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equinox
I'm trying to figure out how to even begin the possibilities of creating an exosuit like the knight sabers of bubblegum crisis. for those who don't know what im talking about. i am thinking of a form-fitting suit that protects like armor and enhances strength and speed. my ideas are either to have some type of rigged suit or just some adjusted and overly expensive military grade armor with strength and speed enhancements.
Ed_209a
I am also a big BGC fan.

I am afraid you will have to GM handwave nearly all the Hardsuits' stats. They are several generations ahead of anything SR technology can put out. You _might_ be able to build them as Anthro drones, but I doubt it.

The only exception to this is Nene's ECM Hardsuit. You could pretty closely approximate it with a suit of Military armor with a lot of Rigger and Decker gear stuffed inside it.

The front line suits, though... The strength, speed, protection and armament would be impressive even if the suit was solid machinery, like a drone. When 50% of the internal volume is a pilot, it becomes unreal!
D_elf
I'd start with the JIM suit from Cannon Companion with the rigger adaption. You could stack helmet mod and with a little customization you could really get something useful for a rigger to walk around in.

moosegod
But that's designed to have it's mass supported by water while it is also resisting pressure. Not very good on land in my mind.

Personally, I think that these don't belong in SR... yet. But you could get something like this from a cross of cyberlimb development and armor work. It would certainly be heavily hidden.
Siege
Eh - YMMV.

Some people argue that such suits are more anime than the SR-cyberpunk roots.

Others want a little more power floating in their game.

However, you might have more luck exploring the mil-grade hardened armor.

The GM involved might have to do some hand-waving to permit tech advances like boomers and energy weapons, but conceptually it works.

If you can reach a level of tech involving cyberlimbs and nanites for semi-commercial applications, the concept of an armored exo-skeleton isn't too farfetched.

-Siege
FrostyNSO
Anthroform Drone Rigger...all the way.
Ol' Scratch
IF I were going to introduce something like this and IF I were going to try and stick to established rules without making up new ones from scratch -- both really big IFs -- I'd probably start with something like this.

Anthoform Drone. Body 2 for all metahumans except trolls who need Body 3. A total of 0 CF (none extra added, so no space for any sizable toys). Crank up the Speed, Load, and Handling up as high as possible, and improve the Mechanical Arm strength to whatever level was required. Then add on a Datajack Port and toss in a Trode Net. I'd then remove (reverse the costs) the Remote-Control Interface and add the cost for Robotic Reflexes and say that it augmented your reflexes while you were using it via the trode-datajack interface.

I'd see how that looked then go from there. With the hiked up Load, you could get away with adding a reasonable amount of armor (I'd stick solely to Personal Armor; Vehicle Armor is too much), too.

Now you have extreme mobility, good armor, and strength in an exoskeletal suit.
John Campbell
If I were to build powered armor for Shadowrun, it'd look, well, a lot like this.
Johnny Reb
Been mentioned for a looooong time. Depending on which rumor mill was correct (If any), MCT, Renraku, Ares, and Fuchi (Fuchi?) were working on it.

Don't think they ever got teh bugs out, tho.

(For more information, look back about 8 years to the first book with Milspec armor in it.)
Toptomcat
Hell, the only thing stopping us NOW is sufficient portable battery power, and SR seems to have some very high-capacity ones if the tiny drones with electric batteries/fuel cells can operate for any length of time.
Seraph
america....FUCK YEAH!!!!
Seraph
naw...for real though...i wanna BGC suit....i would use it to stop shadow running and play basket ball...i could sky above everyone else...shadow runner retired...yay! ok...make me a suit...
moosegod
QUOTE (Toptomcat)
Hell, the only thing stopping us NOW is sufficient portable battery power, and SR seems to have some very high-capacity ones if the tiny drones with electric batteries/fuel cells can operate for any length of time.

We also need really effective (and small) gyro stabilizers, synthetic/mechanical muscles and armor that is light enough to be moved but heavy enough to resist serous damage.
Siege
QUOTE (moosegod)
QUOTE (Toptomcat @ Dec 7 2004, 09:46 AM)
Hell, the only thing stopping us NOW is sufficient portable battery power, and SR seems to have some very high-capacity ones if the tiny drones with electric batteries/fuel cells can operate for any length of time.

We also need really effective (and small) gyro stabilizers, synthetic/mechanical muscles and armor that is light enough to be moved but heavy enough to resist serous damage.

And yet be punctured by a knife held by a non-combat 'roid.

-Siege
Toptomcat
QUOTE
We also need really effective (and small) gyro stabilizers, synthetic/mechanical muscles and armor that is light enough to be moved but heavy enough to resist serous damage.

