs aluminum

A civilian Pre-Rifts vehicle results in:
140lbs copper
800lbs steel
1000lbs aluminum
108lbs iron
1oz silver
500lbs biodegradable plastics (likely just dust, worthless)

The numbers go up or down depending on type of vehicle - while I go with an average, if the lot were all trucks, I'd bump up the numbers a bit. If more motor/hoverbikes and microcars, bump the numbers down.

I also have a homebrew "Create Gold" spell using the Nightbane spell modification rules to sort through the remainder for precious metals like trace gold, palladium, and platinum from circuitry. But the amounts are so small, it isn't worth it unless dealing with a large volume of residual EV dust. Actually, the spell gets more use when running a prospecting or mining campaign.

Now, the CS wouldn't be caught using magic to feed its need for metals, but if a trader showed up with a truck of pure copper ingots... well... who's asking questions?

[Aermas]

Unrelated but I'm curious about the "Create Gold" spell modification. Would you be able to say create Gantrium?

[Orin J.]

robotic joints. they must go through the actuators in their power armors like candy even if they somehow successfully standardized them across......all that.

also chips. even with MDC materials those things are gonna get fried all the time.

and boots.

[glitterboy2098]

Unrelated but I'm curious about the "Create Gold" spell modification. Would you be able to say create Gantrium?

only if you have a supply already present but too diffuse to mine. Palladium's "create" spells don't conjure the material from thin air but rather pull the constituent materials from the surrounding area to produce the result. which is basically what he's suggesting with the create steel spell.. basically a fancy way of mining.

[thorr-kan]

Years ago, the need for materials bothered me as well. So I suggested that a lot of depleted natural resources were restored by Rift activity. That defunct uranium mine? Functional! That drained oil field? Refilled! Etc.

Basically, A Wizard Did It.

[Grazzik]

Unrelated but I'm curious about the "Create Gold" spell modification. Would you be able to say create Gantrium?

only if you have a supply already present but too diffuse to mine. Palladium's "create" spells don't conjure the material from thin air but rather pull the constituent materials from the surrounding area to produce the result. which is basically what he's suggesting with the create steel spell.. basically a fancy way of mining.

Bingo. It never came up in gameplay since the spell is typically created by PCs in the NB or Rifts settings. Sure, there was a mining magic guild member from the UWW, but gantrium never came up. We use the list of precious metals on Wikipedia. However... if I were pushed to answer...

• Just because it is expensive doesn't make it a "precious metal", it might be a rare earth element which is suggested given the lack of large deposits and the wide distribution over the northern lands of the Palladium World
• Its existence would need to be known by the mage creating the modified spell, so either a backstory related to PF or 3G would be needed for the mage to include gantrium

As noted, the spell doesn't create anything... it simply separates the metals from scrap/ore. While the Creates Steel spell does create a small percentage of extra metal, in my games the Create Gold spell is downgraded to not create this extra metal in order to increase the chance that the process of developing the spell will work. See NB SB 3 (TtGD) pg 36 for the rules re % of success in modifying spells.

robotic joints. they must go through the actuators in their power armors like candy even if they somehow successfully standardized them across......all that.
also chips. even with MDC materials those things are gonna get fried all the time.
and boots.

Basically anything necessary that is consumable. But agree with chips! Everything from small stuff like radios, drones, optics, weapons, etc. to the big stuff like bots, tanks, PA, planes, missiles, etc. all need chips. Tech is the differentiator for the CS as they don't use magic and psionics is on both sides.

Years ago, the need for materials bothered me as well. So I suggested that a lot of depleted natural resources were restored by Rift activity. That defunct uranium mine? Functional! That drained oil field? Refilled! Etc. Basically, A Wizard Did It.

I do the same thing... no emerald mining in the region IRL? Some d-shifting and a healthy dose of Handwavium and you've got emerald mines all over the place. No coconut trees in wintery Wisconsin IRL? Suddenly there is a static heat bloom and adequate water and nutrients in a place local d-bees call Coco Valley. A magical/dimensional apocalypse and 300 years of d-shifting globally has probably completely reshaped the distribution of natural resources almost everywhere in such a way that a GM could justify almost anything.

[Blackwater Sniper]

In my Rifts world, almost everything has a basis in CARBON NANOTUBE technology.

Today, we use iron (steel) for structural integrity and copper for electricity transmission.



Do your own research on what's out there today to extrapolate what it could be tomorrow.

[implementor]

If it's MDC material, the main raw ingredients are probably going to be iron and silica, depending on whether it's metal or ceramic. This doesn't mean that rare metals/materials may not be also needed to alloy/mix with the above. Also, the silica may need to come from an ultra-pure source, which is why virtually all the silica that is used in microprocessors comes from North Carolina. All kinds of ways to make it interesting.

