PmWiki | Waylight / ArmorBackup

The Slipstream is not a safe place; wildlife attacks are common and law enforcement or military presence sporadic, which has caused nearly all lands save Tsuxia to give up on weapons control past requiring visitors to carry openly and keep safeties bound. This of course causes fights to turn serious pretty quickly, which makes armor a necessity.

Textiles through the Slipstream take full advantage of any synergy that might exist between alpine, hybrid and deep environments: as a result fibers that would otherwise require advanced manufacturing and large amounts of hydrocarbons can simply be spun with barely more processing than linen or cotton require. Most lands are high up and cold enough to prevent most anyone who isn't vacationing on Pasqualis from showing too much skin, so ordinary clothing will provide a minimum amount of protection from blows.

Armor is applied after an attack has been rolled, but before the successes are translated into Hit Markers on the unit. For each point of resistance the armor offers, one Hit Marker is negated. Resistance can be generally applied, or categorized by damage type.

Type	Example	Armor value	Bonus against	Penalty against
Light wear	Naked; sundress; swimming suit; pijamas	0	None	None
Medium wear	Suit and tie; casualwear; white-collar work clothing	0	Projectile	None
Heavy wear	Open-cockpit pilot outfit; blue-collar work clothing; overalls; hiking or climbing getups	1	None	Piercing
Light armor	Police uniform; military fatigues; padded vest	1	Blunt	Environmental
Flak armor	Fighter pilot outfit; military flickers; duelist gear; leathers	1	Projectile	Environmental
Medium armor	Chainmail; standard mining stomp suit without filters; riot police gear	2	None	Environmental
Heavy armor	Segmented plate; pocketed plate; monster-hunter stomp suit without filters	2	Piercing	Environmental

Environmental effects such as fire, miasma, extreme cold and so on can be replicated by some sprayers.

Stomp suits confer environmental resistance based on their quality rating; their endurance rating indicates their air and possibly water supply, when the supply is exhausted environmental resistance drops to none.

Anything expressly designed as armor will cause fatigue to anyone who isn't trained in its use; medium and heavy armor will cause fatigue regardless, but do so much more quickly to untrained users.

Armor can be tailored to add one point of any one resistance except environmental.

Motorized armor exists; linear motors built into a frame connected to the the legs and back allow for an effective negation of the suit's weight as long as they are powered, which allows for wearing heavy armor for an extended period of time without fatingue. They confer no other advantage (and are generally a very bad thing to be caught in when they are unpowered), so it's very rare to see motorized armor outside of specialized heavy stomp suits. Linear motors are generally not precise enough to work with shoulder joints, so motorized armor that also confers strength bonuses is limited to custom-built experimental suits. Either way, motorized armor is slow and unwieldy.