New Equipment: Ballistic Weave Drysuit

[rust]

Another item from my Varuna water world setting, this time an experi-
mental one, the current result of an ongoing research project of a player
character.

Ballistic Weave is a polymer which is normally soft and flexible, but beco-
mes stiff and hard under pressure. It was originally developed as a mate-
rial for personal armour, designed to react to the impact of a projectile,
but it turned out that it was impossible to create a Ballistic Weave which
reacted fast enough to provide any real protection, and so the project
was cancelled.

Julian Umbagai, the senior engineer of the Varuna Colony, did read about
the failed project, contacted the project's research team, and asked for a
sample of the Ballistic Weave. He used it to create a diving drysuit which
becomes harder with depth, which he is now testing. The suit works like a
normal drysuit down to about 50 meters, and then the increasing pressu-
re turns it more and more into a hardsuit until it becomes completely rigid
and hard - and a serious hindrance for the diver - at about 100 meters.

Julian now plans to create the next version of the suit with integrated
hardplast joints to enable the diver to operate at depths greater than 100
meters. The Ballistic Weave in its hardened state should be able to resist
the pressure down to about 200 meters, and this would make a suit of the
material perfect for all activities between the colony's floaters on the sur-
face and its domed seafloor habitat in a depth of 185 meters.

Where currently a hardplast diving hardsuit or a submarine is required to
travel between the floaters and the habitat, a much cheaper Ballistic Wea-
ve drysuit could make safe and easy travel possible for everyone who
knows how to use a scuba gear.

 

[locarno24]

Nice idea. Pressure protection at the flexible joints will be an interesting trick, though.

 

[rust]

Pressure protection at the flexible joints will be an interesting trick, though.

Yes, indeed. At the moment the character working on the project plans to
use the same flexible joints as the diving hardsuits have, but he still has to
come up with a convincing idea how to safely connect the ballistic weave
and the joints.

What he is working on right now looks a lot like one of those very early
science fiction movie outfits, a skintight suit with big spherical joints ...

 

[Rick]

Might eventually look a bit like judge dredd elbow and knee pads, as you wouldn't need spherical articulation for those joints on a human. The hip and shoulder joints would need a bit more.
I think you might be wrong about the price being cheaper than a hardsuit, though - I would imagine that the price would be higher but you'd be getting a much more adaptable and more easily stored item.

 

[rust]

I think you might be wrong about the price being cheaper than a hardsuit, though - I would imagine that the price would be higher but you'd be getting a much more adaptable and more easily stored item.

The price would be a setting specific thing. While it is not difficult for the
colonists to produce most polymers, including ballistic weave, from orga-
nic raw materials, the material for the hardsuits includes metal, which is
difficult and costly to mine on and below the seafloor and then to process
- and the miners are still busy to provide enough rare earths for export
to enable the colony to pay off the bank loans which had to be taken to
finance the colonization of the water world.

 

[Dave Chase]

Have an NPC who is interested in Middle age History comment about suits of armor (armour). It might give the character some inspiration.

Dave Chase