Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth
The article treats Vacuum Support as a trivial aspect automatically granted to a sealed suit with a life-support pack. That's definitely inaccurate at TL 8, at least.
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Everything I have mentioned at this point, is based upon TL 9 pricing for the materials and for the accessories. The sealed suit aspect may not be a realistic price - and I seem to recall elsewhere that it is $10 per square feet instead of $5 - but that's in the same order of magnitude for pricing.
I can well understand your skepticism for pricing of suits - according to
THIS article, NASA has only FOUR functional extra-vehicular space suits delivered from the 1970's left.
The question is however, whether or not such suit design will have improved by the time of the next 50 or so years (not sure when your campaign timeline is set to). Elon Musk has offered to supply new suits for NASA, but this sets the parameters of the suits...
Musk’s company has developed and made flight suits for astronauts who launch into orbit in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The flight suits are primarily designed to protect the astronauts in case of a fire inside of the spacecraft, or if the cabin depressurizes. Building spacesuits would be a more complex and challenging endeavor, given the need to survive outside of a spacecraft in the harsh environment of space
At a guess, I'd say that what is missing are the PLSS (Powered Life Support System) packs. GURPS sets the power requirement at two C cell batteries at TL 9.
Oddly enough, that Article in 3/96 does provide background on radiation protection factors if the reader so desires. Also, there is NOTHING to keep a GM such as William from simply upping the prices he disagrees with as far as Vacuum sealing goes. In the end? I think that he'd be well served to use those rules to design his own for his campaign - assuming he wants to spend the money on two Pyramid articles and spend the time.
Not too long ago, I created a "Duster" style coat for use in my TL 9 cyberpunk campaign and it was definitely PRICEY for someone who can't afford to pay close to $19,000 for a piece of armor. On the other hand, it was stylishly effective and designed to look like normal clothing - which was part of the cost (remember, styling adds a +4 CF to the whole thing!). Was that included in GURPS ULTRA-TECH? Nope. But it was an Arasaka Special for my Chrome City campaign.
If this is Mars as it is currently today, as opposed to a Terraformed Mars - then I suspect this thing needs more Armor for radiation protection (where thickness of material matters, and DR is directly related to the thickness of the material used) along with other factors. But at TL 9, the whole package adds about $4,200 for life support, extreme environmental control, and a few other odds and ends. It does NOT include computers being attached for any functions that computers may be used for (internal diagnostics etc) nor does it include things like radios, batteries, etc. But the fun part is, much of what was in the article for 3/95 pointed directly to ULTRA-TECH for the accessories, which means that you can plunder ULTRA-TECH for more ideas of things that can go into this. As for me? I know what it is like to wear a catheter - and trust me, it is NOT fun. You couldn't get me to wear a suit that handles body wastes if you PAID me to. Those poor folks are going to have to get used to such things - and one byproduct of a catheter that is badly installed, is permanent scar tissue forming in your bladder that you will never be able to get away from for the rest of our life (barring any further advances in medicine in that area).