Proposed - Battlesuits should be treated as Vehicles

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by ericthered

So that means that the seat can be squished down to 9 slots in an SM+0 vehicle.

No, 9 in a SM+1 vehicle. I would go with something like:
Battlesuit Cockpit: A battlesuit cockpit is fully form fitting, with no extra space; in order to move your limbs, you must move the element of the vehicle that contains that limb. The vehicle must be your SM or your SM+1, and must have limbs that match your limbs; it takes up 10 spaces if the same SM, 3 if one larger.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No, 9 in a SM+1 vehicle. I would go with something like:
Battlesuit Cockpit: A battlesuit cockpit is fully form fitting, with no extra space; in order to move your limbs, you must move the element of the vehicle that contains that limb. The vehicle must be your SM or your SM+1, and must have limbs that match your limbs; it takes up 10 spaces if the same SM, 3 if one larger.

If you use spaceships scaling downwards then a SM +0 vehicle would be 0.1 tons loaded and SM +1 would be 0.3

Thus there would be space for nothing but the expected 0.1 tons person, thus the person would take 20 systems leaving no space for anything and in a SM +1 the person would take 6 2/3s systems. Even if you just used the average ST 10 person at 150lb, just the person without any gear would take up 15 systems of the SM 0 vehicle. So those do not work very well...

As a reference in vehicles 3rd edition the battlesuit system weighted occupant weight/5. That weight does not include any systems like lifesupport or the actual limbs or anything. So I am using it below in the calculations.

Now if we try to create a small battesuit we would need to use denser things, thus try #2 using pyramid 3/34 armor and volume rules:
So for the SM 0 suit we go with SM 1 (0.3 tons base loaded =600lb =30lb/module), give it 12 armor systems for SM .-1 tom make it SM 0. Use just the average person: 150lb 5 spaces, battlesuit system 1 space(1/5th the person). leaving us with 1 space for all the other things.. still not quite enough to get in 2 legs+ 2arms, life support, controls, the power cell, lide support and such.

So calculating the modules other way we have 5 person, 1 battlesuit controls, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2/3 e-cell, 1/3 life support, computer,air and such, leaving only 9 for armor. Thus the thing is not reduced in size and is SM 1. Thus a SM 0 battlesuit is not really possible. Using the spaceships armor progression with the best TL 9 armor (Advanced Metallic Laminate) the 9 modules would only give and average armor of DR 42.

But it would also be possible to build a 1 ton loaded SM +1 battlesuit if using armor and volume, as at such, the person+battlesuit system would only be 2 modules, 2 arm modules, 2 leg modules, 12 armor modules (to get the -1 SM from 2->1 in armor and volume), still leaves 2 modules free for control+life support+power systems. And such would already seem at least slightly armored with average DR 108.

So overall UT/basic powered armors/exoskeletons assume a lot smaller robotic systems and armors that protect a lot more than the space ship ones.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by weby

Thus there would be space for nothing but the expected 0.1 tons person, thus the person would take 20 systems leaving no space for anything and in a SM +1 the person would take 6 2/3s systems. Even if you just used the average ST 10 person at 150lb, just the person without any gear would take up 15 systems of the SM 0 vehicle. So those do not work very well...

I think 5 systems for the battlesuit's equipment would be enough. It's not going to need full on stardrives or deep space comms systems, so you could break some of those slots into SM -1 sub-systems if you need more things on there, with 2 or 3 slots left for the 20-30kg of armour.

And once you've got a SM 0 system worked out for your 150lb user, you can scale it up or down for different sized people.

[Tyneras]

I'm going to creatively interpret the rules, and not include the pilot in the loaded mass. 200 lbs of body armor at SM0 is entirely plausible. At SM+0 this makes a battlesuit have 10lbs per system.

Now, Spaceships has a known issue with it's armor systems being spun sugar compared to body armor of equal mass. I remember this being put down to quality in one of the forum threads.

