Battle Dress

[Darzoni]

Since we hit it big in the Pirates of Drinax campaign, I have a few questions as the ship's only effective marine...

1- How fast does battle dress make me in personal combat?
2- What's the dice modifier for Strength 29?
3- What's the difficulty to rip through the interior bulkhead of a spaceship?
4- What are the possible ramifications if the Imperium or Hierate believes that some Aslan clan has a new and nastier version of Aslan battle dress? :|a

 

[barnest2]

My first question is how did you get your hands on a 2 millcred piece of gear

Anyway:
1) Same as ever, no speed increase.

2) Um... lots? hang on. 15 is +3, 18 is 4, 21 is 5, 24 is 6, 27, 28 and 29 are all +7
How did you get 29?

3) Damned high, considering that thing is proving structural support to a ship that enters atmosphere, gets thrown around at at least 1G constantly, and manages FTL jumps. I'd probably give it a -8 at the very least.

4) Not much. They'll try to steal it if its better than theirs. That may well involve killing the user. Develop their own version. Its only combat equipment, even if it is advanced. It's not like they've started deploying nukes all over the place.

 

[Darzoni]

How I could afford Battle Dress:

We jacked 43 d-tons of radioactives and sold them to a crazy scientist on Tech-World where the broker managed to get us 4 million per d-ton for them (another player saw the roll; it was something like a 20)... Being the resident ethnic Aslan Male (despite having Independence 2), I was, in-game, stumped by two things: was that big number in Base 8 or Base 10 and "Uh.... what do people spend this much money on?" He figured that since he took a nasty bullet to the knee from a diehard with a snub pistol when we took the radioactives. Bigger protection was clearly necessary. FIRST he went asking about Aslan battle dress, because that's what he knows. But that wasn't available.

So the engineer and I decided to buy all the parts for a custom battle dress and build it during various jumps. It cost about 4 million credits or so and it was designed for boarding actions. OTHER party members bought augmentations and sub-dermal armor.

How I got 29 Strength:
The Ref ruled that +X DMs to stats are bonuses to the stats themselves, not bonuses to the dice modifiers because that would get ridiculous very quickly. So my Aslan has a base Strength of 14 (with no augmentation either). The battle dress has a Strength mod of +15. 14+15 = Strength 29.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

It's your game, but a few comments:

Because of the description how battle dress works with characteristics on pg 88 of the core rules, your gm is correct that it adds to the characterisic.

What TL is new armor? Standard Artillery and Logistics Battle Dress only add +6 at TL 13, so a +15 is pretty hefty.

 

[Jeraa]

The new Vehicle Handbook contains rules for creating battledress. One of the modifications available is increasing the Strength rating of the battledress by +1, which increases the cost by +10%. This can be done 10 times, for a +10 increase in Strength over what a normal suit gives. The tech level of the armor doesn't change.

Standard Aslan battledress is TL 14, boosts Strength by +6, and costs 1 million credits. Increasing the bonus by 9 points gives +15 Strength, with a cost or 1.9 million credits.

 

[Darzoni]

It's your game, but a few comments:

Because of the description how battle dress works with characteristics on pg 88 of the core rules, your gm is correct that it adds to the characterisic.

What TL is new armor? Standard Artillery and Logistics Battle Dress only add +6 at TL 13, so a +15 is pretty hefty.

It is not standard battle dress out of the books, it was designed using the Vehicle Handbook. TL 14 or so, I think, using what Tech-World considered to be 'off the shelf' parts... ... that whole planet is shady. Anyway, this suit would not do well in open combat zones. It is designed for boarding ships. Meaning it is best used in close-quarters situations where using things like anti-vehicle weapons and PGMP/FGMPs is a incredibly bad idea. Having the ability to force open doors and peel off interior panels is why it has the +15 Strength modifier.

 

[locarno24]

Anyway, this suit would not do well in open combat zones. It is designed for boarding ships. Meaning it is best used in close-quarters situations where using things like anti-vehicle weapons and PGMP/FGMPs is a incredibly bad idea.

By which he presumably means that the actual armour value is pretty guff.

The vehicle manual battle dress can fill slots with a variety of things, increased strength bonus being one of them. As noted, it costs an *ing fortune.

One thing to note - is this standard, heavy or superheavy battle dress? Superheavy battledress is not going to fit down standard ship corridors (or at the very least, is going to incur a massive DEX and movement penalty for the cramped space)

Ripping open a bulkhead hatch is, I believe, listed in the book - the strength DM for forcing an iris is one of the examples.

Smashing a solid bulkhead - more guesswork, I'd say. Getting through involves not just punching through the wall, but ripping away any machinery or ductwork behind it and creating a large enough gap to fit through.

An assault cycle is the size of a contemporary bike. Smashing it to pieces probably represents the same amount of destruction as making a breach between decks or compartments large enough for a person to move through easily, which is 2 hull and 1 structure - or three vehicle-scale points of damage (call it 12 points of damage in excess of the armour value)

Armour-wise, a ground car or air-raft - something not particularly armoured but structurally sound - seems about right for an unarmoured interior wall, which is armour 6. For any walls which are more structurally integral, 12-18 is 'light military' levels of armour (ATV/IFV).

 

[nDervish]

Having the ability to force open doors and peel off interior panels is why it has the +15 Strength modifier.

Seems a reasonable approach if you're into melee, but, personally, I think I would have just mounted a cutting torch to get through bulkheads. The TL12 Tool Laser on p.162 of CSC would make a good starting point, then raise the cost a bit to reflect that it's something mounted on battledress instead of a hand-held device and it should be able to comfortably do a good deal more than just "cutting through several centimetres of steel."

