[Supers/Ultra-Tech] Making Advanced Tech Opponents Not-Unstoppable Badasses?

[Kalzazz]

I never got the impression their yellow suits were supposed to be any more armored than a baseline yellow rubber raincoat

[sir_pudding]

The MTV is a clamshell with inserts, and terrible ergonomics. -1 DX might be generous. Dying, however, has worse penalties.

I think if you are using the Low-Tech armor optional rules with Cutting-Edge armors, ballistic fiber and insert combinations ought to absolutely give layering penalties with those rules. There is a reason why plate carriers exist.

Note also that plates really only cover vitals.

[weby]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Hi Tech sez 35. 28 against energy attacks. Light Clamshell is in the same ballpark but five pounds lighter and more durable. Of course if the police are using their real world weapons then they do about 17 points of damage with a carbine meaning that they'd be looking at a North Hollywood shootout, worse, every time they ran into AIM. Reflex vests wouldn't be any better. In order to have a hope of whittling them down they'd have to aim at the parts protected by flexible armour.

DR 35 is class III not class IV. Class IV must stop AP 7.62N, thus 7d6(2). The only example of Class IV TL 8 armor I have seen in Gurps is in Pyramid 3/57 modern warfighter gear "Advanced Trauma Plates"+vest.

Class III used to be a fairly common "rifle proof" plate earlier in TL 8 before the Class IVs came into play after about 2005. As example to US army noted that the vest+the SAPI plate did not stop AP 7.62x54 that some Iraqi insurgents used so they produced the E-Sapi plates.

The "advanced Trauma plates" are the E-Sapi, the normal "Trauma plates" are the Sapi plates.

In reality you can also get class IV standalone plates, and they are quite common in military use, but they start to get heavy. My type IV standalone plates are 3.0kg each and are about 22mm thick.

I do know that at least some police forces have AP ammo available for their carbines/rifles in case they meet people with bullet resistant vests. And even a carbine firing AP will penetrate that DR 30(barely).

[vicky_molokh]

Layered Cutting Edge Armour discussion split off.

[VariousRen]

I'll admit to being fairly unfamiliar to the source material, but this seems like a good opportunity to encourage some different approaches to direct combat.

DR 30 from a light clamshell isn't a ton; AP rounds from a rifle doing 5d would average 3 points of damage getting through. It's enough that anyone without a serious weapon won't be getting through reliably though. Limb armour, extremity armour, and face armour might be significantly weaker, and in the immortal words of Starship Troopers: "The enemy can not push a button... if you disable his hand.". Characters who are specialized in shooting will have a chance to show off their skill and equipment, while others will have to get clever.

Supers with a seriously powerful innate attack (either high raw damage or high AD) will still be able to blast through 30 DR and seriously wound or kill a normal human, made even more impressive when the target is otherwise shrugging off small arms fire. Supers with non-IA abilities may also find they're more useful in a fight like this. A psionic with mind control doesn't care about DR, and their targets are conveniently well geared for attacking other people with high DR thanks to their laser weapons.

So in my opinion, embrace the DR! These guys seem like they can be a great foil to the "incompetent henchmen" trope that demand attention and careful consideration by all but the most powerful supers.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by VariousRen

I'll admit to being fairly unfamiliar to the source material, but this seems like a good opportunity to encourage some different approaches to direct combat.

DR 30 from a light clamshell isn't a ton; AP rounds from a rifle doing 5d would average 3 points of damage getting through. .

Although cops would rarely pack AP due to the collateral casualties issue.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Layered Cutting Edge Armour discussion split off.

And you removed comments specifically about AIM and not the layered armor...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Culture20

And you removed comments specifically about AIM and not the layered armor...

If you look, it's pretty clear she just split things off by their titles. As your response to me quoted a post I made as part of the tangent, it ended up with the wrong title, so it got sent to the wrong thread. Note also at least one post about the layered armor ended up sticking around, as it didn't quote another post within the tangent and thus maintained the original title of the thread.

Originally Posted by Culture20

I'm betting he's wanting to go with something like the M.O.D.O.C. squad for the AIM soldiers:
https://greyzealot.files.wordpress.c...c-soldiers.jpg

I'm having difficulty finding decent images of MODOC soldiers (in no small part because all searches for MODOC are redirecting to MODOK), so I'll wait until Phantasm lets me know how well my suggestions would work for his soldiers before trying to change it based on those. It's not like his reboot soldiers are required to be armored exactly like those in the comics, after all.

[sir_pudding]

http://marvel.com/universe/A.I.M.
They are talking about the dudes in the yellow bunny suits standing behind M.O.D.O.K. (the giant head guy).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

http://marvel.com/universe/A.I.M.
They are talking about the dudes in the yellow bunny suits standing behind M.O.D.O.K. (the giant head guy).

Only cloth is visible in that image, although the shapes imply there may be rigid armor beneath. This may be a better image, but nonetheless you can still only see cloth (aside from the guy in the center, who looks to be wearing Plate that gives full protection to everywhere by the Legs - 5/6 - and Abdomen - no protection, although somewhere between 2/6 and 3/6 of the Face is protected with a translucent visor. The black suit beneath may be comparable to the bodysuit I mentioned upthread. The woman beside him looks to be wearing only the bodysuit - the weird thing on her face is probably some sort of night vision goggles, not armor).

For the grunts, 1/6 of the Face is protected with a visor, with the rest of the head protected by what looks to be rigid armor of some sort. They look to be wearing somewhat-baggy clothing, which may or may not be made of ballistic cloth. Uncertain if they are wearing ballistic cloth bodysuits underneath.