[Ninja137]

I say we go into it, seeing as it'd be a part of the discussion at hand.

[Kiirnodel]

...

Well the plain and simple of it is whether or not a SecureTech PPP-System Helmet can be worn underneath another Helmet.

On the one hand, the argument is saying that by the general SecureTech description, it is can be made as "discreet protection designed to be worn beneath other clothing" or "as an obvious strapped addition to other visible armor". This leading to the argument that you can wear a SecureTech helmet underneath or augmenting another helmet. Making it possible to have a combined headgear of +2/+4

On the other hand, is the argument that also in the general SecureTech description is the statement that: "these items modify the rating of armor worn by their rating just as helmets and shields do." The argument that you, plain and simply cannot wear two helmets. Or at the very least two helmets would not stack. Making the maximum possible headgear to give +2/+2 (Like the military grade helmet or SWAT helmet).

[JoeNapalm]

Very nice summary, Kiirnodel.

I'll just add, this is another instance of  "specific vs general"...

The general SecurTech PPP description has the overt/discrete description, but if I recall - the description of the helmet states that it's basically a hockey helmet.

Plus...no, you can't wear two helmets. Cut it out. 


-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist

[Elektrycerze3]

Plus...no, you can't wear two helmets. Cut it out. 

Some tend to disagree:


Just kidding)

[Ninja137]

I think the highest armor that I've found someone would be able to get would be:

SWATArmor 12/10
SWAT Helmet +2/+2
Full SecureTech PPP Armor +2/+6
Full Form-Fitting Body Armor +6/+2
Ballistic Shield +6/+4
Gel Packs on the SWAT Armor +1/+1

Total it would give: 29/25, and hardly encumber a troll at all with Smart-Weave added. EASILY beating milspec armor without any problems at all. And this is still not counting Dermal Deposits, Cyberlimb Armor, Dermal Sheath/Orthoskin. Nor is it even expensive to do, and you can just slap Ruthenium Polymer Coating on the SWAT armor and be as stealthy as tactical milspec armor, with almost double the armor. Plus stacking Enhancements like Non-Con, Thermal Dampening, Chem Protection...

So, why does MilSpec armor exist if the more common armor blows it out of the water with little problem?

[All4BigGuns]

I think the highest armor that I've found someone would be able to get would be:

SWATArmor 12/10
SWAT Helmet +2/+2
Full SecureTech PPP Armor +2/+6
Full Form-Fitting Body Armor +6/+2
Ballistic Shield +6/+4
Gel Packs on the SWAT Armor +1/+1

Total it would give: 29/25, and hardly encumber a troll at all with Smart-Weave added. EASILY beating milspec armor without any problems at all. And this is still not counting Dermal Deposits, Cyberlimb Armor, Dermal Sheath/Orthoskin. Nor is it even expensive to do, and you can just slap Ruthenium Polymer Coating on the SWAT armor and be as stealthy as tactical milspec armor, with almost double the armor. Plus stacking Enhancements like Non-Con, Thermal Dampening, Chem Protection...

So, why does MilSpec armor exist if the more common armor blows it out of the water with little problem?

The additional upgrade options available to it. You can't get the Strength or Mobility upgrades on the SWAT or Security armor, for instance.

[Kiirnodel]

*cracks knuckles*

To optimise Armor: (without using excessive amounts of cheese)

Wear the full set of Vashon Island: Steampunk Line, getting an armor value of 7/7 [Arsenal p. 46]
Augment this with a full set of SecureTech PPP-System (sans helmet), giving an armor bonus of +2/+4 [Arsenal p. 49]
Instead of the SecureTech Helmet, Wear a SWAT Armor Helmet, getting +2/+2
Underneath all this wear a Form-Fitting Full-Body Suit, giving an armor bonus of +6/+2 (but only counting as +3/+1 for encumbrance) [Arsenal p. 48]
Using Attitude, augment the Steampunk Armor Clothing with Dela-Amyloid coating for an additional +3/+1

This totals up to 20/16, but only counts as 17/15 for the purposes of encumbrance, so a Body 9 Troll could wear it. You could also optionally add the YNT Softweave from War! to the Steampunk reducing one of the armor values by up to your strength, but this would only make the Impact Armor the limiting factor instead of Ballistic, requiring only Body 8 instead.


