This will be edited. Just... y'know. It's here.
Power Armor
Since every race’s beginnings of mechanized warfare, the desire to augment the infantry’s capabilities has always been at the forefront of military thought. After all, what man can stand up to heavy machine guns, never mind light and medium machine guns? If body armor of the era cannot stop close range weapons, how do you protect a soldier from injury in close combat?
The answer was a mechanized suit, capable of carrying vehicle armor. Even a thin layer of ceramic and steel composite materials would stop even heavy machine guns and leave the wearer without injury. The design hurdles, of course, were immediately shown. How does the soldier move? Does the technology exist to give them dexterity and strength? How is the suit powered? An engine? Batteries? Until the advent of mechanization, power storage and or power generation, power armor remained a dream of military designers.
Power armor serves primarily one purpose; to protect and augment a soldier in combat situations. The core of this, is the protective system surrounding the pilot, or the shielding and armor that the suit carries. Next is the power and locomotive. You can encase a soldier in a brick of armor but if he can’t move, he’s not much use. Then built in weapons or lift capability and by extension, the state of manpack heavy weapons. Finally, alternative motive systems must be factored in. Jump packs, Ether-driven teleportation packs. Underwater maneuvering units, space maneuvering units. All must be considered in the design of a military suit.
The Usage of Power Armor
Almost without fail, war drives technological innovation. Early detection systems, flight, communications, materials engineering, most can be traced back to a driving need to outperform, outright, and out survive the opposition. The first application is always military usage. If a squad of troops can be armored and armed to cut through enemy opposition in close and mid range combat, they have a force multiplier, as four to six men can outfight ten or twenty times their number given ammunition and adequate preparation.
Military usage of powered armor can be boiled down into few, broad purposes. Anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, boarding operations, or special operations. A man impervious to small arms and still brings a medium machine gun to the table is more than a fight for a squad or more of the enemy troops. A man using a missile system too heavy to be carried by unaugmented soldiers can knock out hardpoints, tanks, support vehicles and aircraft. This capability cannot be underestimated in any capacity and many a battle have been lost due to underestimating armored infantry. Spaceborne boarding operations are completely revolutionized by a soldier who carries their own atmosphere and maneuvering capabilities means that preserving the opposing ship becomes far less of a concern. Special operations suits bring agility and strength not seen in regular soldiers, allowing them to infiltrate their objectives with greater ease.
Designing your own Mecha
The procedure; more or less is as follows.
Determine Mass
Determine Structure Options
Pick Control Scheme Setup
Pick Alternate Transportation
Determine Defenses
Pick Primary Defensive Measure
Pick Secondary Defensive Measures
Determine Offensive Systems
Pick Primary Weapon Slots
Pick Secondary Weapon Slots
Determine Equipment
Pick Equipment Addons
Assign equipment to Locations.
STEP I: DETERMINE MASS:
A power armor may be massed anywhere from a 200 kilogram hardsuit to a two ton armored behemoth capable of outfighting light armored vehicles and posing a threat to larger vehicles.
Mass increments are in sets of 50kg.
//A size minimum will be in effect for some options. I'll go through and dole out specifics... at some point.
STEP II: DETERMINE STRUCTURAL OPTIONS
A powered armor’s structure takes up 15% of the suit’s mass and includes actuators, artificial muscles and control waldos, along with mounting points for armor, equipment, etc.
-Control Scheme options
1) Standardized User Setup. This setup is considered the ‘basic’ setup for all powered armors. It entails a force feedback suit, control waldos to use the armor. The setup entails a -1 agility penalty for the user and -3 perception for senses involving touch. The user also takes a penalty to dexterity in fine actions due to the limited nature of the basic force feedback systems. This does not mean, however, an untrained user will do clumsy things like crush someone’s fine china, small animals, or them. Another downside of this setup is that the wielder is more exposed to limb injuries as the suit takes damage. Options exist to enhance the sensitivity and responsiveness of this system.
