Refluff power armour and adjust stats slightly

[I-am-Erk]

Summary

SUMMARY: Content "Refluff power armour into combat exoskeletons, adjust size"

Purpose of change

Our lore has changed a lot in the last few years, and power armour recently popped up in a thread to remind me that the current in game descriptions are gloriously out of date

Describe the solution

• Power armours are now combat exoskeletons, which is what they were anyway.
• Descriptions include a bit of the history, as it was widely publicized for propaganda reasons
• changed the vague "direct skin contact" to a bodyglove to better explain environmental protection and to make me think of stormtrooper armour
• added fluff that should some day reflect in mechanics about trying to move through narrow spaces in bulky combat armour
• increased weight - will have to see what game impact of this is though. Weight shouldn't apply when armour is powered.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Removing power armour altogether until we can better represent a powered exoskeleton

Testing

soon

Additional context

The salvaged power armour should get taken out. You either dismantle the armour for parts, or you don't. The stripped down armour would be useless, it shouldn't be better than real body armour in any way at all, it would fit uncomfortably and scarcely move.

[Night-Pryanik]

I don't like the tossing away of distinctive company names such as "DoubleTech".

[I-am-Erk]

I can probably work them back in somewhere, but I wasn't a fan of it sounding like a privately available suit, which the up front branding pushed pretty hard.

[Brian-Otten]

The army would almost certainly require you to wear the helmet if you were wearing the power armor, otherwise it spends millions turning the soldier into a walking tank only to leave the soldier fully vulnerable to both well aimed bullets and explosives/fragmentation.

Perhaps replace it with an excerpt saying the reduced visibility was a large downside in urban combat or other flavor text.

[Brian-Otten]

I like most of the changes here, but let me join in brainstorming a bit. Could we make the power armor helmets use camera systems instead of visors to maintain full armor, and have them blind you if they are worn while unpowered?

[ymber]

I'd like to see the power armor items removed. The concept for how they should work could be done better with the rideable monster mechs.

[Brian-Otten]

That could be done nicely, but would a good bit of work into the rideable mechs to make them fully fit the games systems. And it would mostly replace the heavy power armor and perhaps basic armor, with the light power armor definitely being more suited to using the clothing system.

In any case i think we should consider removing the power armor after we have a new mech variant of the heavy armor, not before.

[TechyBen]

I can probably work them back in somewhere, but I wasn't a fan of it sounding like a privately available suit, which the up front branding pushed pretty hard.

Is the lifting "armour" in there still? A exoskeleton just for lifting/cargo loading would work as a spin off for private/investment returns. In game it could still give some lifting/carry/crafting bonus when powered, but none of the armour protection. That would be fitting for the corp names.

[Brian-Otten]

It could give "okay" protection from there still being a decent bit of exoskeleton surrounding you, even if it is not armor, but have really low coverage because there is no armor plating over the skeleton.

And the survivor could probably feasibly add some makeshift armor plates to it, with weight being not as much of a concern, because the powered exoskeleton is bearing the weight.

[I-am-Erk]

Powered exoskeletons aren't a far fetched idea, and don't need to be vehicles, so they don't need removal. They do probably need to be powered by fictional power supplies (plutonium fuel cells), which in turn needs those supplies need to last a long time. I'd suggest something like 10 hours for the regular power armour and 20 for the light.

Heavy armour could possibly be moved to a pseudo-vehicle, it would portray the limits nicely

[I-am-Erk]

Reviewing military body armour in general, I'm not sure I like the idea of this being the work of a single corporation. It's likely more like military body armour, in that it was developed by DARPA working alongside a few contractors. What I would like is to replace salvaged power armour with a stripped-down exoskeleton, and have that bear manufacturing information from DoubleTech. Instead of "all the armour plates, none of the mobility", go for "all of the mobility, none of the armour plates". For the heavier armour suits that makes sense, and we can add a deconstruction recipe to get tons of steel plating from a power armour suit.

[I-am-Erk]

Tested and it seems to work fine, although I'm not sure about the weight issue. It does register the weight of the PA when you're wearing it. Code support to make the PA count as weightless once active would be reasonable.