Aberrant 2.0 Trinity Armor

Armor

Armor in Trinity makes use of custom-engineered lightweight monocrystalline composites, shear-thickening fluid, impact-resistant ceramics, foamed-metal alloys, carbon nanotubes, and other high-tech goodies to provide more protection at lower weight and bulk to equivalent Aberrant-era armors. With excellent protection against all forms of ordinance from ballistic impact to lasers, particle beams, and plasma weapons, and improved protection against Aberrant-only forms of attack such as acid sprays, scything talons, and quantum attacks, these protective shells give soldiers a fighting chance against the most terrible sub-aberrants or taint mutants.

Even as armor has gotten tougher and lighter, they have become more intelligent. Biomonitors, embedded computing, tactical aids, and other improvements that nearly a century and a half have brought have made armor ever smarter, capable of continuously feeding telemetry on the condition of the wearer to everyone who has need of the data. These more advanced armors are designed to rapidly accept and integrate modular systems which enhance every aspect of the wearer's physical and mental state for combat, rather than the 'dumb' armors that were used in the Aberrant era by the majority of the world.

New Rules

Armor Health Levels
Some armor provides additional health levels. These health levels represent the armor's bulk or ablative components absorbing harm that would otherwise injure the wearer, and take damage first before the wearer does. Armor health levels do not heal naturally, but may be repaired. If the armor is removed, the damage the armor has taken stays with the armor, not the wearer.

Modular Armor
Armor can be modified 'in the field' with a general-purpose toolkit and some time. Adding or removing an armor modification is an (Intelligence + Engineering) roll at standard difficulty, with each roll requiring 1 minute of time, due to all Trinity-era armor being designed for rapid modular reconfiguration.

Biotech Armors
Note that certain types of armor require the user to be formatted to it and therefore cannot be used by Novas or baseline humans.

Hardtech

• Reinforced Clothing: Soak 2B/3L, Penalty -0, Mass 3, Destruction 20

Reinforced with anti-ballistic and anti-stab fibers, reinforced clothing provides protection from low-powered pistols, knife blows, and some protection against fists and clubs while remaining nearly impossible to spot.

• CBRN Suit: Soak 2B/3L, Penalty -2, Mass 8, Destruction 20

Intended for protecting against environmental hazards, CBRN suits are shielded against all conventional biotech threats, and the most advanced versions even have noetically-active biotechnology to limit the ill effects of teratogen exposure. CBRN suits are tough and self-sealing, but every time the user takes damage from an attack that penetrates (i.e. deals more than ping damage) in an environmental threat environment, roll 1d10. On a '1', the suit is breached for long enough that the user suffers the ill effects of the threat for 1 turn.

• Vacuum Suit: Soak 3B/4L, Penalty -0, Mass 10, Destruction 20

A Vacuum suit provides medium-duration protection against vacuum via integrated oxygen recycling. Vacuum suits are generally good for 24 hours of use without further accessories.

• Crash Suit: Soak 6B/3L, Penalty -0, Mass 3, Destruction 24

A 'crash suit' is a smart material form-fitting suit made of shear-thickening gel packs and piezoelectric fabric, which hardens to protect against impact. Designed primarily to protect against blows, these tend to be commonly used for athletes, but provide a decent amount of battlefield protection for light weight and high concealability.

• Armor Vest: Soak 4B/4L, Penalty -0, Mass 4.5, Destruction 25

Designed to protect the vitals from bullets and knife blows, a standard armor vest is high-tensile-strength fabric over light, semi-flexible monocrys inserts, providing heavy protection at low mass and bulk. Armor vests can be hidden under overcoats or other similar heavy clothing.

• Field Suit: Soak 4B/6L, Penalty -0, Mass 9, Destruction 30

A field suit is lightweight soft body armor designed for special forces and other personnel who needed protection from weapons without a reduction in mobility and endurance. Field suits may be soft armor but are obviously armor and extremely difficult (and uncomfortable) to hide under clothing.

• Combat Armor: Soak 8B/7L, Penalty -2, Mass 20, Destruction 35

Standard full body combat armor, used by many militaries. This is representative of a no-frills civilian-legal version, most soldiers use heavily modified variants with integrated sensors, power systems, and other accessories.