//Battletech Elementals. Small power armors.
2) Cockpit setup. This setup uses a cramped cockpit set up where the pilot sits in the chest. It is primarily used for heavy combat suits and light forklift setups. The user takes a -2 agility penalty for all actions but on the other hand, when the suits loses an arm, its a minor inconvenience rather than a medical emergency. The user takes a -10 to tasks utilizing manual dexterity due to the fact that there is no built in options for force-feedback.
//Hawken Lights. Only available with larger power armors. An option for exposed cockpit (District 9 or Aliens style) will be available for mediums.
3) Neural Link setup: This setup has the user rest in the chest cavity of the suit in a compact pod and position. On the other hand, the benefits more than outweigh the penalties. The primary bonus is using existing cyber technology to allow the user to use the armor as it were their own body. This means that the suit moves with all of the finesse and agility that its user does. However, its space constraints means that the man equipment slot on the torso location of a power armor is occupied. In addition, whenever the suit takes critical damage the user must make a willpower test to shrug off the feedback from the damaged location.
//Think Hawken Lights meets EVE Tech 3s. Bonus to piloting rolls. Medium and Small Power Armors.
-Pick Alternate Transportation Methods
A powered armor is considered to have Agility 8 and Strength 8 for purposes of ground movement.
For ease of record keeping, Transporation Modules are considered to be in the ‘legs’ section of the Powered Armor. Even if its a jump pack. It means that the main shock absorption mechanisms are located there, even if the pack is torso mounted. A suit may only have one method of alternate transportation.
1) Jumppack: Using jet engines, the power armor can lift and launch itself a set distance, excluding gravity and atmospheric conditions. Each 5% of the armor’s weight launches the suit 10 meters up or forward.
2) Teleportation Unit: Using the Ether, a powered armor transports itself from one location to another, bypassing well, everything excluding ethertech shields and teleporation blockades. Each 5% of the suit’s mass transports the suit 5 meters through the Ether. As a note; Teleportation packs that are mass produced are impossible to find for humanity. If a suit is to incorporate a teleportation pack, human tech base is right out unless someone is willing to pay A LOT of the money for this capability. Another limitation of this pack is that to use it on another suit, they must be of equal weight. If not, things get... strange. And that’s being kind. In addition, to successfully adapt the teleportation system, secondary slots must be utilized in addition to making multiple, difficult successful skill checks to make the jury rigged system work.
3) Underwater Maneuvering Units. Designed for use at high pressures underwater and lower depths, the suit has turbines and ballasts to sink, float and raise in water. Each 5% of the suit’s mass dedicated to the UMU allows the suit to travel 5 meters.
4) Space Operations Unit. Basically a set of thrusters and possibly reaction mass for usage in space, each 5% of the suit’s mass dedicated to the unit allows the suit to move with relative ease 10 meters through space, come to a stop, transmit thrust, etc.
An extra option exists at the cost of 5% of the suit’s mass to increase its ground movement by 20%
-Determine Defensive Options for Suit.
When designing a suit, the suit’s primary way of dealing with incoming fire must be determined. For civilian suits, the option to not use any armor or shields is available. Most civilian suits use very light shielding as a lightweight system to avoid incidental damage, while search and rescue civilian suits use heavy shielding to deal with hazards.
-If shields are chosen, at the cost of 15% suit weight grants the suit 20 points of personnel shielding and 5 points of vehicle grade shielding.
Slot Layouts for Power Armor.
Slots come in two flavors; Major and Minor
Examples of Major Slots: Neural Link Set Up, Heavy Missile System, Cloak System, Arm mounted heavy weapons
Examples of Minor Slots: Extra Armor Plating, Light Weapons, Extra Batteries, Extra Ammo, Feedback Limiters, Feedback Enhancers.
Slot Layout:
Head: 2 Minor
Torso: 4 Minor, 1 Major
Arms(Each): 1 Major, 2 minor
Legs(Each): 2 minor