Topic: Vanilla Power Armor for HARP Sci-Fi

[pyrotech]

Here is a quick little article I started writting about Powered Armor for HARP Sci-Fi last week.  Not really long enough to warrant doing much with, but probably worth sharing to see what others think about the idea and how to improve it.  I intend to try to expand this with two more advanced series of Battlesuits but wanted to try something basic to start with.  It is still a bit rough, I haven't bothered with doing much editing or spellchecking of it yet - so please forgive any stupid mistakes.  I just wanted to get some feedback on it before going much further with the idea.


Powered Armor and Battlesuits are a common feature in Science Fiction.  HARP Sci-Fi can model these ideas in game a number of ways.  I have chosen to draw a distinction between Powered Armor/Battlesuits and Mecha based on the controls used to operate them.  If the user's limbs are encased in the limbs of the armor, and the user controls the armor by moving his/her limbs
then I consider that Powerer Armor or a Battlesuit.  If instead the user uses a cockpit and hand or even thought controls then I would consider this Mecha.  Modern examples of a battlesuit would be from the Fallout series of video games, Elementals from Battletech, or the armored troopers in the Starship Troopers book.  Modern examples of mecha would include almost every
example I can think of from the Gundum titles, Macross, as well as the walkers used in the Avatar movie.

In this text I am going to concern myself with the Powered Armor/Battlesuits.  I have created a basic example of Powered Armor that I intend to expand out for other HARP Sci-Fi games.  This armor should be easily used in the default Tintamar setting.  In that setting I would expect this armor to be uncommon and mostly used by special forces due to its expense and high training
requirements to effectively use.  Any government, corporation, or mecenary group is likely to require special training to issue such a suit.  Despite its high levels of protection and dramatically increased ability to carry heavy weapons, most large organizations can field a platoon of soldiers in Combat Armor for the same cost as a squad of Powered Armor infantry.  The platoon of troops would be more versatile, faster to train, and ultimately more expendable than their powererd armor equivelent.  Special forces units however are already highly trained, expensive, and not very expendable so equiping them with powered armor makes much more sense.

Basic Powered Armor:

Fell Arms Incorperated manufacturers a specialized suit of Powered Armor for general sale to anyone local regulations allows to purchase them.  While generally restricted enough of these have been sold and resold around the galaxy that they are available on the grey market.  The basic Fell Arms 100 series battlesuit looks like a squat oversized suit of combat armor, but is much thicker and adds about 20 centimeters to the overall height of the wearer.  The feet are particularly large to distribute the extreme weight of the armor and prevent it from mireing in the mud.  This has led some unpowered infantry to call units wearing them "Clown Corps" despite the effectiveness of the suit.  While these suits included mounts for large support weapons, the weapons are not included with the prices.  Each suit includes one hard point in each arm plus one additional one on each shoulder.  These hardpoints allow large support weapons to be used without bipods or tripod and come with adapters to allow these weapons to use the suits power supply rather than their own.  A typical weapons loadout would be a single heavy support laser and two tank buster missles.  Notable items missing from this series are radiation scanners, ECM gear, and fast access to don or remove the armor.

Avail       Cost      Mass       DR     UF Mx MP      UF Min MP        Mx MP            Min MP        CP         IV
------  -------  --------  ------  --------------  -------------   -----------    ----------   ------  ----
R           25,000    215         105        -200             -50            -80/-70/-60   -20/-10/-5   +12       5

Adds the Portage skills trait to the wearer
Adds a +10 STR Bonus to the wearer
includes an Integrated Spacesuit
includes a Vehicle power pack and a weapon power cell for emergency backup
includes a tacticle scanner, Audio/Visual Recorder, Heads Up Display, Radio Communicator, Satalite Navigator, Medical Scanner (occupant only), Hypodermic spray (occupant only), and 3 doses of drugs.
The model 110 includes only ground capability and uses 1 energy/km moved or 2 energy/km moved at a run.
The model 120 adds atmospheric jets to the back and allows VTOL flight at 50km/h but uses 2 energy at cruise velocity and 4 energy at full speed.  The Model 120 adds an additional 10Kg for the Jets and control surface modifications.
The model 130 adds hydrojets instead of atmospheric jets and allows 50km/h water speeds but uses 1 energy/km at cruise and 2 energy/km at full speed.  The Model 130 adds an additional 10Kg for the Hydrojets and boyancy modifications.

The 100 series Power Armor is donned in 8 pieces, and due to the complicated seals and connections takes twice as long as typical armor to don or remove.  After equiping the armor, it also has a 4 second boot up and calibration sequense before it is operational.  Later series of Powered Armor from Fell Arms has made dramatic improvements on these faults.

[GMLovlie]

I take it you're behind the Guild Companion article.

I like it!

I was wondering about one thing though, the 260 model, basically adding a ECM kit; can this be combined with other models, I mean could I go for a 250 and add the ECM kit - so I have a stealth-EW armour? Just wondering.