Really, we've got two of three already. Hydraulics/pneumatics can substitute for mechanical muscles, and lightweight armor = ceramics or titanium alloys.
BitBasher
QUOTE
We also need really effective (and small) gyro stabilizers,

You mean like the ones that would be used in flying microdrones that are already in the book? grinbig.gif

QUOTE
synthetic/mechanical muscles
You mean the ones that already power cyberlimbs with lots of space inside, like are already in the book? grinbig.gif

QUOTE
and armor that is light enough to be moved but heavy enough to resist serous damage.
You mean like the milspec armor, that's already in the book? grinbig.gif

Incidentally, I think the beginnings of the technology are possible in SR, but there's very little point to it when drones can do the job of a suilt like that probably far better, cheaper, and without risking a human. They are more easily repairable to boot. They would only be good in very limited circumstances.
Toptomcat
Well, by that argument drones would've replaced soldiers by now.
The answer to that one is twofold- drones can't make decisions like soldiers can without very expensive software and even then they're not as good...and electronic warfare can cripple a squad of drones but just cuts off a human squad from communication, if that.
BitBasher
QUOTE (Toptomcat)
Well, by that argument drones would've replaced soldiers by now.
The answer to that one is twofold- drones can't make decisions like soldiers can without very expensive software and even then they're not as good...and electronic warfare can cripple a squad of drones but just cuts off a human squad from communication, if that.

No, because You sure as hell aren't going to give hardened armor to every soldier, much less multi hundred thousand dollar powered hardened armor.

A drone with a good robot level can make decisions on its own, and can act on it's own if it's cut off from communication. Not only that, it can act damn fast while doing so.

The circumstances in which powered armor would be cost effective are very limited. It's not the technology, it's the feasability or the cost to benefit ratio.
hyzmarca
You're not going to give a 20 million dollar aircraft to every soldier either, but you are certainly going to give one to every fighter pilot and every bomber pilot. You're not going to give a 15 million dollar tank to every soldier but you're certainly going to give one to every tank crew. A $999,999 suit of power armor would be cheap by comparison.
If you can outfit a squad with power armor for the same cost of providing a single tank to a mechanized calvery division then why not go for it? Not every soldier will be so equiped just like not every soldier has a tank and not every soldier flies an airplane.

Also, I imagine that most infantry will be wearing hardened armor. They'll also probably have smartlinks and some sort of reflex booster. The soldiers who decode enemy communications from a hardened bunker on the other side of the globe won't be so equiped because they don't need to be. One of the most important rules of war is that soldiers must have the supplies necessary to do their jobs. Equiping a specialized squad with specialized gear isn't at all unreasonable.
Toptomcat
If the squad's elite, fine: but if they're just grunts, I can't see them getting anything over light/medium security armor and maybe a few retinal mods.
hyzmarca
It only seems logical that military armor would be standard issue in the military.
Fortune
Why? Does every grunt have an Assault Cannon or Panzer?
Tanka
Obviously.

I've actually wanted to sit down for a long time and build up the suits used in Starship Troopers (no, not that blasphemous movie, the book by Robert A. Heinlein) for an interesting military campaign.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (Fortune)
Why? Does every grunt have an Assault Cannon or Panzer?

Becuase a hold-out pistol can still kill someone wearing security armor. The cost of training a replacement far outweighs the cost of a single suit of light military armor.
The cost-benefit ccertainly isn't in favor of power armor but it is in favor light military armor.

It would be stupid to give an assault cannon to every soldier as it ruins their versalitity, but it makes sense to have one member of a squad equiped with heavy artilary
BitBasher
IIRC according to the examples given the average Lone Star cop has more cyber than the average military grunt.
U_Fester
QUOTE (Fortune)
Why? Does every grunt have an Assault Cannon or Panzer?

Sounds like your GM has a death wish for your group if they are all carying that type of weaponry. Alot of TKing and he/she is cleaning house by getting rid of everyone?
Tanka
QUOTE (BitBasher)
IIRC according to the examples given the average Lone Star cop has more cyber than the average military grunt.

Gotta keep up with da man on da street, yo.

*shudder*

I swear, every time I do that, I promise never to do it again. I should just develop a machine that hits me every time it detects ebonics in anything I post on the internet.
Fortune
QUOTE (U_Fester)
QUOTE (Fortune @ Dec 7 2004, 11:47 PM)
Why? Does every grunt have an Assault Cannon or Panzer?

Sounds like your GM has a death wish for your group if they are all carying that type of weaponry.

In what way did I imply anything of the kind?
Catsnightmare
I don't have a very good idea of how to convert stats from Fuzion to SR3, but from the looks of the Hardsuit stats in the BGC 2033 book. Even the suits the Knight Sabres had the equivalant of quickness and combat pool penalties (though not nearly as harsh as those of the ADP K-11 and military K-12 suits)

As for rigging and hardsuits, (or any other form of powered armor) I'd day no. A full out anthroform vehicle, yes rigging one would be more than appropriate.
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