Rejected Submission Pack Power Armor

[Zack]

Submission Type: Power Armor (sorta)
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=faction:uso:packpowerarmor

Faction: USO
FM Approved Yet? Yes
Faction requires art? Yes

For Reviewers:
Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles? (Yes/No)
Contains New art? (Yes/No)
Previously Submitted? (Yes/No; explain reason if rejected)

Notes: Team USO needs some power armor, and that's going to mean building power armor for the Vek, For I'ee, for humans, for giant humans, for a dalmation taur, and for a giant sentient-mushroom-robot.

Rather than building one power armor for each of them, I am going to go the route of building a backpack that does everything a power armor does. Of course Uso is no Wazu, and kinda has to throw stuff together using her limited capabilities.

The idea is that as time goes on, USO will develop more homebrew gear and will be able to upgrade what they have on hand. In the mean time they have to deal with early versions of gear that aren't all that great.

 

[Syaoran]

For now let's see what Fred says and not bring up anything new until after.

 

[Fred]

Okay, so, I've read over this.

It seems to be a pertinent point that Wes is not opposed to having a barrier on personnel. I would be, but he's not. So, even if I don't agree, that ship has sailed.

Here's my recommendations on this:

• If this is a piece of equipment that should generate up to power armor shields, it should weight like it. I see it weights 55 lbs. *tilts head* That sounds reasonable. That's going to be a pain for a normal person to carry around, making the assisted flight almost mandatory for moving about in a combat situation without being too weighted down/running out of stamina if you don't have the assisted strength of a power armor.
  
• I'm a little bugged by it providing mobility too... but having gravimetric drives paired to stuff that blocks kinetic attacks isn't unknown. So, no problem there, I guess.
• If it were up to me, something so small has no business being a 2-facing barrier. The 2-facing barriers is stuff you start seeing on fightercraft (think shield management in X-Wing, Tie Fighters, Descent Freespace).
• I strongly recommend bubble shielding for that thing. Conformal over insufficiently protected/insulated living flesh is bound to be pretty harmful to someone's health, regardless of output. The bubble barrier is at least somewhat less hazardous for the user (personnal barrier tech is still very new) It's going to be hazardous to people close to touching or touching the bubble itself too.
  
• There's the dilemma over having a power armor-tiered barrier on personnel. To me it seems fairly straightforward: it's not that the unit can't exceed the personnel scale, it's that doing so without the benefit of the sealed armor suit itself risks turning the user into so much scrambled eggs. *sizzle* I figure there could be the 'yeah, but the power supply could support tier 4, so a tier 3 field will last longer, right?' - to that I'd say that if the hyperspace tap yielded that much power while in close contact to an unarmored person, it could also prove harmful. *sizzle* We're not talking about laptop thigh burns here.
  
• What is sufficient to insulate someone? I don't have a clear answer to that, but precedent indicates: a combination of insert (or equivalent), frame and armor plating that is sealed against various environmental conditions including vaccuum appear to suffice. Want to wear a thermal suit made to delve in volcanoes and then turn the power of the hyperspace tap up? I suppose that's possible too.
  
• I figure that someone clever can weaponize those limitations. Or let some robot humanoid drone wear this and run around laughing maniacally (perhaps prerecorded voiceovers from Uso?). Nothing I can do about that. >_>

What NTSE moderators choose to deem appropriate to the setting or not is otherwise beyond my purview. I just give my input.

@Doshii Jun @Wes @CadetNewb

 

[raz]

So... what is it about the power suit component of the Mindy that makes it shield-proof?

It's Yarvex. Though, based on the description of the Type 28 AMES and the hazards it can handle, a simple purpose-built polymer could likely take whatever minor harm being inside shields could emit. Especially because the AMES is used to work outside of a ship, often with its starship-tier shields activated.

This whole argument that people get negatively impacted by shields when not in some sort of special armor is pretty flimsy, though. Why doesn't a Plumeria power armor bay's force field hurt people? After all, Star Army forcefield doors can "withstand the punishment of explosions and other attacks." Further, do we really think the shielding that protects a Pillager-class Light Cruiser's aft isn't as strong as the rest of the ship's shields? Mishhu are mooks, but even they're not dumb enough to make a ship whose interior is entirely unprotected from the back.

