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tl;dr For anyone ever interested in ocean and underwater settings for games, what aspects did you most enjoy?

Intro: I've recently been playing a phone game called Sea Invaders. It's a standard shmup with the menus copied from Archero, set with an oceanic theme. One plays a whale whose loud impulse sounds are strong enough to kill laser lobsters and plasma pufferfish. While different in tone, I began to reminisce about the Genesis game Ecco the Dolphin, which probably wasn't helped by the soundtrack sounding a lot like Phantasy Star II. Long story short I now need some magical dolphin adventure in my life.

While I'm compiling a list of the different aquatic stuff in Palladium Books as a bit of a master reference, I have one first question. I'm interested in converting some more Vince Martin illustrations of spaceships and drones into cetacean power armor, and wonder both if I've found all of them and if anyone has opinions on for what roles such armors might have been designed.

Rifts Mercenary Sourcebook pp 126-130
Dimension Book 2 pp 166-173
Dimension Book 3 pg 3, pg 74, pg 83 pg 94, pp102-103
Dimension Book 13 pg 64 (repeat)

A couple of these have too many lines to seem appropriate underwater, or look like they might fit a Dragon Ray better than a dolphin, or are just an egg shape, but a few are plug and play. The drone in Mercenaries with hands seems like it might be suited to demolition disposal, as an example, while other models could incorporate experimental TW components designed by rogue Naut'yll working with Tritonia so as to allow air travel.

As a tertiary motivation I'd say the New Navy could use a bit of an update so as to keep abreast with power creep. While the easy solution might just be to allow Heroes of Humanity-style training it ultimately could involve putting most of the military-style characters in Palladium Books on a continuum. While there are enough MOS/Skill Package versions out there to at least get started at standardizing a Megaversal Soldier, I've got magic dolphins on the brain.

Doing underwater games is really challenging, but also really awesome. There is so much volume to use for games that it really makes them just as exciting as a regular land based game.

Water depth is a huge thing that needs to be addressed, since coastal areas and few hundred feet deep is a totally different world than a thousand feet down or ten thousand feet down.

I have found that the main feeling to get across is the verticality of the setting. Up and down are more important than directions....it is more like constantly flying, and how structures can be truly immense. Also, being able to have seamless underwater/underground settings is great. Enormous caves, thousands of feet down, extinct volcanoes, underwater rivers...

The environment itself, the immeasurable ocean, underwater rifts, is what I have found to be the biggest draw for an underwater game. If I were to run one again, I would make the PCs be underwater beings, not humans or surface dwellers that are visiting. Being an actual aquatic being makes the game much more visceral.

-STS

Underwater.....
The CS Navy and there was a article written by Glitterboyxxxx in one of the rifters. Issue 60's or 70's ish.

If you're worried about the New Navy keeping pace, just give them NEMA gear from the Chaos Earth books.

The Deep Frontier, rifter 70