Rules Clarification: Does TL10 Cloth Armor Stack with a TL12 Vacc Suit?

[Yenaldlooshi]

Does TL10 Cloth Armor Stack with a TL12 Vacc Suit?

It says Cloth is " indistinguishable from ordinary clothing".
Since you can wear clothing under a vac suit would this mean you could also wear tech level 10 cloth armor?
This would give a protection value of +18 if allowed.

Mg2e only please.

 

[boggo2300]

it's not strictly prohibited so yeah, I'd allow it (though none of my players have done it, all 5 of them are pretty much TL12 vacc suit anytime they are out of the ship.

 

[Condottiere]

What you do is either have a volunteer, or ballistic gelatin, behind the swathes of a vacuum suit and cloth armour, and with a selection of guns, see what penetrates, and how far.

 

[Geir]

Not disallowed, but I'm sure the vacc suit is doing active cooling and needs contact with both the body and the outside to keep functioning properly and regulating heat, so the cloth would protect you and it would stack, but the vacc suit could give you trouble, whether it was on the inside or the outside. Plus, if the suit was on the outside and cloth on the inside, a shot that did enough damage to penetrate the suit... well, you know.

It's one of those ' the rules say I can carry ten rifles without encumbrance things' where the Referee should be asking 'Show me how you're doing that', and let consequences fall where they may.

I'm off to build a rifle quiver now...

 

[rinku]

p.27 of the Central Catalogue says no. But specifically because you don't wear normal clothing under a vacc suit - think underwear or maybe a body sleeve.

It also says if you want more protection, get a better protected vacc suit.

This is a case of the core book not covering absolutely everything, although it does say you can't combine armour unless otherwise stated, so from that point of view does disallow it.

On the other hand... a tailored vacc suit plus something like a flak jacket sounds somewhat plausible.

 

[boggo2300]

Not disallowed, but I'm sure the vacc suit is doing active cooling and needs contact with both the body and the outside to keep functioning properly and regulating heat, so the cloth would protect you and it would stack, but the vacc suit could give you trouble, whether it was on the inside or the outside. Plus, if the suit was on the outside and cloth on the inside, a shot that did enough damage to penetrate the suit... well, you know.

It's one of those ' the rules say I can carry ten rifles without encumbrance things' where the Referee should be asking 'Show me how you're doing that', and let consequences fall where they may.

I'm off to build a rifle quiver now...

though real world vacc-suits, which are not TL-12... DON'T require skin contact to work, they are ALL worn over other clothing, and in game vacc-suits allow you to wear them over clothing, so from an armour perspective I don't see it being an exploit at all. damage that penetrates the vacc suit but not the cloth would most certainly affect the environmental capabilities of the suit, even if it doesn't penetrate the cloth to harm the wearer.

 

[hopsnbaer]

It may not make sense to some people. It's a balance issue. I am pretty sure it is why they removed TL12 Cloth Armor from the Catalog in the latest update. Wear a Cloth trench over other armor. You will look stupid wearing it over a Vacc-Suit, but you will stack the protection. This reminds me of the people that give their character two riot shields to carry around in Shadowrun.

 

[rinku]

There's a difference between a cotton overall and a three piece suit.

It makes sense to me that while TL10 cloth can look like normal clothing, it's not going to be a T-shirt and shorts.

 

[Geir]

though real world vacc-suits, which are not TL-12... DON'T require skin contact to work, they are ALL worn over other clothing, and in game vacc-suits allow you to wear them over clothing, so from an armour perspective I don't see it being an exploit at all. damage that penetrates the vacc suit but not the cloth would most certainly affect the environmental capabilities of the suit, even if it doesn't penetrate the cloth to harm the wearer.

I didn't say skin contact exactly, but the cooling undergarments, urine collection, whatever, are part of an EVA suit and aren't going to work with just any set of clothes (or cloths), like a three piece suit or a party dress, and a cloth bodysuit would be worse. Except for the Polaris Dawn mission, those SpaceX suits are just IVA suits - intended to protect against pressure drops in the capsule, not exposure to the extreme temperatures of space.

In any case, my point wasn't that it wouldn't work, but there would be tradeoffs, and it could affect the performance of the vacc suit if used outside a ship. You could probably walk down the street with it, but... well, people might give you funny looks and you might get kind of sweaty.