 

[Navian]

Tier 2 (partial) armour is very easy to make and wear, and should make carrying the backpack much more practical. I imagine that an actual tier 2 barrier field would be built into the armour with a negligible effect on its weight (5 lbs, maybe?) so something that's worn on top of it and weighs more than it should definitely be more protective (though trickier to deal with, too.)

A possible answer to the question of 'why don't more powerful force fields fry people too' is that because they are not high-performance, compact systems, they can be made safer and more stable. Gravity plates in floors are probably more safe and stable than those on hoverboards, even when they're more powerful.

 

[Rizzo]

High performance PAs can enter each other's active shields, right?

 

[Navian]

Er... You mean touch? Yes, they can touch.

 

[Fred]

Well, usually, the barrier, even on stand-by, is still dangerous.

It's at an output strong enough to confer the resistances you need from stuff that's constant. For instance, radiation. It's what also allows most KFY power armor to not be vulnerable to graviton-based tractor beams - it's low-strength, but not offline, so it does pose an hazard. The moment it needs to come to the strength needed to block a certain level of harmful attack, the power spike would likely result in a much worse outcome for anything exposed.

Raz mentioned the Plumeria's armor bay screens. If I conjecture about it...
I know atmospheric retention fields don't cause harm to people. I know the Miharu's internal forcefields were personnal scale and didn't pose hazards to the crew. My impression is that four-point forcefields work differently than omni-directional ones and since those can be computed/emitted into straight panes, how hazardous they can be is greatly lessened.

 

[Syaoran]

Pretty sure shields have the ability o filter what goes through them and what doesn't. Which is why you can open doors and such. A lot of sci-fi settings say it's a calculation based on speed and size to determine if it can pass through or not. However that's merely whether or not it's permeable, and not a reflection on whether or not it's 'effecting' things in close proximity to it.

 

[Fred]

Kind of besides the point right now, though.

My input was given. The mods in charge of this ( @CadetNewb and @Wes ?) ought to make a return to this.

Thank you for your cooperation.

 

[Zack]

Sounds like we still don't have a ruling regarding shields and exposed skin.

Since I've never seen anyone even complain ICly about shields hurting exposed skin I'm inclined to think that it is fine. People take off their helmets in PAs all the time and the NDI's shields never seemed to harm people other than pushing them away.

 

[Reynolds]

I'd always worked off of these lines on the Mindy 2 page:

Spoiler

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?...m2-2_series_mindy_armor#combined_field_system
"Due to the nature of the CFS, both protective and propulsive in nature, the field generated is capable of causing lethal harm to unshielded organic organisms including personnel within a 1 meter radius of the armor as they pass through the threshold of the field - ammunition may also be affected by the system, and may prematurely detonate."

https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?...series_mindy_armor#conformal_barrier_system_7
"The M2-G3600 unit also has the perk of not being quite as hazardous for living beings to stand next to while activated in comparison with earlier designs. The graviton emitters generally create subsonic vibrations which are strenuous to eardrums (which is, in turn, prone to riling up most nearby animals), but the worst health hazard they can cause to people in close proximity is nausea."

It seemed to show that shields were Bad News of varying degrees to unprotected/unshielded organics (ie flesh and skin and all that). Where just a barrier makes people sick and gives them headaches, and a full big deal space/aether barrier straight up kills people. I remember Wes always making a big deal about Mindys not being allowed inside the Eucharis unless it was an emergency, and held to this rule in my plot when shielded and unshielded people were interacting. But, if I'm way off, someone correct me...

 

[Wes]

Right, that's why people wearing power armor aren't allowed to just walk around the Eucharis outside of the power armor bay.

 

[Reynolds]

Yes, I remember apologizing for walking to the Medbay in a Mindy with an injured person at one time. I'm also pretty sure that way back during The Nest mission this came up when several crew members decided to remove their armors for a certain plan, while others did not, and we were also running into unarmored NMX Neko.

