What is a Average Armour for TL9 Space Opera

[TheCrispyBit]

Hey Guys,

Long Time D&D player switching the GURPS for sci-fi campaign (and for what in general seems a way more flexible and realistic system)

I am after some idea of what an average NPCs (enemies) armour would be like in a TL9 Space campaign, I have searched everywhere for a standard idea, and all the armours seem to have wildly different capabilities and DRs.

Also interested in How anyone generates equipment quickly for NPC enemies (I do expect my players to search ALL the bodies)

Chars

[David Johnston2]

Uh...are we talking military or non military?

[TheCrispyBit]

Both I guess, I am shooting (hehehe) in the dark somewhat. At the moment I am designing generic space pirates. But I would welcome a general idea on either mil, civilian or anything inbetween as I will be designing some NPCs of all types and I just wanted an idea of how to generate equipment fast and what the armour should be like.

[David Johnston2]

Generic space pirates would probably wear civilian vacc suits for boarding operations. Particularly well-equipped space pirates would wear reflex vacc suits

[Kage2020]

One staple of space opera is the idea that superscience weapons will slice through armour (making it for the most part pointless) yet your average hero can soak up a few hits before carking it. If that's your space opera, then have weapons with low damage but high armour divisors, in which case the question of armour becomes whether the skull motif helmet sets off the colour of death in the eyes of your legions of terror or not.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

the question of armour becomes whether the skull motif helmet sets off the colour of death in the eyes of your legions of terror

*glances at Kage's avatar*

[fifiste]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

One staple of space opera is the idea that superscience weapons will slice through armour (making it for the most part pointless) yet your average hero can soak up a few hits before carking it. If that's your space opera, then have weapons with low damage but high armour divisors, in which case the question of armour becomes whether the skull motif helmet sets off the colour of death in the eyes of your legions of terror or not.

Actually there would be an actual realistic point in these kind of armors. Wearing this kind of armor forces your opponent to use speciacial armor piercing weapons/ammunitons (let say needler rounds etc.) which inicdentially will do much less actual injury.
If you wouldn't use the armor, your enemy would switch the settings on his gun and use soemthing that has no armor penetration but will cause massive injury.
So using armor=more likely to be alive. (The point of an armor)
You should just work out weapons ammuniton etc. that would allow this - like high armor divisor, low damage, and negative injury modifier on one hand, and high(er)* damage, positive armor divisor, and large positive injury modifier.
* not so high that it'll brute force through the armor of course

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by TheCrispyBit

Hey Guys,

Long Time D&D player switching the GURPS for sci-fi campaign (and for what in general seems a way more flexible and realistic system)

I am after some idea of what an average NPCs (enemies) armour would be like in a TL9 Space campaign, I have searched everywhere for a standard idea, and all the armours seem to have wildly different capabilities and DRs.

Also interested in How anyone generates equipment quickly for NPC enemies (I do expect my players to search ALL the bodies)

Chars

(GURPS Ultra-Tech, pg 148) ... for the weapons they'd be carrying.
(GURPS Ultra-Tech, pg 186) ... for the armor they'd be wearing.

[TheCrispyBit]

Oooh, thanks for the clarification Sunrunner

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by TheCrispyBit

Oooh, thanks for the clarification Sunrunner

Yeah, Ultra-Tech is a big book of ready-made equipment for TL9-13. However, I'd recommend that you don't just throw in everything in the book: take a look at the different weapon technologies, some of which do vastly different amounts of damage and decide what you want to use, and think about why the parts you don't want aren't there ("not been invented", or "relies on physics that don't work in this universe" are good reasons).

You have to do this with GURPS, because unlike D&D, GURPS is not "a game to play", it's a toolkit for constructing the game you want. Even "GURPS TL9 generic space opera" is not "a game". It's a big step towards one, but it isn't complete. You have a bunch of world-building decisions to take first. Things that might help:

Tales of the Solar Patrol is a built world that serves as an example, and is good fun in its own right. GURPS Space is a whole book about how to build space campaigns.