So, to do an end run around this, I will just go to Ultra Tech Armor Design (Pyramid #3/96 p19) and budget an equal weight of armor to an armor system.
DR is listed for 100%, 125% and 150% of Body armor surface area with the plate design. This is full body coverage per armor system, and looks a lot closer to what we see in Ultra Tech to my eye.

10 Advanced Nano-Laminate         10lbs $3000 DR 14.64  11.71   9.76
10 Advanced Polymer Nanocomposite 10lbs $750  DR  7.32   5.85   4.88
11 Diamondoid                     10lbs $750  DR  9.76   7.81   5.51
11 Diamondoid Laminate            10lbs $3000 DR 19.52  15.62  13.01
12 Hyperdense                     10lbs $750  DR 14.64  11.71   9.76
12 Hyperdense Laminate            10lbs $3000 DR 29.27  23.42  19.52

For comparison, the TL12 Hyperdense Laminate gives aproximately 4x the DR while only being 50% more expensive than the TL12 Armor, Exotic Laminate system would when scaled.

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The traditional form-fitting battlesuit is small enough that you're not very likely to disable the suit without also disabling the occupant, though larger mechs certainly could be.

Well elegant explanation eaten by Chrome so I have this instead.

Cybersuits et al I will agree to be form fitting. The other suits, despite illustrations in UT, need to fit genre conventions. So for instance Heinlein's suits make troopers look like not-small gorillas. Ironman on the other hand is pretty svelte. Eh.

So - Battlesuits et al function more like vehicles than armor even though the person inside is 'wearing' it. However they are not treated as vehicles by the RAW. In fact they seem to be granted immunities so that they will shine in their role. I wanted to see what changing that would look like.

There have been many posts about the ineffectiveness of UT weapons vs battlesuits. Add making the wearer a pumped up Bio-tech super trooper and even if you penetrate the armor it is hard to kill the wearer in time. This generally forces the adoption of underbarrel GLs firing HEMP grenades on everything. I am not trying to take prisoners so wounding the wearer is fine with me (part of that 'not too much'). While that AD(10) is very effective I wanted a different answer that gave other weapons a chance at stopping the suit.

It just makes sense that if equipment vital to the functioning of the suit is between the wearer and the armor that it stands a chance of getting hit. Different aspects will present different opportunities. Shots from the side are more apt to hit arm and leg motors for instance as well as frame members before hitting flesh. Much of it is going to depend on the vision the players and GM have for power armor.

[Tyneras]

My first draft quick and dirty Battlesuits as Spaceships rules, thanks to this thread.

Form-Fitting Pilot Compartment, 1 system at SM+2, 3 systems at SM+1, 9 systems as SM 0.
Weight Supporting System 1 system, supports the weight of the suit allowing the operator to act as if it was weightless.

Basic SM 0 Battlesuit framework minimums (TL agnostic)
Suit has 30 HP
Form-Fitting Pilot Compartment, 9 systems.
Robot Legs, 2 systems
Robot Arms, 2 systems
Power Supply, 1 system
Total of 14 systems, leaving 6 left for options.
The arms, legs and power supply can be swapped out for a weight-supporting system or just removed entirely to free up more capacity for other systems.

Combat
Space combat rules. When hit, roll to see what system is hit if nothing was specifically targeted, subtract any DR. 10%-50% disables a hit system, 50%+ destroys it.

The pilot is only directly vulnerable after the pilot compartment has been destroyed. Armor systems (functional, disabled and destroyed) protect the pilot normally.

To-Do
A way to convert the usual humanoid targeting options to a battlesuit as spaceship target.

[weby]

If you are using unloaded weight as the base and adding pilot weight, you should then note that that all the power to weight rations, thrusts, delta-v and more are based on using the loaded mass of the vehicle and as a proportion of the loaded mass.

Thus if you want to add a rocket to your SM 0 power armor, you are only getting about half the normal so about 1.7g for a 150lb person and no further load for a single chemical rocket module. If you try to use the number of legs for the acceleration, top speed and such from SS4, you should use about halved values as in effect you have about half the mass in legs compared to the default and so on.