Pyramid #3/85: Cutting Edge

[RyanW]

The two things keeping me from giving the armor design system 5 out of 5 is that I would have preferred:

• Weight and Cost per DR, rather than Weight per DR and Cost per pound.
• Plate as the standard rigid armor type, with solid as an option, rather than the other way around.

So 4.98 out of 5.

[Humabout]

I want to do some serious tinkering with David's article. It looks really spiffy on rereading it. Now I want to go back and reread his low-tech version of this too.

[Ulzgoroth]

I'm inspired to fiddle with rules for trauma plate design and vitals coverage, because I refuse to use trauma plates (or pectorals) that can give 100% perfect coverage of the vitals while leaving most of the torso exposed.

Originally Posted by Celti

Also, the table lacks the 'T' note for Basic Ceramic — is that a deliberate omission?

It's also missing the double-dagger on nylon and STF liquid armor (both of which have rules given in the double-dagger footnote).

Originally Posted by RyanW

Plate as the standard rigid armor type, with solid as an option, rather than the other way around.

That would mean making the DR/inch stats in the table not be the DR/inch of the armor materials. Really glad that isn't the case.

[Varyon]

Naturally, my primary interest in this issue was the Armor Design rules (I've played around with using the Low Tech version with higher tech materials in the past). It's great to see aramid getting revised to match better with the gear from High Tech (the previous article had aramid armor weighing half what it did in High Tech; this new one actually splits things up into Kevlar, Improved Kevlar, Ballistic Polymer, and Improved Ballistic Polymer; the HT stuff is built with Kevlar, while the aramid figure from the old article matched Improved Ballistic Polymer). The option to make armor Sealed, as well as add in various accessories, is also quite welcome. I do have a few questions/comments, however...

Reflex Armor: In the prose descriptions, I think STF and MLA are in the wrong order - MLA appears to reference STF ("Another, potentially even stronger, form of liquid “reflex” armor..."), despite STF showing up next, rather than prior. Secondly, STF is listed amongst the Flexible materials, and certainly sounds like it should be Flexible, but lacks the F note. Is the intent that STF should actually be treated always as non-flexible? Finally, it seems like, regardless of actual flexibility, STF will be massively favored when DR above 22 (after which point MLA is no longer Flexible) is called for, as it's just as effective against ballistic/cutting attacks, 4x as effective against everything else, and costs less. Is this indeed the intent, or are there some errata around these two materials?

Ceramics: All the ceramics are noted as only working for Solid construction, despite their occurrence in trauma plates (which are stated to be of Plate construction). Can Solid construction work for trauma plates, or should ceramics be allowed to be Plate (at least when formed into trauma plates)? There's also the issue that the first ceramic is noted as possibly being made transparent (by being made of quartz), yet no ceramic has the T note.

Scale Construction: As I noted in the linked thread, the CW for Scale results in far better armor than is seen in LT. Now, TL 6+ may have better construction methods that could make this true, but it still has the odd result of making Scale (TL 1, CC 0.8) better per pound than Segmented (TL 2, CC 1.5), despite the latter resulting in more expensive armor. A CW of 1.6 fixes this. As an aside, something like Brigandine is probably more likely than Segmented, although the latter would probably still see use thanks to price differences (Brigandine would be TL 3, CW 0.85, CC 3.5, MinDR 3).

Fabric/Optimized Fabric Construction: "May have reduced DR." Is this simply indicating the "armor" can be built with DR 0.25 as clothing (in which case why does optimized fabric have this note but a higher MinDR?).

Clothing: On that topic, am I reading correctly that you can make incredibly light clothing out of Improved Ballistic Polymer and Laser-Ablative Polymer, or should we base the DR 0.25 off of their performance against crushing attacks?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Reflex Armor: In the prose descriptions, I think STF and MLA are in the wrong order - MLA appears to reference STF ("Another, potentially even stronger, form of liquid “reflex” armor..."), despite STF showing up next, rather than prior. Secondly, STF is listed amongst the Flexible materials, and certainly sounds like it should be Flexible, but lacks the F note. Is the intent that STF should actually be treated always as non-flexible? Finally, it seems like, regardless of actual flexibility, STF will be massively favored when DR above 22 (after which point MLA is no longer Flexible) is called for, as it's just as effective against ballistic/cutting attacks, 4x as effective against everything else, and costs less. Is this indeed the intent, or are there some errata around these two materials?

STF (and also nylon) have rules given in the double-dagger footnote even though they don't indicate that it applies to them.

And those rules make STF less protective than MLA against non-Pi/Cut damage.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Ceramics: All the ceramics are noted as only working for Solid construction, despite their occurrence in trauma plates (which are stated to be of Plate construction). Can Solid construction work for trauma plates, or should ceramics be allowed to be Plate (at least when formed into trauma plates)? There's also the issue that the first ceramic is noted as possibly being made transparent (by being made of quartz), yet no ceramic has the T note.

Construction: Solid means the material can only be for
solid construction, and only may be used to protect the face,
skull, eyes, or any torso locations.

Though everyplace else does seem to agree that Solid is not suitable for torso coverage and Plate is supposed to be used for trauma plates.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

STF (and also nylon) have rules given in the double-dagger footnote even though they don't indicate that it applies to them.

And those rules make STF less protective than MLA against non-Pi/Cut damage.

So they do. I'll consider the errata to be that STF should have the F‡ note.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Though everyplace else does seem to agree that Solid is not suitable for torso coverage and Plate is supposed to be used for trauma plates.

Indeed. In that case, we should allow for Solid trauma plates. Of course, ceramic only being possible as Solid doesn't make a lot of sense anyway - the Advanced Body Armor (aka Dragon Skin) from High Tech uses ceramic scale armor. Now, it's possible that ceramic's modifiers for using scale/plate/etc will be different from other rigid materials, as ceramic may be less capable of deflection, but I suspect they'll be close enough.

[Jinumon]

A question regarding Cutting Edge Armor Design. What is the square footage for covering the eyes (I want to make Laminated Polycarbonate goggles for eye protection)? Is it included in the 0.7 square feet for the face? What is the square footage for face without eyes?

Jinumon

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

A question regarding Cutting Edge Armor Design. What is the square footage for covering the eyes (I want to make Laminated Polycarbonate goggles for eye protection)? Is it included in the 0.7 square feet for the face? What is the square footage for face without eyes?

The Low-Tech armour design system uses a very similar system. In that, any armour which protects the entire face also covers the eyes but leaves slits which can be targeted at -10. Armour which gives only that protection to the eyes is 1-1.25% of torso armour or around 0.07-0.09 square feet. Complete coverage of the eyes would probably use around twice that much material, at a guess, so maybe 0.15 square feet for wrap-around goggles?

[Bruno]

I happen to have a tailors tape to hand. Complete coverage of the eyes, like sports shades, is about 0.12 square feet (I'm 5'9", and my head's a little wide, so that probably does fine for GURPS Standard Man).
The two lenses of my glasses are 0.02 square feet each (0.04 total), plus the negligable wire for the frames. My lenses are 2" x 1.5" with some tapering. This is a pretty normal glasses style, and easier to target around than you'd want for combat (in particular about a 1.5" gap from either side).

[Jinumon]

I'm using it to create a Captain America-esque helmet for a Super's game a friend is running, but figured the helmet could benefit from some integrated Anti-Laser Laminated Polycarbonate Lenses for Protected Vision and protection against knives and other things that might target the eyes. I'm thinking of lenses that sit snugly against the eye socket, not unlike swimming goggles.

Do you think 0.05 square feet would be appropriate, making total body coverage including eyes an even(ish) 21.4 square feet?

Jinumon