 

[Vyrolakos]

The new Vehicle Handbook contains rules for creating battledress. One of the modifications available is increasing the Strength rating of the battledress by +1, which increases the cost by +10%. This can be done 10 times, for a +10 increase in Strength over what a normal suit gives. The tech level of the armor doesn't change.

Standard Aslan battledress is TL 14, boosts Strength by +6, and costs 1 million credits. Increasing the bonus by 9 points gives +15 Strength, with a cost or 1.9 million credits.

Assuming that the +10 comes from upgrading the 'muscles/structure' with technology at or about the same Tech Level as the initial suit design, rather than from some superior technology. What kind of extra bulk would +10 STR add to the suit?

Can it even fit inside a 'normal' spaceship man sized corridor/airlock?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

How I got 29 Strength:
The Ref ruled that +X DMs to stats are bonuses to the stats themselves, not bonuses to the dice modifiers because that would get ridiculous very quickly. So my Aslan has a base Strength of 14 (with no augmentation either). The battle dress has a Strength mod of +15. 14+15 = Strength 29.

Ok. So does the world scale up to your new found attribute?

 

[Jeraa]

Assuming that the +10 comes from upgrading the 'muscles/structure' with technology at or about the same Tech Level as the initial suit design, rather than from some superior technology. What kind of extra bulk would +10 STR add to the suit?

Can it even fit inside a 'normal' spaceship man sized corridor/airlock?

By the rules, no additional space is taken up. All battledress comes with a certain number of slots for upgrades or add-ons (a slot is roughly a pistol-sized space). A typical suit of TL 13 medium battledress (medium is normal battledress) has 16 slots for upgrades, up to 10 of which can be Strength upgrades.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

By the rules, no additional space is taken up. All battledress comes with a certain number of slots for upgrades or add-ons (a slot is roughly a pistol-sized space). A typical suit of TL 13 medium battledress (medium is normal battledress) has 16 slots for upgrades, up to 10 of which can be Strength upgrades.

What page is that on?

 

[Jeraa]

Supplement 5-6 Vehicle Handbook page 44 has the description of what a slot is. (Not the separate books, the combined version that came out earlier this year).

Page 44-46 has the various battledress chassis (including the number of slots they have), and page 48 has the Strength upgrade.

 

[Vyrolakos]

By the rules, no additional space is taken up. All battledress comes with a certain number of slots for upgrades or add-ons (a slot is roughly a pistol-sized space). A typical suit of TL 13 medium battledress (medium is normal battledress) has 16 slots for upgrades, up to 10 of which can be Strength upgrades.

I guess I'm just trying to picture how you would upgrade Battledress with +10 STR.

I would imagine it requiring a complete structure up rebuild to enable the enhanced strength to actually be used. Otherwise, you are just going to rip your hand/arm off, rather than the airlock you are holding on to.

The idea of it being possible doesn't really concern me (not too much anyway), but the idea that it's done with 'pistol sized' upgrade slots wouldn't work for me personally (not unless the upgrade was a significant Tech level jump). The 1.9M Credits cost suggests it's a *Major* workshop renovation job.

I'd be looking for bulk (the obvious choice), a higher tech level for the upgraded bits to explain the small size, or lots more money.

 

[Darzoni]

Can it even fit inside a 'normal' spaceship man sized corridor/airlock?

Given it is sized to fit an Aslan male, it probably only /barely/ fits through standard corridors (The logic is that I'm usually going in first anyway, so I might as well provide mobile cover for the rest of the boarding party). I like to think of the STR mod as being a combination of hydraulics and BattleTech style myomer fibers. It is Heavy Battle Dress, meaning the BIGGEST problem is that it cannot wield infantry weapons in its hands; they have to be put into slot mounts and with only 4 slots left, it isn't going to be a massive gun.

It is not something the character wears around the ship on a regular basis. He has a combat vacc suit for that.

In retrospect, if I were refereeing, I'd limit the STR mod based on the TL of the chassis.

The speed listed for the battle dress chassis seems like that's the movement in meters per round (walking and running, respectively). Can the Aslan burst of speed ability affect that? IE: I move 10m/50m running in the suit normally, an Aslan uses a speed burst to move 20m/100m in one round?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

The new Vehicle Handbook contains rules for creating battledress.

Darzoni, Jeraa. Thanks for the info.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I guess I'm just trying to picture how you would upgrade Battledress with +10 STR.

I would imagine it requiring a complete structure up rebuild to enable the enhanced strength to actually be used. Otherwise, you are just going to rip your hand/arm off, rather than the airlock you are holding on to.

To me, any strength added would also add weight. True, adding strength modules to a battledress suit does add some weight. But I'm not a big fan of Popeye. I have the reprinted book 5-6, but have not had a chance to design regular vehicles or even suits yet.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Bigger and stronger servos would do it without a complete rebuild.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Just be careful with the Steve Austin thing. Using stronger servos without stronger support can lead to squeezed juice. Tony Stark used the Popeye method of getting stronger. He'd just "swallow" some fresh energy mass. No hardware upgrade required.

 

[Darzoni]

It was an original design in-game that is not based on anything the Aslan have done. We just patterned the aesthetics after Aslan battle dress because the engineer and wearer are both Aslan (designs for humans would probably be demonic looking given the suit design is called The Terror). For one, the chassis is Heavy, not Medium like most OTU designs. Secondly, we had to buy about a d-ton of parts and such and build it ourselves over about a month.

Battle dress can get very nasty very quick in melee. The slot system puts some serious limitations on what kind of havoc they can cause though... though my idea of scary is one that jams the comms, hacks life support to turn off the heating and lights, and has a swarm hive.