If you want to inject major amounts of cheese into your armor (WARNING: May cause repeated head trauma from phonebook):
Allow a character to wear both the SecureTech and the SWAT Helmets (an extra +0/+2)
Allow a character to put the Delta Amyloid coating on each piece of the Steampunk Armor (there are 4 total), adding an additiona +9/+3 armor for the extra three pieces.
In addition, add YNT Softweave to Everything (the highest armor value of any individual piece of Armor is only 6. This would reduce the encumbrance to next to nothing. But at this point you don't have much other space for armor without getting into Munchkin territory.
All of this brings the armor value up to 29/21, but only counts as 26/20 for encumbrance, a Troll with 10 Body and 6 Strength could wear it.

Combine either of those two things with a Ballistic Shield could add another +6/+4 (or +2/+6 for a Riot/Taser Shield)

I will need to make a slight edit on this, but I need to switch computers and don't want to lose what I wrote. Pardon the momentary unedited nature of this post...

[Ninja137]

I think the highest armor that I've found someone would be able to get would be:

SWATArmor 12/10
SWAT Helmet +2/+2
Full SecureTech PPP Armor +2/+6
Full Form-Fitting Body Armor +6/+2
Ballistic Shield +6/+4
Gel Packs on the SWAT Armor +1/+1

Total it would give: 29/25, and hardly encumber a troll at all with Smart-Weave added. EASILY beating milspec armor without any problems at all. And this is still not counting Dermal Deposits, Cyberlimb Armor, Dermal Sheath/Orthoskin. Nor is it even expensive to do, and you can just slap Ruthenium Polymer Coating on the SWAT armor and be as stealthy as tactical milspec armor, with almost double the armor. Plus stacking Enhancements like Non-Con, Thermal Dampening, Chem Protection...

So, why does MilSpec armor exist if the more common armor blows it out of the water with little problem?

The additional upgrade options available to it. You can't get the Strength or Mobility upgrades on the SWAT or Security armor, for instance.

The additional upgrades are either meh, or entirely able to be gotten by other sources.
The only ones that stand out are Articulated Weapon Arm, Quick Release, and Strength Upgrade. Everything else isn't really worth it. And Mobility Upgrade is stupid, it's entirely useless other than adding a minor bonus to Run checks. Wearing one set of armor doesn't encumber you anyway, and since it doesn't stack with ANYTHING even though it would make sense in a few cases, you'll never be encumbered.

[Ninja137]

*cracks knuckles*

To optimise Armor: (without using excessive amounts of cheese)

Wear the full set of Vashon Island: Steampunk Line, getting an armor value of 7/7 [Arsenal p. 46]
Augment this with a full set of SecureTech PPP-System (sans helmet), giving an armor bonus of +2/+4 [Arsenal p. 49]
Instead of the SecureTech Helmet, Wear a SWAT Armor Helmet, getting +2/+2
Underneath all this wear a Form-Fitting Full-Body Suit, giving an armor bonus of +6/+2 (but only counting as +3/+1 for encumbrance) [Arsenal p. 48]
Using Attitude, augment the Steampunk Armor Clothing with Dela-Amyloid coating for an additional +3/+1

This totals up to 20/16, but only counts as 17/15 for the purposes of encumbrance, so a Body 9 Troll could wear it. You could also optionally add the YNT Softweave from War! to the Steampunk reducing one of the armor values by up to your strength, but this would only make the Impact Armor the limiting factor instead of Ballistic, requiring only Body 8 instead.


