[Tsuzua]

I agree with you in that the technology is far ahead in SR and you can use those new materials to protect most of the body. But the head is kinda special. You need enough padding. The thicker the padding the longer it takes for the bullet to slow down and its force will be stretched out over time. If you are wearing a strong helmet without padding, even if the bullet wouldn't get through, it would kill you, because the force of the bullet is transferred onto the helmet and then skull in an instant. On other body parts you get heavy bruises through vests, for the head its severe brain bleeding and maybe even a broken neck. That's something no material in the world can change, not even in 100 years. And that's why you need padding on the head.
I know its impact armor in this case, but the physics are the same. 

Actually that's the case with all sorts of body armor nowadays.  A bullet doesn't have to piece your bulletproof vest to kill you.  The dissipated energy of the impact can mess up your organs and blunt trauma is a factor in evalutating real life armor.  Blunt trauma doesn't just apply to the head.  So what you said should apply to nearly all SR armor despite the fact that it clearly doesn't from my examples of SR armor basically being awesome spandex. 

Edit- That said, really I went with the jumpsuit because I didn't want another case of "lol steampunk for your runner."

[All4BigGuns]

I think this is where we disagree.  I view a discrete PPP helmet as a skullcap that goes over the FFBA hood.  You can't put a padded helmet like you picked discretely under normal clothing.

Ah good, then i will continue from there. On a side note, i am really sorry for staying quite off-topic ;-)

I agree with you in that the technology is far ahead in SR and you can use those new materials to protect most of the body. But the head is kinda special. You need enough padding. The thicker the padding the longer it takes for the bullet to slow down and its force will be stretched out over time. If you are wearing a strong helmet without padding, even if the bullet wouldn't get through, it would kill you, because the force of the bullet is transferred onto the helmet and then skull in an instant. On other body parts you get heavy bruises through vests, for the head its severe brain bleeding and maybe even a broken neck. That's something no material in the world can change, not even in 100 years. And that's why you need padding on the head.
I know its impact armor in this case, but the physics are the same. 

And this is a case of wanting to inject too much "realism" in. The damage and damage resistance systems are abstracted. Called shots do nothing in particular (except for the taking penalty equal to armor rating to bypass it).  Roll damage resistance and get enough hits, you take no damage. Location of hit is nothing more than a descriptive after final damage is figured (which is all it should EVER be in my opinion).

[Lethe]

Actually that's the case with all sorts of body armor nowadays.  A bullet doesn't have to piece your bulletproof vest to kill you.  The dissipated energy of the impact can mess up your organs and blunt trauma is a factor in evalutating real life armor.  Blunt trauma doesn't just apply to the head.  So what you said should apply to nearly all SR armor despite the fact that it clearly doesn't from my examples of SR armor basically being armored spandex.

Current and probably SR armor technology aims for distributing the force over the biggest possible surface, by hardening the materials in the millisecond the force hits and liquifying it afterwards. If the force distribution over the body is perfect, the only other thing that can add protection is padding.
Now for the head, its clothe-wise disconnection from the rest of the body and small surface limits the possible distribution of force considerably, which can only be compensated by... padding, i.e. if the head has one eighth of the size of the rest of the body it needs 8 times as much padding to only get the same protection as the rest of the body.

Now if the helmet would be connected to the rest of the body, through an otherwise flexible connection, that would get instantly rigid on impact and is strong enough to distribute the whole force to the rest of the body, now that would be a helmet. But i am sure not even SR is that far yet, also it wouldn't work with a loose skull cap

Plus, capsize matters. A helmet which protects only half a head, would only get half the rating. And since the PPP helmet has almost the same rating as a riot helmet, which is actually reinforced by worn body armor.. there quite something mystical about it...

[UmaroVI]

You can have a jockstrap that provides +6 versus contact vector chemical weapons. SR armor doesn't make even the tiniest bit of sense, it's best not to think too hard about it.

[All4BigGuns]

You can have a jockstrap that provides +6 versus contact vector chemical weapons. SR armor doesn't make even the tiniest bit of sense, it's best not to think too hard about it.

I'd rather mine have 15 ballistic and 20 impact of hardened armor to go with that 

[Lethe]

And this is a case of wanting to inject too much "realism" in.

Well, of course you are right. After squee talked funny about my decision to "adjust" the rules for me, i kinda felt the need to support my on logic based decision. Maybe it got a little out of hand ;-)

[JustADude]

And this is a case of wanting to inject too much "realism" in.

Well, of course you are right. After squee talked funny about my decision to "adjust" the rules for me, i kinda felt the need to support my on logic based decision. Maybe it got a little out of hand ;-)

Trust me, it happens to the best of us. I know from experience. 

[CitizenJoe]

Given his background, his clothes might well hide the body armor.

[CanRay]

And explain why he's carrying around a dagger everywhere.

Oh, my father was pissed when he had to give up his Zippo at the Mint, but some folks were able to carry around Daggers like that!

[Breten]

Yeah, the daggers are a religious thing and a hotbed of political controversy in Canada.

But the clothing is similar to what I had in mind.  Though more futuristic in style.

[CanRay]

Yeah, the daggers are a religious thing and a hotbed of political controversy in Canada.

Oh this was in...  Late '80s?  Years ago.  I should visit the Mint sometime and see it with an adult's eyes.

Anyhow, they were representatives of their country who wanted work done by the Mint (I asked the nice lady with my little kid eyes, she spoke down to me, but I was able to put things together), so they were bending over backwards to placate them in a lot of ways.  I think Mom was able to get Dad to understand that enough to keep his temper in check.  He also got his Zippo back after we went through security to the gift shop, which helped.