 

[ottarrus]

There's one thing that nobody mentions about vacc suits:
Feces.
NASA has been in space for an entire Traveller tech level and they still use the same solutions for bodily excretions as they did in 1970: a diaper. They tried catheters and diapers, but the catheters kept causing UTIs.
Ergo, this tells me that layering armor with a sealed environment suit is probably a 'no'. However, there is a lot of tech levels ahead of us and who knows, maybe they figure out a solution for body waste. YTUMV and all that.

 

[rinku]

At the end of the day, (1) the rules do say you can't do it, and (2) there are logical reasons why not.

Sure, you could probably design an extra protection outerwear to go over a vacc suit... but that's basically what a Hostile Environment suit is. And it would not really be wearable as clothing on its own.

 

[Condottiere]

Buff coat or padding.

You could wear a cloth poncho over the vacuum suit.

Or, like medieval armour, special padding underneath it, made of cloth.

 

[rinku]

You need the special padding for it to work. That's got the diaper and the heating and cooling systems etc.

I dunno. A big part of what a Vacc Suit does is heat regulation, and an overcoat probably does not help, unless it's specifically designed for it. You probably need to allow for the life support system if nothing else.

But if you're just wearing it where there's air the life support side of things is less important.

 

[Takei]

Does TL10 Cloth Armor Stack with a TL12 Vacc Suit?

It says Cloth is " indistinguishable from ordinary clothing".
Since you can wear clothing under a vac suit would this mean you could also wear tech level 10 cloth armor?
This would give a protection value of +18 if allowed.

Mg2e only please.

Where does it say clothing can be worn under a vacc suit? I've had a quick read through the armour sections of the CRB-2022 and CSC-2023 and can't find it mentioned. As Rinku mentioned earlier, the CSC-2023 specifically says no.
I'm just curious as on many occasions someone's mentioned a rule here or on CotI that I've completely missed

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

though real world vacc-suits, which are not TL-12... DON'T require skin contact to work, they are ALL worn over other clothing, and in game vacc-suits allow you to wear them over clothing, so from an armour perspective I don't see it being an exploit at all. damage that penetrates the vacc suit but not the cloth would most certainly affect the environmental capabilities of the suit, even if it doesn't penetrate the cloth to harm the wearer.

erm... if by "clothing" you mean the liquid cooling and ventilation garment (lcvg)

Essentially the real world liquid cooling and ventilation garment (lcvg) is just an accessory to the TL7 "Vacc Suit", ie NASA space suit.

They have always had specialized underlayers of some kind which in game mechanics can be considered part of the vacc suit ensemble. They are decidedly NOT just street clothing and so it follows that CSCpage27 which states that any protective suits, of which vacc suits are a type, cannot be worn, ie stacked, with other armor.

 

[Condottiere]

Poncho, it is.

 

[MonsterX]

As a referee, I would definitely discourage trying to wear anything under a Vacc Suit, although if the question is "can I?", I would say that if you wear a Vacc Suit X sizes too big for you (depending on how thick the armour is), you can probably make it fit.

The disadvantages will be

1. heat regulation (this is kind of important - in an atmosphere things will get warm, which might be bad or not depending on the ambient temperature, but whatever built in heat regulation the Vacc Suit has won't work any more. In a vacuum, things will get very ugly very quickly - heat regulation prevents the user from being cooked)
2. Make Vacc Suit rolls to do stuff (I make players wearing Vacc Suits take these depending on the situation and their Vacc Suit skill level - take a minus if you Vacc Suit is not the right size, or overstuffed)
3. Functionality of the suit will be limited - peeing and pooping won't be pretty if you don't have the suit's pluming attached. There is interference with biometrics, since various attachments can't be attached. I assume that high tech vacc suits permit Medic rolls on the wearer without removing the entire suit since diagnoses and maybe some medical functions can be performed by the suit: not if there is armour underneath. Accessories might not be usable because there is clothing in the way.

In general, if an armour could be cheaply made more effective without penalties for other functions, it would already be built in. It isn't so it can't - at least not without causing other problems.

 

[Yenaldlooshi]

Poncho, it is.

Rules defacto say narp to the "poncho". You are thinking of cloth armor as just a layer of some sort of super fabric you can make into a poncho. That is not the description though:
"A heavy-duty coverall tailored from ballistic
cloth, sometimes containing light metal or ceramic
plates at critical points. The fabric absorbs impact
energy, distributing the blow over the body of the target
and usually resulting in bruising."

This would all tell me that it cannot be as formless and shapeless as a poncho. It needs its structure to give the protection that it does.

 

[Condottiere]

Brigandine poncho, it is.

 

[rinku]

As a side thought, I'm not sure the Mando poncho could really provide much ballistic protection, but I could see a reflec or ablat version working.