• Vacuum Assault Suit: Soak 12B/9L [hardened 8B/7L], Strength + 3/Dexterity + 1/Perception + 1, 4 HLs, Mass 50, Destruction 40

A far more sophisticated variation on the early powered exoskeletons used by China, the EU, and the US during the Nova age, the Vacuum Assault Suit is a hardtech suit of heavy armor plate over acrylic muscle that responds to nervous signals and a shape-memory alloy exoskeleton that resists deformation. Roughly comparable to the BioVAS listed below, the standard hardtech VAS has lower endurance and reliability than the BioVAS owing to its less advanced self-repair systems. A standard VAS has enough power to operate for 24 hours without recharging, 96 hours if used in minimal power mode (without the attribute bonuses), and is fully sealed against all environmental threats, with both Vacuum and CBRN protection.

• Troll MiniVARG: Soak 12B/10L, 6 HLs, Strength + 3[3]/Dexterity + 1/Perception + 2, Mass 250, Destruction 45

The Troll is used by the Russian Army and the FSA, as well as exported to various other private and public security concerns. 2.2 meters tall and equipped with no inbuilt weaponry, Trolls typically use combination weapons-typically an anti-armor weapon (such as a modified magazine-fed anti-tank missile launcher or a pulse cannon) with an antipersonnel weapon system (such as a light railgun) in an over-under fashion, or alternatively heft a cut-down light VARG weapon.

• Kami MiniVARG: Soak 12B/12L, 8 HLs, Strength + 3[5]/Dexterity + 2/Perception + 4, Mass 300, Destruction 50

The Japanese equivalent to the Chameleon, the Kami is has a superior sensors suite but lacks the durability, speed, or stealth camouflage abilities of the Chameleon, nor does it retain the ability to mount a light VARG weapon. Instead, it mounts an inbuilt multi-threat rifle, comparable to the Voss 93 in ability, and a 30mm grenade launcher with a box magazine. The Kami uses VARG rules for strength (i.e. its Strength Adds convert to damage adds at a 2:1 ratio and do not increase melee attack accuracy).

Multi-Rifle: Acc + 4, Dmg 12L (coilgun), Range 300, RoF 50, Magazine 400, AP:3

Screamer: Damage 12B/L (ignores armor, soak via Stamina only), Range 25, RoF 1, Magazine (inf)

Plasma: Damage 12L [4], Range 25, RoF 1, Magazine 40

30mm Grenade Launcher: Accuracy +0, Dmg 10L [4] or as grenade, Range 100, Rate 20, Magazine 20, Exp:3

Flechette/Buckshot: Dmg 10L, Rng 50, hits everything in an arc

HEAP: Dmg 12L [4], AP:4

Incendiary: Dmg 4L [5], Incendiary (successful attack sets target on fire, doing 6L/turn until put out)

Biotech

• Armor Carapace: Soak 6B/6L, Penalty -1, Mass 15, Tolerance 1, Destruction 30

The biotech equivalent of combat armor is slightly lighter and grown from pseudochitin woven on a suit of spidersilk. If formatted to the user, the chitin plates become more flexible when not actively protecting against harm, reducing the penalty to -0.

• Bioweave Armor: Soak 4B/5L, Penalty -0, Mass 5, Tolerance 3, Destruction 20

Bioweave Armor is built out of spidersilk, carbon nanotubing, and synthetic tissue, and when attuned covers the Psion as a protective second skin, providing extremely potent protection from just about any threat. Bioweave Armor provides limited NBC filtering, adding 1 success to all resistance rolls against toxins, and is nearly undetectable without a medical examination.

• EES (Militarized): Soak 2B/3L, Penalty -0, Mass 6, Tolerance 4, Destruction 15

The Electrokinetic Enhancement Suit (Militarized) is a prototype psi enhancement suit given to Orgotek field operatives, adding +4 to Psi for power duration and effect. It also incorporates a biocomputer inside, which can be used as any other computer. Somewhat fragile and extremely expensive, only Orgotek field operatives have been spotted wearing such a system. A nonmilitarized version lacks the redundant backups and the armoring, but is only Tolerance 3. Whenever hit by any weapon, the nonmilitarized version loses 1 dot of Enhancement, and must be repaired at a high-end biotech facility when all bonuses are lost.

