Review of Rifter #25: Guns for Hire
Rifter Article by John C. Philpott

Summary
A host of new skill programs, skills, and miscellaneous information for N&S. This article rates 4 out of 10 possible stars.

General Review
Many of the "new" skills are from Palladium's other books and are much needed additions to N&S.

W.P. Surface to Air Missiles (SAM). This skill is redundant and a bit on the overpowered side, covering both handheld and vehicle weapon systems, which are covered by the existing skills W.P. Infantry Missiles and Weapon Systems (arguably W.P. Artillery as well).

W.P. Surface to Surface Missiles (SSM). Another redundant skill which could be considered Weapon Systems.

W.P. Underwater Weapons. While this could have been a useful skill, for weapons such as torpedo guns, spearguns, bangsticks, and other underwater weapons available to divers, it sadly duplicates the existing skills of W.P. Torpedo and Weapon Systems.

Advanced Electronic Combat. I'm almost tempted to call this a redundant skill, duplicating ECM, since a lot of it's functions are already covered by that skill. However the ECCM material and indepth review makes it a useful addition to the Palladium skills list.

Naval Surface Combat. A much needed addition to the skills, though I still classify it as Pilot Related, not Piloting (that's a personal issue regarding piloting "combat" skills though).

Pilot Amphibious Landing Craft. While I see why this skill was put here, it's an redundant amalgamation of other skills and would have been better served by creating the "Amphibious Landing Craft Pilot Skill Program" with the appropriate skills. See Pilot Motor Boat, Pilot Warships & Patrol Boats, and Pilot Hovercraft for the appropriate skills.

Pilot Hydrofoil/Hovercraft. Technically new to N&S. This is another redundant combination of two skills, Pilot Motor Boats & Hydrofoils and Pilot Hovercraft.

Pilot Large Ships & Ocean Liners. Another variant of Pilot Ship.

Pilot Large Sailing Vessels. Ironically, this is a long needed skill, since piloting a larger sailing ship, while working on similar principles to sail boats, has other factors involved.

Pilot Large Military Ocean Craft. Another variant of Pilot Warships.

Pilot Military Submarines. This is an important difference, since N&S's Pilot Submarines does not cover military subs.

Pilot Extra-Vehicular Unit. While this is a somewhat new skill (technically it could be considered part of "Space Booster Packs"), it would have been more useful if rules for contemporary space craft and adventures had been included in the article.

Pilot Rockets and Rocket-Craft. Would have been more useful with space rules for N&S.

Pilot Space Shuttles and Space Planes. Again, would have been more useful with space rules for N&S.

Pilot Off-Road Vehicles. The off-road companion to Pilot Race Car.

Pilot Personal ATV. Technically these are already covered by skills existing in the Palladium system.

Pilot Personal Watercraft. Another skill technically already covered by existing skills.

Pilot Professional Racing Boat. Pilot Race Car for the water!

Pilot Professional Racing Motorcycle. Makes sense at first thought, however, according to existing game mechanics, any vehicle with a Speed Class of 15 or greater is considered to be a Pro Race Car (which is hilarious when you think about naval vessels and aircraft), so this skill is redundant.

Civil Engineering. While a great addition, the description makes me think of other existing skills already. I'd still keep it though.

Environmental Suit Operation. Now this is an interesting skill, since it really doesn't have much utility in N&S (see Piloting skill notes for spacecraft above), however, if you think about it, this skill in essence would be required for CBR clothing, anti-radiation suits, chemical suits, and, more importantly, environmental body armor.

Horsemanship. Yes, this missing skill gets added to N&S.

Meteorology. This should have really been two skills, the Science version and the Wilderness "Weather Guessing" skill.

W.P. Bola. The best version of the skill that I've seen. However, I have to wonder why this was added, yet W.P. Boomerang wasn't.

W.P. Improvised. This skill already exists in N&S, appearing in Mystic China, so it's inclusion here is a bit of a question.

W.P. Lasso. For the record I should state that this is a W.P. variant of the New West skill, and is somewhat existent in N&S already, appearing as W.P. Demon Snare in Mystic China. However, I still think rope weapons need to be redone in terms of W.P.s for Palladium, so I recommend checking out this skill.

For the modified Military Skill Program notes, I have to note the biggest problem I had is that he mostly added skills, giving military skill programs an even higher average in number of skill than they already had (which was the highest of all the N&S skill programs BEFORE the additions in this article). I personally recommend dumping the W.P.s if adding these new skills. The new Military Skill Programs likewise reflect this increased average. However, other than the overabundance of skills for the military skill programs, and the unfortunate addition of some skills better left not added at all (see skill notes above), these are fairly decent skill programs.

The Basic skill programs likewise reflect the increased number of skills for a higher skill average than the existing N&S skill programs have. I recommend reducing the number of skills in these programs by half or one-third for any program with more than five or six skills.

The Special Forces section is a quick and dirty, though useful guide to military special forces and is a definite plus in this article. I also like that the complete US rank and grade table is present, instead of Palladium's skimpy one. However, it would have been even better if non-US organizations had listings as well.

Overall Review

Appearance: For content alone, this article is well organized and extremely well done. The quality of that content is disappointing in some places however.
Artwork: Good to excellent, some of the artwork could have been better, but it was all appropriate and fitting to the article and generally good pics.
Structure: Everything's in it's place, however, the skills should have been ordered by category, and a skill and skill program list would have really helped.
Editing: It could have used some content editing and balancing, but that's about it.
Continuity: While this should fit smashingly into N&S, there's several areas that really need work before they're usable.