I like it, I might use this when/if I get to start a campaign with HARP SF.

Have you made any attempts at Landmates from Appleseed? I mean, they could work as Power armour, but they would also fit as a mecha, which I guess would be a vehicle really.

[pyrotech]

Yes, that is my work, but like always I have to thank the editors over at TGC for cleaning it up.  My writing style tends to ramble.

As for combining the ECM gear from the 260 with another model, that would certainly be possible.  I created those models as simple examples - and left many of them with flaws to reflect the real world issues that leave equipment less than ideal in many cases.  The 260's in my mind were created as squad support units to allow one member of a squad of armored infantry to protect himself and his allies in close proximity.  An idea I had kicked around for a while was to treat a squad of infantry somewhat like the crew of a ship as presented in Sci-Fi Extreme.  I haven't really developed this idea yet however.

But there is no reason that another competitive suit couldn't combine these feature.  If it were a production suit I would probably even just use the same incremental costs I did for my suit.  But that leads me to the next point.  I fully expect my players to modify and personalize their power armor.  This gives a good role to engineers and technical characters in the game (they could also be of value if a suit locks up due to a crit fumble during a combat).  In this case I would add some additional costs to reflect the difficulties integrating something new with a production device.

I am glad you like it.  I haven't gotten any other feedback on it yet except from my personal friends.  So I am not real sure how useful it is to people in general.

Thanks for the feedback!

-Pyrotech

[pyrotech]

Another idea I had wanted to include in this article is the idea of treating characters in powered armor as large creatures.  But since I couldn't remember if I had thought to do this before seeing Marrethiel's post at: http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=13173.0
I choose to leave it out of my article.  But I do think it is a good option. 

I haven't tried playing it yet but I had thought to keep the DV of the armor the same as Combat Armor but to change the crits to large.  It may be worth trying out to see how it works.

As for Landmates they are kind of a funny crossover machine.  The operators limbs are partially in the limbs of the suit (the legs anyway - the arms are a whole other factor) and the operators motions control the suit.  That points to powered armor.  The fact that the operator is essentially in a small cockpit with only portions of his limbs in the limbs of the suit, and operate their own arms in addition to the suits arms (sort of) all point to more of a piloted mecha.  And some other anime has motion controlled mecha from within a cockpit to back this up (that really terrible martial arts Gundum series comes to mind.... what was it Gundum R or something like that - I just can't keep all of Gundum straight)

Thanks again,

-Pyrotech

[markc]

I loved the article on TGC that you wrote.
MDC

[GMLovlie]

As for combining the ECM gear from the 260 with another model, that would certainly be possible.  I created those models as simple examples - and left many of them with flaws to reflect the real world issues that leave equipment less than ideal in many cases.  The 260's in my mind were created as squad support units to allow one member of a squad of armored infantry to protect himself and his allies in close proximity.  An idea I had kicked around for a while was to treat a squad of infantry somewhat like the crew of a ship as presented in Sci-Fi Extreme.  I haven't really developed this idea yet however.

But there is no reason that another competitive suit couldn't combine these feature.  If it were a production suit I would probably even just use the same incremental costs I did for my suit.  But that leads me to the next point.  I fully expect my players to modify and personalize their power armor.  This gives a good role to engineers and technical characters in the game (they could also be of value if a suit locks up due to a crit fumble during a combat).  In this case I would add some additional costs to reflect the difficulties integrating something new with a production device.

I wondered about if the intention was that they could be combined. I mean, just add price and weight additions? Or was it all intended as specific suits - where this kind of mixing and matching would go against intended design (either in-game world design or rule design).

I like your idea of infantry "crew", particularly for a military style campaign - in my mind that would also somewhat go against lots of combining of suits - combining should at least incur some small penalty, unless encumbrance, mm penalties and such is enough

Modifying and stuff I'm all up for, I love that idea, but I think that a specifically designed series of armour with various niches of operation, should limit them if just trying to slap on other models extra gear too, if you understand what I mean. A customised suit is something else than just mesh-taping and welding on more stuff from other suits, at least in my mind

I'll probably only use these on villains and stuff, as my players are less militarily inclined when it comes to gaming, I have promised to make pre-mades for the intro adventure, so I was thinking of an Entertainer, some old boy/girl-band flop singing on tourist starliners, and perhaps a down on his/her luck tech from some frontier world. If I get a third player I might make a scout or pilot I think, if not a merchant.

[markc]

  I am no expert but I think most exotic designs are done in the field (or close to it) as needed for jobs or simply in the case of we have to get it to work, we do not have the parts so swap this out for now and use this.


 I also like the basic design layout of the suits but as one said above I could see add on kits for units that did not come from the factory with specific equipment. But then again sometimes you simply cannot add part Y to suit Z because of engineering limitations. This would also try and force buyers to buy specific suits for specific missions. I would think that the more advanced the suits became the easier it would be to add-on extra equipment.
 Also do not forget about the down time for maintenance and repair of said suits.   


MDC