 

[CadetNewb]

In light of this @Wes , is it a reasonable request to have Zack change the DR rating over to Tier 3?

 

[Zack]

Is that something specific to the Mindy?

Mild nausea isn't a big deal, and if shields in general do this it should be in a central 'how shields work' article.

 

[Reynolds]

I think it's just old enough (5+ years) that it was just a passing mention of specific examples for an effect that almost everyone just took for granted was existing. Which seems to be backed up by most of the posts in this thread saying 'yeah, shields are bad for unshielded people, right?'

Constant ear problems and nausea is probably a very bad thing to be dealing with in a battlefield situation. That's also from the most advanced faction's best (at the time) variation on something they'd been working on for a while. I'd personally expect a brand new invention from a smaller group to be slightly worse, with maybe a few more kinks worked out in those later variations you were mentioning.

And I agree, a 'how shields work' wiki article would probably help a lot, so we're not just running off of memories and RP examples. But it certainly seems like the precedent has already been set for what would be in that article. It's just up to someone to write it up and get it approved...kinda like a page about how martial arts work to replace memories and RP examples. (I am bad with tech and numbers here and would be a terrible choice.)

 

[Syaoran]

Also ear problems is -very- bad for a battle setting. If your eardrums are effected your..I believe they're called semicircular canals are likely to be effected too since they're full of fluid. That would totally destroy your sense of balance and depending on the severity it could be anywhere from being 'dizzy' to straight up not being able to stand up.

 

[Fred]

That's also from the most advanced faction's best (at the time) variation on something they'd been working on for a while. I'd personally expect a brand new invention from a smaller group to be slightly worse, with maybe a few more kinks worked out in those later variations you were mentioning.

You make a good point, but the tech wouldn't exactly be secret.

For a civilian entity within the Empire, such as Origin, it's reasonable enough to see safety features hit the civilian market. It's not the kind of technical innovation Ketsurui Fleet Yard would keep close - you won't see KFY get accused of denying the civilian market an advancement that can help keep imperial civilians safe, especially considering how less well trained civilian users could very well cause more collateral damage than trained military personnel (whom, as you know, are supposed to be disciplined in not wandering around everywhere with their power armor).

What KFY might not share is a state-of-the-art iteration. The military models are likely smaller and run more efficiently.

Considering how the civilian market in SARP has proven 'not very cautious' on technology sharing concerns, it likely wouldn't be much of an hardship to obtain an Origin backpack shield projector module (Origin would just go "Thank you for your business!").

However, 55 lbs for a backpack that... offers a barrier system with the latest civilian safeties, incorporates a power armor's power supply, computer and sensors along with a drive unit for flight... probably leans on the side of 'ridiculously light'. *shrug* (for reference: the Impulse is 320 lbs with its pack included, but its pack is only emitter stuff)

 

[Syaoran]

The Origin plates do provide propulsion and power, but it's conventional thrusters and the reactor and fuel are each the size of a human head. (They're neuclear reactors) all the control systems are in the PA though.

 

[Zack]

I think there is still the question of if this is still specific to the Mindy.

The CFS includes distortion shields as well as the regular electrostatic type. If you're near those shields you certainly run the risk of Spaghettification, but far less so for the generic electrostatic shield. There already exist volumetrics that project that type of shield conformaly over exposed skin and modern day devices for industrial applications that do similar work (though granted, I haven't seen any information on how they work if you touch them. Kaku seems to think they will work like in star trek but he's also a bit of a hype man so take that with a grain of salt.)

As for 55lbs, I think that is reasonable for what is supposed to be the light back pack of a power armor. Consider this is maybe 1/5 the size of a normal power armor by weight, as the bulk of the 'stuff' in an armor is going to be the armor material itself and the artificial muscle. This means I would expect the back pack to weight about as much as the arms or the legs (or an Arm or Leg) with the chest and head area being 2-3 x as much. Unlike a space suit with that weighty back pack this one doesn't have to carry cooling or atmosphere for the pilot, just itself.