• Inside-Out: Soak 5B/5L, Penalty -0, Mass 10, Tolerance 3, Destruction 20

The Inside-Out is a enhancement suit used by biokinetics which provides great benefits, resembling a human skeleton woven on a skintight fiber-weave suit. The bones are ceramic-reinforced, and the weave is carbon nanotube over vat-grown musculature interwoven with ballistic resistant fibers. A Psion formatted to the suit gains +2 to Psi rolls for powers, and adds +2 to Adaptation, Psychomorphing, and Transmogrification (this does not unlock new powers, but does increase passive benefits). However, the suit does not change shape, adding +2 to the difficulty of all Transmogrification rolls while wearing it.

• BioVAS: Soak 12B/9L, [hardened 8B/7L] +4 -0 HLs, Strength + 3/Dexterity + 1/Stamina + 1/Perception + 2, Mass 45, Tolerance 3, Destruction 40

A BioVAS (Biological Vacuum Assault Suit) is a highly advanced biotech suit of body armor that must be custom-formatted to its user. Enhancing strength, endurance, and agility via powerful artificial muscles and providing protection against all but the heaviest weapons with heavy pseudochitin plates, a BioVAS plugs into the user's cardiovascular system and provides life support for a week in a hostile environment if formatted. A formatted BioVAS provides the increased attributes stated above, and has its own health levels which must take damage before the user does.

• Chameleon BioVARG: Soak 12B/12L, +7 -0 HLs, Strength + 4[5]/Dexterity + 3/Perception + 3, Mass 250, Tolerance 4, Destruction 45

The Chameleon BioVARG is the smallest VARG in existence, and it is quite possible to fit one inside built-up terrain such as the inside of buildings or starships without difficulty. It also serves a purpose in allowing a Psion formatted to one to fight weaker Novas on even footing. A Chameleon BioVARG's hands are sized for human weaponry and as such can use any human weapons, but a shoulder harness allows the Psion to wield any light VARG weapon. A Chameleon is a suit of power armor-but nevertheless, requires some piloting skill because the VARG responds faster than the body and takes it for the ride. A character using a Chameleon without at least 3 in Piloting (VARGs) does not gain the dexterity bonus and is at +1 difficulty to all physical actions which require fine manipulation.

Accessories

• Flight Pack:

A flight pack is a winged rocket pack using an air-breathing hybrid engine to achieve up to three hours of powered endurance (powered endurance in space is significantly lower, closer to 3 minutes). These suits deal 4L damage/action to the user unless the user has armor which provides more than 4L lethal soak and covers the entire body. This pack comes in two variants, a small one for personal use, massing 30kg, and the MiniVARG variant, which is larger and significantly more powerful, massing 80kg. There are full-size VARG flight packs, but those are generally only used for airborne insertions rather than maneuverability.

Safe Speed 150 (120), Max Speed 250 (200), VS 1 (1.5 G acceleration), Maneuver +0, Armor 3/8 for MiniVARG pack, HLs -0 x 2/-1 x 2/-2 x 2/-4 x 2/Disabled

• Ionic Landing System: Mass 2

Ionic landing systems are single-use emergency ionic propulsion systems intended to slow an armored soldier from terminal velocity to a safe landing without the use of a vulnerable parachute, allowing neutrals to emulate Legion or Orgotek no-chute drops. One of these systems cancels all damage from a fall, and is then rendered useless due to burnout.

• Shield Generator: Mass 3, Tolerance 2

A shield generator is a bioapp which generates synthetic psychokinetic modes. Unformatted, a shield generator provides 4 health levels of shielding, enough to protect against limited fire, and regenerates 1 health level a minute. Formatted, the shield generator provides 8 health levels of shielding.

• Biosystems Strangler: Mass 5, Tolerance 3

The Biosystems strangler is a biotech exoskeleton made of bioengineered vines, which interfaces with the wearer and improves physical prowess. When donned, the strangler adds +2 to strength and dexterity, adds +2B/0L to the soak of any armor the user is wearing (or is treated as armor with 2B/0L soak if no armor is worn), and has enough chemical fuel for one hour of continuous use at the highest level of enhancement. After the hour is up, the Strength and Dexterity bonuses decrease by 1 each. After each additional hour of active use, the user must roll Endurance. Failure adds a cumulative +1 difficulty to all physical rolls until the character can get rest. Formatted users add +1d to the roll, and only have to roll once every 2 hours.

