Star Army

Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding. Anyone 18 or older may join for free. New members are welcome! Use the "Register" button below.

Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site. If you're looking for the tabletop miniatures wargame "5150: Star Army" instead, see Two Hour Wargames.

  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 October and November 2024 are YE 46.8 in the RP.

Shibui Power Suit

Ametheliana

Head in the Stars
Staff Member
🌸 FM of Yamatai
🎖️ Game Master
Here is the page.

It is currently a GM tool and in prototypical stages but Wes would like things in the setting, specifically this, to be shared for all and can become standard issue. That is why I want a more formal conversational platform for the Shibui.

ai.imgur.com_9TeRLTe.jpg_c4ca4238a0b923820dcc509a6f75849b.webp
This art is by @Crystal
The page art is by me : )
 
wut even where is the template wtf

put in the post template or @META_mahn will have to do the denying

(it's a discussion dood)

Also: IT'S SHIBUI, AMETHELIANA HERE. BRINGIN U A NEW SOOT
 
Can you state the intention behind the suit so that we don't have to read it all to get it?

Basically I want to know what it does that an AMES doesn't do.
 
It introduces the wearer.

"IT'S SHIBUI HANAKO, BRINGING YOU THE HOTTEST GENOCIDE AROUND."

or something IDK
 
I'd like to know what's its purpose as a GM tool.
The third 1st Expeditionary Fleet mission is an aim to, "Test developing technologies." This is why the YSS Kaiyō II has been deployed on Yamataian soil ((See my plot plan in GM forums)) in the beginning of our ensuing mission arc. Throughout it this suit will be used, left at home, then used again and again until we wear it to the bone or see it to be a lasting, useful piece of equipment.

Can you state the intention behind the suit so that we don't have to read it all to get it? Basically I want to know what it does that an AMES doesn't do.
I will add that to the wiki instead of answering here ^-^
 
The third 1st Expeditionary Fleet mission is an aim to, "Test developing technologies." This is why the YSS Kaiyō II has been deployed on Yamataian soil ((See my plot plan in GM forums)) in the beginning of our ensuing mission arc. Throughout it this suit will be used, left at home, then used again and again until we wear it to the bone or see it to be a lasting, useful piece of equipment.


I will add that to the wiki instead of answering here ^-^
So like, can I just

S T E A L your G I R L's suit 4 my plot tho?
 
I'd like to know how the hand repulsors work and such but seems interesting enough as a concept, might see if I can use these at some point.
 
I’m not gonna accept the submission yet but I do like the new redesigned art. The old Phased Pulse Projectors on the hands looked too clunky for viable use. A Mindy would have served better every time.

I can definitely see someone like SAINT using it. If I pick it up (which is pretty likely) at least you have the “needed and/or necessary” part down. It’s a good suit if you need a gun, but not a very big CFS/Aether gun.
 
Last edited:
I wanted to leave this alone because I want to respect the plot devices of my fellow GMs, but META_mahn's feedback above generated enough alarm in me that I felt compelled to speak up.

Please bear in mind that I approach this by context of broader setting inclusion. I don't really mind how it's used or presented just in Ame's plots.

* * *

Evidently, this is portrayed as a skin suit. It offers no strength augmentation. It's meant to visually be extremely thin, flexible and such. But if that's the outlook on it, there are a few points of contention in my eyes.

Phased-Pulse Projectors:
As the person that created the Sylph II, I can attest that the weapon is built inside the forearms - that it, through all of the insides of the forearms. you can't exactly fit that kind of firepower just in some shallow emitter that rests in the palm of your hand, not to mention you're already packing several other features in the arms (including the rather cool taser index).

My recommendation is to stick to handhelds. you have the belts to carry them.