[Aermas]

If it's MDC material, the main raw ingredients are probably going to be iron and silica, depending on whether it's metal or ceramic. This doesn't mean that rare metals/materials may not be also needed to alloy/mix with the above. Also, the silica may need to come from an ultra-pure source, which is why virtually all the silica that is used in microprocessors comes from North Carolina. All kinds of ways to make it interesting.

What if it's carbon nanotube based? To make a carbon nanotube you basically use gas to make a nanotube forest

[Killer Cyborg]

What materials would be critical to maintain the war machine during a war?

Food and water, obviously. But I'm more curious about critical materials for the weapons and power armors and such. If it were WWII I'd say steel and ingredients for gunpowder.

CS needs materials for reactor cores, high energy capacitors for weapons, materials (gold/copper/whatever) for circuitry and such to operate every piece of a equipment a soldier takes into battle from infantry body armor to energy weapons to power armor and vehicles.

What materials would be in short supply before/after the siege on Tolkeen and could possibly be made worse by a group of plucky Tolkeen operatives/survivors somehow to hurt the CS resupply?

Clay would be crucial, considering how much high-tech ceramics play into things.
But I don't know that there'd be a short supply.

Nuclear stuff would be probably in relatively low supply... except apparently the Skelebot Graveyard was NOT (iirc) worth the bother of salvaging for the CS, and Rifts nuclear stuff is so weird we don't know what it actually needs to run.
Could be like Mr. Fusion, and just run off common stuff.

Copper and other conductive metals might be an option.
Silicone for microchips?

Really, a GM wanting to run this kind of campaign could/should probably just come up with some kind of Raritanium substance they can invent the parameters of and use for, and go from there.

[Killer Cyborg]

If it's MDC material, the main raw ingredients are probably going to be iron and silica, depending on whether it's metal or ceramic. This doesn't mean that rare metals/materials may not be also needed to alloy/mix with the above. Also, the silica may need to come from an ultra-pure source, which is why virtually all the silica that is used in microprocessors comes from North Carolina. All kinds of ways to make it interesting.

We know from CB1 that standard body armor is non-magnetic, so probably not iron.

[glitterboy2098]

the original MDC material Triax developed was based on a metallic material according to triax2, but the principles that allowed it were quickly developed to work onto all sorts of different materials.

[oger333]

Parts ? equipment maintenance.... the energy Rifles - do they need to clean / take them apart to check inner works
Bot and Power Armor - like aircraft after a Set number of hours normal use - heavy use of the equipment will need maintenance - replacement of parts greasing / testing of hardware to make sure it is running correctly ...... of even hacking is the equipment running the latest software update - CS Os v13 which could need a patch or full update because of malware -- equipment may need CS Os Version 14.5 / recalibrated sensor systems

[taalismn]

Probably a lot of nanotech molecular engineering to glean out atoms of valuable elements, and then build structures with them.....though the nanotech is strictly 'dumb' and kept secure in industrial vats ...so little to no chance of hacking the stuff into a 'grey goo' weapon. And the nannies are very vulnerable to chemical and electrical imbalances.

So chlorinate some sorter vats at a CS recycling facility, EMP the nano-printers.

[Shorty Lickens]

I was JUST reading a book where the author discusses how the CS feeds their nation and their war machine. Damned if I can recall which book. this is gonna drive me crazy.
It wasnt Heroes of Humanity. I dont own that book.

[desrocfc]

Honestly, as already stated, make it up. There is zero basis to provide an underlying concept for what production costs (materiel, energy, design, labour) create MDC material or MD weapons. Pick some rare earth metals, and some handwavium solutions to present as a catalyst for the adventure. Don't over think it, and don't let the players get into that rabbit hole.

EXAMPLE

The following provides a framework for an adventure that makes the subject material agnostic to the plot.

"The CS is protecting a cargo train coming in from [INSERT PLACE]. It is expected to be [INSERT MATERIAL] crucial to the construction of [INSERT WIDGET CS NEEDS]."

Players go out, attack, and succeed or fail; it really doesn't matter. CS knows who they are and are now sending mercenaries after them. Maybe CS patrols. You now have a CS officer or hunting party antagonist you can insert at random over following adventures.

[Library Ogre]

I was JUST reading a book where the author discusses how the CS feeds their nation and their war machine. Damned if I can recall which book. this is gonna drive me crazy.
It wasnt Heroes of Humanity. I dont own that book.

Not a book, but I do have a blog post of an outline I was playing with...

[Grazzik]

I was JUST reading a book where the author discusses how the CS feeds their nation and their war machine. Damned if I can recall which book. this is gonna drive me crazy.
It wasnt Heroes of Humanity. I dont own that book.

Was it the practical genetics section of WB13 pg 67-69... bigger cows, robust crops, medical cloning, etc.?

The limiting resource could be a handwavium element, could be access to genetic source material (can't clone something if it is unique and vaporized by a particle beam rifle), or it could be trained geneticists (assassination would be a threat if anyone learned of CS reliance on genetic tech).

