Layered Cutting Edge Armour

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Honestly, I've always felt that styling and the like should simply be a set (for a given TL) price boost to the item, rather than a multiplier or even CF.

Never thought about it before, but I think I agree. Though I'm torn if it should be based of Starting Wealth for the TL or scale with status. What might drop the jaws of status 0 peasants might not even be noticed by a status Duke.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm thinking that if armour that is made of only one layer would not give at penalty at a given thickness, the best armour designed to be modular could do was equal that thickness and usually could be slightly less thick without giving a penalty.

True, (assuming the process in making modular doesn't itself have a negative effect, but that could be factor of the effort gone to stop that happening)

Originally Posted by Icelander

There is probably a thickness at which armour is going to give DX penalties regardless of whether it is one or more layers.

I think increased thickness is going going to increases the probability, but I think the effects that causes reduced DX are more specific, Which leads to:

Originally Posted by Icelander

Maximum DR in the Cutting Edge Armour rules (and related articles) appears to be intended to stand as a gamable abstraction of how restrictive the material in question is and how much of it a human wearer can feasibly wear as armour. It does not have a completely fixed relationship to thickness, as some materials can be up to 0.5 inch thick as armour for humans and others can only be much thinner while still remaining effective armour.

I think the problem I have with max DR as function of what you can wear without restriction, is restriction with single layers don't really come up in the system. Any restriction is going to much more of factor of where on the body it and tailoring/fitting and weight. The example given earlier of real life bits of armour that are thicker then the articles allow. Similarly going with the LT version there are historical breastplates that exceed the theoretical thickness allowed.

The point being you don't need to bring in an arbitrary max thickness to represent the most armour that can be worn, when you can have negative effect of weight and rules for restrictiveness.

That said I agree it probably a gameable abstraction. The problem is though we also have the system trying to give us specific restriction rules (with layering and poor fit, but no where else) and this abstract limit

And of course flexible and rigid is going to be different here, while still having some similarities (e.g articulated plates over joints have issues just as flexible material over joint do)

Originally Posted by Icelander

I would think that if the Maximum DR value is a short-hand for 'how much of this material can a human wear without being so hindered as to make it useless as tactical armour', some percentage of it would be useful as a guide to such questions as 'how much of it can one wear without suffering any penalty', 'how much of it can one wear over joints without suffering a penalty to use that limb' and 'how much can you wear on your legs without a mobility penalty'.

Yep exactly, this is not only a range rather than a hard and fast cut off, but there will be variation within a single set of armour

Originally Posted by Icelander

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On a related note, it bothers me that armour that looks fashionable uses a x4 or x20 multiplier in Cutting Edge Armor, but nearly everything else, including armour in Low-Tech, uses Cost Factors for the same concept.

I really don't think that it should cost more to make well-tailored armour made from superior materials look fashionable and cool than it does to make armour badly made from cheap materials do it.

Also, as soon as you have the technology to make a bulletproof suit that looks and behaves as a normal suit, it doesn't really cost you much extra to make that suit an exact replica of an elegant gentleman's suit in his size. Odds are, especially at TL9+, that you are using some kind of computer-assisted fabrication process that measures your intended user and custom-tailors the suit to him anyway.

In cases like that, a suit that both protects and looks stylishly appropriate at a Status 2+ gathering would seem to have more in common with Combination Gadgets.

Yes, it's more expensive to have one that is both, but maybe it's not $20,000 to have a Stylish suit made from improved ballistic polymer if it is $5,000 to have a normal suit made from it and a normal Stylish suit runs about a $1,000. It gets worse for the Fashion Original level, which is around a $5,000 in a gentleman's suit, but which would cost $100,000 if made out of improved ballistic polymer.

I just don't see how using the advanced ballistic material, instead of, say, Nomex, makes the design work of the fashion designer so much more expensive. Yes, it's specialised work designing nice-looking suits made from thick and strong materials instead of comfortable fabrics of clothing thickness, but it's not necessarily more specialised or more difficult when using space-age composites than when using rubber and steel.

I agree multipliers don't really work here, but they are quick gameable abstraction. Again I'd apply your sniff test on this kind of thing.

Ultimately pricing of this kind of thing would actually be result of lots of other factors (economy of scale, marker value as opposed to real cost etc), but then you could argue that some of this is included in the multiplier!

[Tyneras]

Another factor is not compromising the protective qualities of the material while making it stylish. Protection gaps, bullet traps, weak points and so forth.

I'm not sure how hard that is, given how the common way of having protective armor look good was either to put art on top of fully functional armor or hide the armor under something else.