[UT] Tactical Vests
 

Tactical Vest in UT has trauma plates covering the entire Torso but I often hear it's due to the simpler (pre-LT) location/armor coverage system. What should its stats be if it were updated to current convention? Chest from front only?

Is there some official (pyramid?) or semi-official (Kromm/PK comments/houserules?) ruling on how to modify or create a completely new battlesuit?

Edit: How well does Conditional Injury rule plays with UT combat?

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

Pyramid 3/96: ultratech armor design.

you may also wish to reference pyramid 3/85, which has the armor for high tech, but provides a lot of TL9 armor stuff.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

The Tactical Vest in Ultra Tech is an approximation of probably two dozen manufacturers over probably 50 years of plate carrier vests. Weather they're front or back depends a lot on the time and the use. Rules as Written in Ultra Tech reflects a fairly modern front-and-back insert vest not unlike modern military carrier armor.

Not sure on Battlesuit mods but I'd take a look at GURPS Vehicles from 3rd edition. I'm lead to believe you can stat every living thing out of that book.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

If a biomechnaical robot that looks like the living thing is good enough then yes you can.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

If we assume a trauma plate is the equivalent of a modern trauma plate, a single front or back plate has a coverage of about 10% of torso area (medium plate about 0.7 square feet, torso area about 7 square feet), a side plate is more like 3%, so total coverage is about 26%. However, the non-protected area is mostly areas that are less dangerous to be hit in (shoulders, abdomen, hips), more difficult to target (if you aim center of mass, you'll hit a plate) and somewhat more likely to be behind cover, so the real odds of being protected are probably more like 50% and automatic for vitals.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

I suspect the best (in terms of coverage) modern inserts only give something like 5/6 protection to the Chest, and either no or markedly reduced protection to the Abdomen (they can do this front or back, but I think are generally front only). Many inserts probably just give full* protection to the Vitals and 1/6 or 2/6 to the Chest. If you want to design your own, as noted, the Pyramid armor design articles are the place to go. If you're using those, I'd suggest not allowing the armors from UT in the same campaign.

As for designing/modifying battlesuits, this may be of use to you. Note it assumes use of the above Pyramid articles for armoring up and outfitting your battlesuit. Let me know if you have any questions (although I'm more reliable about checking here than my blog).

*Lucky hits can still hit the Vitals without even touching the insert, but that's probably handled just fine with Critical Hits.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

Thanks for the replies, I will consider it covers chest (front and back) as it seems like a good compromise between realism and playability.
The Battlesuit Design blog post is very nice also, thanks for linking it.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

'Torso' in UT means 'hit locations 9-11', just as it does in the Basic Set. Thus if you're using the more recent hit locations of LT, etc. the vest cover Chest and Abdomen, and the Trauma plates the Chest (and Vitals).

Giving them 5/6 coverage might be unnecessarily fiddly, but would make Clamshell armour slightly more attractive (because as it is that stuff is basically junk, and I'd only ever expect to see it on canon-fodder). One thing I would consider is ruling that when shooting at 'armour chinks' on vest+plate, hitting a 'chink' means bypassing the plate.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

Honestly, I feel that with pre-LT armor, Torso only largely corresponds to LT's Chest while Torso+Groin often corresponds to LT's full Torso (Chest and Abdomen). Pre-LT Groin-only (or Groin+Legs) armor still corresponds to Groin rather than the full Abdomen, however.

Re: [UT] Tactical Vests
 

I don't agree, because pre-LT armour that says 'groin' means 'hit location 11', and if you look at UT it gives 'Groin' armour as weighing 10% of a full suit, while LT gives it as 8.20%, which is pretty close to the same. The various Pyramid 'build your own armour' articles also give it as 8.20%.

Torso+Groin in Basic/UT/etc. obviously counts as Torso+Abdomen in LT+. One thing to watch is that post-LT we don't see the term 'body', which includes the Neck.