[Library Ogre]

I was JUST reading a book where the author discusses how the CS feeds their nation and their war machine. Damned if I can recall which book. this is gonna drive me crazy.
It wasnt Heroes of Humanity. I dont own that book.

Not a book, but I do have a blog post of an outline I was playing with...

So, I'm roughly 2000 words into turning this into a more fleshed out blog post... or possibly series of them.

[Shorty Lickens]

I was JUST reading a book where the author discusses how the CS feeds their nation and their war machine. Damned if I can recall which book. this is gonna drive me crazy.
It wasnt Heroes of Humanity. I dont own that book.

Was it the practical genetics section of WB13 pg 67-69... bigger cows, robust crops, medical cloning, etc.?

The limiting resource could be a handwavium element, could be access to genetic source material (can't clone something if it is unique and vaporized by a particle beam rifle), or it could be trained geneticists (assassination would be a threat if anyone learned of CS reliance on genetic tech).

Nope. What I was thinking of was more basic. Like how and where the CS gets its resources. But I cant find it.
Its not in the main book. Its in a later item. But I cant recall if it was a world book or sourcebook or one of the war books.

[Curbludgeon]

There was an article in Rifter 0 about underground rifts bringing in mineral resources. There's another article about heavy recycling, but I haven't found it yet in the index.

[Library Ogre]

As I push 4000 words, I begin to suspect I started this as a way to learn how to spell "bourgeoisie."

[Marcethus]

As I push 4000 words, I begin to suspect I started this as a way to learn how to spell "bourgeoisie."

[Marcethus]

There was an article in Rifter 0 about underground rifts bringing in mineral resources. There's another article about heavy recycling, but I haven't found it yet in the index.

I know it's not in CWC or Lonestar or Navy. I don't have access to my books is it possibly mentioned in Rifts Index Vol 1? I vaguely recall something in there but it might have been a HLS.

[Library Ogre]

Currently at 6500 words, and in the home stretch. My goal is to get it posted to my blog today, so I have something posted in the month of April.

[Library Ogre]

Ok, new post is up.

[Grazzik]

Ok, new post is up.

Interesting read, some good ideas.

However, I would have much more media - hundreds of content channels... just all monitored/controlled... maybe even mandatory to profess your love of the state. The info industry could be HUGE. No tv, as society is likely built on salvaged 2098 tech, so I'd say much more augmented reality with embedded on demand content. Heck, vacuous tiktok-esque content of little threat to authority but with embedded state social engineering.

The food in fortress cities is interesting to think about. Cows are still expensive to raise... who knows when a hungry t-rex will wander by. Low levelers might still need to rely on cheap renewable alternatives that might have been normalized during the Dark Age after the apocalypse... yes, you guessed it: rat burgers It plays into the whole recycling idea as you very well can't have massive cemeteries in a fortress city...

While robot gladiators are big entertainment in Ishpeming, I see Colosseum-esque gladiators killing a variety of d-bees in rigged fights. Or feeding d-bees to wild animals/monsters for entertainment. Criminal humans of the worst kind might at least be given a vibroknife to make it interesting.

One aspect that is glossed over are the mutants... not dog boys or psistalkers or HU mutants with superpowers, but the three-arm or no leg mutants... humanity's dregs and flotsam. The ones with disfigured faces or blistered skin or some other genetic abnormality. The folks with PB 5 or less that made into the city or were born there and had some way to ensure they weren't evicted.

Basically, the CS strategy can be largely boiled down to bread and circuses.

[Library Ogre]

Ok, new post is up.

Interesting read, some good ideas.

However, I would have much more media - hundreds of content channels... just all monitored/controlled... maybe even mandatory to profess your love of the state. The info industry could be HUGE. No tv, as society is likely built on salvaged 2098 tech, so I'd say much more augmented reality with embedded on demand content. Heck, vacuous tiktok-esque content of little threat to authority but with embedded state social engineering.

Some of this comes down to decentralization and lack of a communications infrastructure. In the fortress cities, you might be able to have that, and the city-level internets could do a lot of that. But if you're outside of the fortress cities, there's little to indicate that the Coalition has the kind of ubiquitous control of the airwaves that you see in the modern world, or the ability to have long-range transmission of tons of channels. Part of why we can do that today is satellites, but also because we've got transmission cables in the ground everywhere; I don't think the CS has cables from Chi-town to Boise, much less to Lone Star City or Ft. Pinnacle.

The food in fortress cities is interesting to think about. Cows are still expensive to raise... who knows when a hungry t-rex will wander by. Low levelers might still need to rely on cheap renewable alternatives that might have been normalized during the Dark Age after the apocalypse... yes, you guessed it: rat burgers It plays into the whole recycling idea as you very well can't have massive cemeteries in a fortress city...

My reading, drawn partially from Lone Star, but also from descriptions of the state of Chi-Town and Missouri is that the CS doesn't have a food problem; you may not get all you can eat, but there's a lot of farmland, and west Texas is both ranchland and heavily patrolled by the CS.