Random stuff: This is a quick and dirty system I whipped up in an evening but never got around to posting. This system is designed to replicate the SR armor as closely as possible. The restrictions in these rules are almost all utterly arbitrary, delete at your leisure. Some are neccessary from a balance point of view, unless you're OK with armor that is clearly better than the armor listed in the BBB.

Notice that there is nothing about availability or street index in this system. That is because availability and SI have no pattern to them whatsoever. Armor costs about the same under this system as it does under the normal system. Some cost a little more, some cost a little less.

I could find no justification for how Secure armor was designed. Therefore, I assumed it must be a specific brand and diverged from the examples given. You could easily buff out this system by adding numerous brands to it. Maybe I will at some point in the future.



Rules and Regulations: One armor rating cannot be more than double the other. Armor ratings cannot be equal. 4/4 is not ok, 4/3 is ok, 4/2 is ok, 4/1 is not. Any time you end up with a concealability of 12, raise it to 13. Always round down fractions. You cannot raise ballistic+impact to more than 8 without taking the Security Grade trait. You cannot raise ballastic or impact to more than 5 without taking the Security Grade feature.


Armor begins with a conceal of 12. This armor would have a weight of 1 and either 2/1 or 1/2 for armor ratings. It would cost 200 nuyen.

Features
Coat: The armor provides +50% conceal to items concealed underneath it and raises the price by 100 nuyen. You cannot buy this trait if your ballistic or impact is greater than 4.

Heavier Materials: For every .25 kg incease weight by, reduce the cost by 50 nuyen. You cannot take this feature more than four times.

Improved Ballistic: For every 1 point you increase ballistic by, reduce its concealability by 1.5 points, increase its weight by .25 kg, and increase the cost by 150 nuyen

Improved Impact: For every 1 point you increase impact by, reduce its concealability by .5 points, increase its weight by .25 kg, and increase the cost by 50 nuyen.

Improved Conceal: For every 1 point you increase conceal by, increase the cost by 100 nuyen. You cannot buy this feature more than twice nor can it raise conceal to more than 15.

Security Grade: Multiple the final price of the armor by 7. Multiply weight by 6. Security Grade armor cannot be layered with other armor. Security Grade armor can have various electronics installed in them. Molest your GM/Molest yourself, I'm not making a list.

SecureTech Brand: Add 3 to an armors concealability, increase weight by .5, and reduce its cost by 50 nuyen. If the armor is a Coat, instead add 2 to the armors concealability and apply the rest of the modifiers. This type of armor cannot have the various armor modifications listed in the Cannon Companion added to it.

Edit 1: Greater ballistic and impact now add weight to armor. This results in most armors ending up within .25-.5 of their BBB weight if you attempt to recreate them. Security grade increases weight now as it should have and cannot be layered with other armor.

One problem: The Form Fitting Body Armor Level 3 is 4/1. Other than that... It was too long to read.

MegaSuperArmor Mk IA

2/1 + HeavyMat 64 + ImpBall 18 + ImpImp 9 + SecGrade

Weight: 17kg
Concealability: 0
Ball/Imp: 20/10
Price: 1,050

[I blame my inner munchkin]

Umm... Yeah, the system is probably fine as long as you don't let players use it. And if you as the GM don't really consider it binding, either.

I have noticed that armor tends to have an absolute maximum, usually around 6-8. I'd probably incorporate that in somehow unless you want people to build brick walls around themselves (after all, once you've lost all your combat pool, whats stopping you from putting a few more points of ballistic on?) Aside from that, it looks like it's nice for low level armor. I'd probably let my players use it for designing anything with armors level 5 or below.

Given the abstract and arbitrary manner in which the armor system was designed, assigning any kind of structured creation system seems more like wishful thinking.

Between the existing samples of armor and the rules for meaningful upgrades, just allow players to tweak armor within reason (as defined by the GM).

It'll save you a lot of headache.

-Siege

17 kilos of armor? If SR had an even remotely realistic system for fatigue and I were GMing, I'd let you have it.