If you want to inject major amounts of cheese into your armor (WARNING: May cause repeated head trauma from phonebook):
Allow a character to wear both the SecureTech and the SWAT Helmets (an extra +0/+2)
Allow a character to put the Delta Amyloid coating on each piece of the Steampunk Armor (there are 4 total), adding an additiona +9/+3 armor for the extra three pieces.
In addition, add YNT Softweave to Everything (the highest armor value of any individual piece of Armor is only 6. This would reduce the encumbrance to next to nothing. But at this point you don't have much other space for armor without getting into Munchkin territory.
All of this brings the armor value up to 29/21, but only counts as 26/20 for encumbrance, a Troll with 10 Body and 6 Strength could wear it.

Combine either of those two things with a Ballistic Shield could add another +6/+4 (or +2/+6 for a Riot/Taser Shield)

I will need to make a slight edit on this, but I need to switch computers and don't want to lose what I wrote. Pardon the momentary unedited nature of this post...

If we're going to start adding Weaves, why not just go all the way and add ALL three weaves to each piece of armor, boosting it up even further?

[All4BigGuns]

I think the highest armor that I've found someone would be able to get would be:

SWATArmor 12/10
SWAT Helmet +2/+2
Full SecureTech PPP Armor +2/+6
Full Form-Fitting Body Armor +6/+2
Ballistic Shield +6/+4
Gel Packs on the SWAT Armor +1/+1

Total it would give: 29/25, and hardly encumber a troll at all with Smart-Weave added. EASILY beating milspec armor without any problems at all. And this is still not counting Dermal Deposits, Cyberlimb Armor, Dermal Sheath/Orthoskin. Nor is it even expensive to do, and you can just slap Ruthenium Polymer Coating on the SWAT armor and be as stealthy as tactical milspec armor, with almost double the armor. Plus stacking Enhancements like Non-Con, Thermal Dampening, Chem Protection...

So, why does MilSpec armor exist if the more common armor blows it out of the water with little problem?

The additional upgrade options available to it. You can't get the Strength or Mobility upgrades on the SWAT or Security armor, for instance.

The additional upgrades are either meh, or entirely able to be gotten by other sources.
The only ones that stand out are Articulated Weapon Arm, Quick Release, and Strength Upgrade. Everything else isn't really worth it. And Mobility Upgrade is stupid, it's entirely useless other than adding a minor bonus to Run checks. Wearing one set of armor doesn't encumber you anyway, and since it doesn't stack with ANYTHING even though it would make sense in a few cases, you'll never be encumbered.

The Mobility upgrade and the improvement to how encumbrance is calculated is all that is needed to prevent being encumbered by Military Armor. (The 'one suit of armor doesn't encumber' is either a house rule or an optional rule--I forget which--so one can not count on it being in effect.)

[Kiirnodel]

If we're going to start adding Weaves, why not just go all the way and add ALL three weaves to each piece of armor, boosting it up even further?

Agreed, that would go under the "cheese" heading.

As a note, YNT Softweave only reduces the higher of the two armor values, not both. And, after reading it again, it reduces the Total armor, not each individual piece.

[Ninja137]

Why not use the Ares Victory line? Every bit of it stacks together since none of it has an asterisk to denote that it can't be worn together. 23/12 before weaves, SecureTech PPP, FFBA, or Smartweave is added.

[Kiirnodel]

Why not use the Ares Victory line? Every bit of it stacks together since none of it has an asterisk to denote that it can't be worn together. 23/12 before weaves, SecureTech PPP, FFBA, or Smartweave is added.

Because the Ares Victory Line isn't a collection, no (c) next to the name, and cannot be worn together at all.

[Ninja137]

Totally missed that, my bad.

Still, the question stands. Why is it that protection which is entirely available to civilians does the job of protecting the wearer nearly twice as well as the armor intended for the "Best of the best" high end CorpSec? Does this seem like a problem to anyone else?

[Michael Chandra]

Given the amount of extras upgrades it can come with and the fact Military Armor is meant to be a simple solution to the overburden problem without having to munchkin your gear or having to have a huge body, no problem here really. You got 6 Body, Military Armor ain't that bad a choice. You got 4, still not a bad choice.