Ke-M2-P3802 Teleportation Module:
That's something that doesn't come any smaller than a backpack module for a Mindy power armor. It needs to be powered by something with fairly high output (and I have reservations against your aether power supply coming later). On top of that, it's heavy and you have no strength augmentation. x_x

My recommendation, in the spirit of keeping the suit as light as possible, would be to draw inspiration from the special equipment once mounted on the Y.S.S. Asamoya: a teleportation chamber. Teleporters are based on the technology of old transposition weapons (whom went out of style at around YE 29), Mindy teleporters scoop a bubble around themselves out to deposit it elsewhere; the chamber itself scoops it in a controlled environment and deposits it elsewhere. The flaw was that they could send things, but retrieving them was harder; perhaps the suit comes with special beacons making retrieval more feasible so that ship-to-shore, shore-to-ship, ship-to-ship and even shore-to-shore transport could be effected by a nearby allied vessel.

Hlaraian Clothblades
Um... sure? I'm not sure what Iroma weapons are doing on SAoY hardware. I can see this as being a benign "Iromas have this cool things that I also want to use in my SAoY plots", but from another perspective it might threaten to grab something special from one faction and trivialize its identity by spreading it around, making it less of a special Iroma feature.

I have no problem with it. Some people might, though. For your bladework, I think your hard light projectors already seem to do the job, so the add on doesn't look necessary.

Armor Integrated Electronics System (AIES)
This is an assortment of sensors and computer systems that do take up room. some, when working at optimal capacity, have been said by Wes to be harmful to non-sufficiently protected humanoid life. I'm not sure your suit is a good platform for that assortment of items.

But, this might be a cool opportunity to integrate some of the other equipment we have on hand. Perhaps a Star Army communicator could function as your onboard computer and manage what few sensors you can pack in your helmet (which is likely more occupied with life support components), while also providing augmented reality on your surroundings based on the information you get through the PANTHEON network thanks to other supporting units, like nearby starships. Basically, you don't have that many sensors, but you'd stream the sensor results obtained for you by nearby allies.

Ke-M2-P3002 Leg Energy Cloak Shield Projector
That tech first came from the Daisy, if I'm not mistaken. Again, not sure it fits in the makeup of your suit, not to mention it's supposed to be fairly power intensive. Remember how much grief we gave Zack for creating a backpack that'd provide forcefield-like protection to unarmored infantry?

Personally, I'm not fond of the idea. But if you must have a form of forcefield, perhaps you could start Yamatai in that direction with something a bit more primitive? You've already got Hard Light tech on your upper body, why not let it be able to generate hard light shields (like the zesu shield the Daisy has, but spontaneously made out of hard light, kind of like the first Mindy II variants could do) to kind of fill the need without stepping into outright "fighting catgirls in lycra suits with personal forcefields" visuals (from which stemmed Wes' first objections on personal forcefields, before he forgot he was objected to them >_>; )

Shoulder hard point
I hope you don't plan to mount power armor equipment there. Without the armature power armors have, plugging anything of significant weight there while having no strength enhancement is going to be downright painful. Don't put Mindy weapons there; just don't. Think of those poor tennyo carrying those heavy heavy weapons. Have pity on our catgirls, please. x_x;

Power systems:
In the interest of sparing your poor nekos' chiropractor bills, you may want to reconsider packing something that at its smallest needs to at least be a dense lunchbox-sized piece of metal, especially if having a svelte suit that can shimmy around most of anywhere and look sexy is your objective. Not to mention that without the aether generator, it's hard to power aether turbo-plasma thrusters - but honestly, I didn't think you really needed either when nekos already come with 100 kph antigrav speeds. Not to mention how turbo aether-plasma thrusters are hot and that your super-thin suit might not be heat-resistant enough (despite the 'extreme') to suffer the equivalent of a light aether saber being so close to your limbs.

Aether around humans is a big deal. Flammable stuff like clothing that's a few meters off can catch fire the moment you light up an aether saber. I won't say the portrayal of that level of heat is enacted all that consistently even by myself, but it does make it something that compels me to not recommend it for such a thin outfit (not to mention that without any solid armature to affix the aether thrusters, you're bound to hurt the user with their raw power).

In my eyes, your battery is probably more than sufficient to carry out most of your tasks, and I've never regretted using battery-powered Daisy armors before (at worst, maybe make it a battery that you can swap out and replace mid-mission). Not to mention that if you do need to travel faster, maybe it'd be better to accessorize with somekind of jetpack that you'd fasten on those hardpoints.