• Load-Bearing Frame: Mass 3

A load-bearing frame is a skeletal smart frame which distributes weight as evenly as possible across the body to reduce encumberance. This increases a character's Might by 1 for the purposes of carrying capacity, as equipment stored on a load-bearing frame causes less muscle strain and fatigue.

Armor Mods

Defensive

Mindshield
Certain Aberrants have been capable of extracting intelligence from the minds of soldiers, and there are a handful who, although maddened, are capable of using mental attacks or even mind control on a tactical scale. These systems are expensive (cost 4) but commonly issued to soldiers expecting potential Aberrant contact.
System: Mindshields add +2 additional successes to any roll made by the armor user to resist mental intrusion.

Noetic Stabilizer
One of the advancements the Chitra Bantu made before they were exterminated for Aberrant taint, the Noetic Stabilizer is an advanced web of biotech similar to a psionic booster, fed off of an integrated nutrient solution. This system is psionically capable to a limited extent, but rather than emulating any psi aptitude, it emulates one of the natural abilities of a psi-the ability to resist Quantum powers. These systems are expensive and hard to build (cost 5) and relatively uncommon.
System: Unformatted, the stabilizer adds +2B/2L/2A soak against quantum powers and +2 difficulty to any attempts made to affect the armor or user with quantum powers. Formatted, the stabilizer increases a Psion's resistance against powers, doubling their resistance and soak bonuses (to Psi rather than Psi/2) instead. Noetic Stabilizers are Tolerance 3 bioapps.

Dilatant Core
A dilatant core buffer in the armor made of a matrix of shock gel-embedded carbon buckyballs provides additional protection against penetration, catastrophic injury, and shock, spreading damage across a greater surface and absorbing force. However, the protection significantly degrades after impact and a powerful enough weapon can breach the core and render the gel useless against further hits.
System: The armor gains 2 additional health levels, which take damage before the user.

Quantum Hardening
Using quantum-resistant materials such as Klot to shield vulnerable components from interference, the armor and wearer are made more resistant to subversive quantum power. This modification is generally standard for any military armor system, to prevent cyberkinetic subversion.
System: This armor mod adds +3 difficulty to any attempt to affect the armor itself with any quantum powers, and +2 difficulty to use quantum powers on the wearer.

Point Defense
With the increasing proliferation of smart micromunitions via payload rifles and grenade launchers, there has been a need for countermeasures against grenades, minimissiles, and other small-caliber (15-50mm) explosive ordinance. Point defense launchers use high-G countermissiles or shotgun sprays of flechettes to intercept incoming fire, targeted by a compound sensor network on the armor skin.
System: Against armor with point defense installed, any attack made with grenades or guided weaponry on the user is at +2 difficulty. Energy weapons, bullets, and other forms of high-velocity unguided weaponry are immune to interception. Point defense may only be installed on combat armor, carapace armor, VASes, or MiniVARGs, whether hardtech or biotech.

Stealth

Active Camouflage
A cheap and commonplace modification to all military armor, active camouflage uses chromatophores, LEDs, and Bayesian pattern-matching to provide protection against optical spotting. Thermal stealth elements break up the IR signature, while LED backlighting eliminates shadows. High-end military grade systems even provide noise cancellation and radar masking. The result is not perfect, but can reduce the effective sight range of a human by 80% or more under most conditions-even if it does fail if forced to make rapid changes, such as during combat.
System: Military-grade Active Camouflage adds +1 difficulty to any rolls made to detect the user via any method save smell, Psi, or "psychic" Quantum powers such as Telepathy. Cheaper variants may only provide visual stealth.

Chameleon Polymer: Chameleon polymer is an metamaterial "invisibility coating" which can be fitted to any suit of full-body armor. This metamaterial coat refracts certain wavelengths EM radiation around the user. While not nearly as broad-spectrum as military active camouflage, metamaterial is far more effective and does work during combat.
System: Chameleon Polymer adds +2 difficulty to any rolls made to detect the user via the visual spectrum or near-visual forms of radiation (IR, UV, etc.). If an opponent does not have superhuman hearing, radar, or other forms of detection, even if spotted the +2 difficulty applies to any attacks made, as it is hard to draw a bead on a rapidly moving near-invisible silhouette.

