[chandley]

Note that it will be quite the trick to make Mail out of really any kind of laminate. Laminate is several layers of (possibly different) material sandwiched together. Im not sure how you would go about making useful mail rings out of that. In fact, of the list you present, only Nanocomposite and possible Exotic Laminate (despite the name, because who knows what that stuff really is) might qualify for Mail construction type.

You could punch out rings from laminate, but your construction would look a lot more like scale or lamellar than mail. The Advanced Body Armor in High Tech is scale armor, if that helps at all.

Also High Tech set DR's based on "informed performance". They dont follow a system that I am aware of. Generally, the /5 came about as the DR of the fabric carrier against things like knives and baseball bats, and it was an eyeballing. Adjusting that number to fit the Low-Tech Armor Design assumptions probably isnt going to hurt anything, realism wise. Measuring the difference between a 5 damage spear thrust and a 3 damage spear thrust might be beyond our abilities.