* * *

So yeah, that's my opinion on it.

As is, it feels very rule-of-cool and over-featured to me. If applied broadly in the setting, I think it can still come across as revolutionarily advanced by adding what I consider form-and-function related tips above. Using what tools you can get remotely for augmented reality seems to be a growing trend for Yamatai, so, it might be good to rely on that. Of course, that makes it less autonomous than a power armor... but that seems like a good tradeoff for something practically as light and slim as an AMES suit.
 
@Fred I like the idea of a sort of hand blaster, mostly because you can’t disarm a Neko with that unless you strip her down. Which in that case...

[18+]

Anyways.

Is it possible to change it out for something that’s the same damage level as an NSP?
 
Oh :/

Well, the whole gimmick is that you have a weapon you can't be disarmed from. Is there a weapon that fits that criteria?
 
Imagine a flexible metal ring that fits into a glove. That ring has circuitry attached to its outer edge that runs through the suit to the power source.

That ring can also shoot NSP-powered projectiles.

After conceptualizing it properly, I changed my mind on it getting shooty bits in its hands. After all, a Nightmare-type Neko can simply shoot ADR5 energy orbs from its palms, so a suit with miniaturized technology isn't going to be a problem.
 
a Nightmare-type Neko
You mean, Khasidel's creation, which was well-liked but never went through any approval process? (that I recall, I think it was well-liked and taken up by people before it was ever submitted)

To answer Meta_mahn, at the very rudimentary level, you could tape an NSP to the back (or underside) of a forearm. Include some mod that'd allow it to be thought activated. Aim would be crap, though, so you'd likely want to tie it into some computer that could lend you augmented reality-based aim assistance with the neko's OS (or the helmet, for a non-neko, if this suit is even non-neko wearable). That still leaves the option of removing the NSP and holding it in your hand.

If you're willing to lose out on the using it as an handheld, a Mindy's nodal support bit is finger-sized and can fire standard shots. the hand-sized drones of the Mindy II have the exact same performance as the NSP. They don't have an handle, they have onboard computer, sensors and they can float - if you remove some of that, they'd possibly be smaller.

So, based on the nodal support bits, Raz' ring may not be that outlandish. Maybe the Sylph II's phased-pulse weapons were not miniaturized to make them easier to mass-produce. Miniaturization is usually expensive (and tend to run far more hot, so you might not have as high an output, or a high rate-of-fire).

My concern with the ring is how, if that stuff happens, how does that not obsolete pistols like the NSPs? Mind you, I'm not adverse to palm blasters (it stretches my suspension of disbelief a bit, but it's kind of cool), but Wes is kind of retro in his preferences - maybe he wouldn't want the NSP to be obsoleted... which is what might happen if such a weapon attained wider application in the setting.
 
Last edited:
I don't really mind how it's used or presented just in Ame's plots.
Once I read this I knew that I wouldn't mind anything that was said.

I don't want to nerf this so completely. I didn't go into this hoping to have a replacement AMES suit. I could go point by point, Fred, but I don't really have enough investment to justify some things, acquiesce to others, and agree with you fully on more than not. It's really cool that you added so much commentary. It's just not what I am looking for in this suit. I like it being as realistic as possible, but I don't like the future I am seeing painted for it in the context of the larger setting.
 
My concern with the ring is how, if that stuff happens, how does that not obsolete pistols like the NSPs?
You already answered your own question previously in the same post.

This is a prototype suit being field tested in its first iteration. It's got all the expensive doodads and whistles, whereas staples like actual NSPs and power armor forearm guns are, as you said, mass produced. As a rule, when tech goes to mass production, really finely-tuned elements tend to get removed and/or re-incorporated somehow with something easier to use and maintain.

I think it's important to remember that this is a GM tool that the FM asked said GM to present, not a review thread.
You mean, Khasidel's creation, which was well-liked but never went through any approval process? (that I recall, I think it was well-liked and taken up by people before it was ever submitted)
Wait, so you mean Nightmares are non-canon? What a spoiler!

(literally don't respond to this part, please, it's not the topic)
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top