Thursday, May 21, 2020

Ultra-Tech Ultra-Gear: Energy Converging Armor

Force fields are a stable of Sci-Fi. They let you throw around bigga-joules worth of firepower across the screen and give a hand wavy way of letting ships survive the impacts.

Of course some setting realize that if  force fields are a thing, there are other things you can do with them. For example some works like Star Trek use force fields as "structural integrity fields" to reinforce a ships hull against high G maneuvers. Others use them to show off significantly advanced aliens by having elevators and walk ways made out of force fields, some will have entire structures  made out of "hard light".

Though one fairly obvious clever use of force field tech seems to go unnoticed is using them to reinforce actual armor. In fact the only settings that pop to my mind or the energy conversion armor from Macross and Bonded Superdesne armor from Traveller.

Oh.... and there is one other setting... what was it again? Oh yeah, Luke Campbell's work in progress RPG setting VergeWorld. Go check it out. Oh and to convert numbers into something more familiar to GURPS players a Row Shift follows the 1.5, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 progression, a weapons penetration stat is just GURPS average damage and so on.

But with that plug out of the way, I mean if you can reinforce a crafts frame with an integrity field why not also boost it's armor? Well ask why not no more since below you will find my take on how to SWAG your armor!
 



Energy Converging Armor (TL10^)
Energy Converging Armor (ECA) is a tech level 10^ development that uses an advanced soliton wave amplifier generator (SWAG) that sends out rapid pulse of  powerful electromagnetic waves to to reinforce specially modified laminate armor. Against kinetic attacks this effect increases the effective hardness the armor helping it shatter incoming ballistic rounds or resit deformation against collisions or explosions. Against energy weapons, the electromagnetic field helps shunt the beams energy over a wider area decreasing its penetrating power.

While expensive and needs a power source to work, this system can triple or more the protection a given layer of armor provided once powered.

This system must be integrated into the armor that uses it and can not be added on later.

There are three types of ECA.

Standard (also called light) ECA: Triples the DR a given laminate armor provides, drains 0.35kw per pound of armor per second of activation (Uses 1pp per 2 armor system if using with Spaceships). 5 times the cost of the base armor.

Heavy (or reinforced) ECA: Provides up to six times the DR, drains 0.7kw per pound or armor (Uses 1pp per armor system if using with Spaceships). 50 times the cost of the base armor.

Advanced (or layered) ECA: Provides up to 12 times the DR, drains 1.4kw per pound of armor (uses 2pp per armor system if using with Spaceships). 100 times the cost of the base armor.

In all cases the base armor must be either be advanced nano-laminate, diamondoid laminate, or Hyperdense laminate.


See this post on how to power the armor.

See this post on how to add advanced nano-laminate, diamondoid laminate, or Hyperdense laminate to Spaceships.

If less power is available or the operator needs to conserve power, the amount the ECA increases armor can be reduced to a minimum of of 1.5× the armor base DR.This lowers the power drain by a proportional amount.

Example: A unit equipped with 3,000lbs of  Heavy ECA is starting to drain their power cells a little to much so they drop the increased protection it grants from six times as much to just two times as much. This reduces the power drain from 2.1MW to 2/6th as much or 700kw.

It takes a ready action to turn off or on ECA or to adjust it's protection level.

2 comments:

  1. Nice idea. like, when you absolutely need to go full defense))

    Also, speaking of hard light, I remembered "holograms" from Mass Effect, which were hard enough to serve as blades or even projectiles))

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    Replies
    1. Force Blades: We would like to introduce ourselves. :D

      I'll just leave this post right here http://gurb3d6.blogspot.com/2016/10/totally-not-lightsabers.html

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