Soak-Boosting

Olaminium Hardening
Using a trace amount of the synthetic element olaminium to reinforce armor greatly increases armor mass and reduces wearer agility. However, these armors are near-indestructible, capable of stopping far more damage than armors using conventional polymers and metals. As an additional feature, Olaminium is also an extremely good shield against several types of hard radiation as well as extremely difficult to disintegrate, with a melting point and tensile strength sufficient to provide limited protection against the fireball of a nuclear explosion and certain extremely deadly quantum powers.
System: Add (-1) to an armor's penalty, and increases its mass by 50%. Olaminium hardening adds +3B/3L to soak and +10 to its destruction rating. For the Vacuum Assault Suit Kami, and Ogre, the dexterity bonus is lost. Hardening armor with olaminium provides aggravated soak equal to half the armor's original lethal soak rating, rounded down. Olaminium-hardened armor costs 2 dots more than normal and must be hardtech in nature.

• Pure Olaminium
  

Using a significant amount of the hyperdense and hypertough synthetic element olaminium, the armor is reinforced with thick (relatively speaking, the absurd density of olaminium prevents more than ~.01 mm thick plates being used) layers of olaminium to provide extreme resistance against ballistic penetration, hard radiation, and just about anything which might harm the user.
System: Pure-olaminium armor doubles the armor's penalty rating (or increases it by -2, whichever is greater), gains +5B/5L soak, and +15 to its destruction rating. In addition, the armor has an aggravated soak equal to its lethal soak before being made pure-olaminium. The pure-olaminium armor masses 150% more than the original suit, costs 3 dots more, and must be hardtech. The VAS, Kami, and Ogre have no dexterity bonus and a -2 penalty if made of pure olaminium.

Example: A pure-olaminium suit of combat armor (+8B/7L base soak) now has a soak of (+13B/12L/7A), a mass of 50 kg, and a penalty of -4.

• Piezohardened Armor
  

The armor's outer shell is reinforced with a piezoelectric material that hardens to an extreme degree under electrical charge, hardening against incoming fire while remaining flexible under all other conditions. For unpowered armors, flexible battery systems are woven into the soft armor layers, providing sufficient power to run the system, and protection against thermal and energy weaponry is achieved via a superconductor grid.
System: Armor with this enhancement gains +5 to its destruction rating and +1B/1L soak, with no increase in penalty or mass.

Offensive

• Shock Liner
  

Armor with this enhancement is designed to electrocute any attackers in close combat, using flexible batteries and a network of discharge prongs built throughout the armor. There are two variants of this: a nonlethal one, used for riot police, and a lethal one intended for combat against Aberrants. Note that neither variant is effective against shielded electronics.
System: The nonlethal variant deals 10B damage (like a taser) whenever the user is hit by an unarmed attack or successfully hits with an unarmed attack, the lethal variant deals 10L in the same circumstances. In both cases, the shock damage is soaked separately to any melee attack.

• Targeting Uplink
  

This enhancement adds improved targeting programs to an armor's computer systems, and enhances the user's ability to wield weapons with artificial muscle stabilizers that reduce weapon shaking and gently guide the user's aim to his intended target. A neural interface ensures that no mistakes in targeting are made. System: This enhancement adds +1 to the accuracy of all weapons.

• Melee Explosive Projector
  

A common enhancement for any soldiers expecting to get into fights with Aberrants, MEPs are intended to knock off, injure, and stun Aberrants for long enough to allow a soldier the chance to draw their weapon and eliminate the threat. When activated by the armor computer or a direct command by the user, multiple directional explosive charges are fired, launching a spray of armor-penetrating flechettes in all directions.
System: When activated as a reflexive action, a MEP deals 12L [3] damage with AP:3 to all targets in a 10m radius (assume 5 successes were rolled if attempting to dodge), 10B damage to the user (reduced by armor and Stamina as normal), and knocks the opponent prone unless the opponent succeeds a Strength + Might roll at a difficulty equal to the number of health levels of damage he took. This can be fit on any armor, but armor without full body protection renders the damage lethal and of course lighter armors will allow more damage through.

Utility

• Vacuum Capability: A combination of self-sealing systems, an integrated oxygen recycler, and smart materials capable of functioning as a mechanical counterpressure suit, this modification provides its wearer with an armor suit that can survive vacuum. Armored clothing may accept this accessory, but it restricts the styles available to full-body clothing choices and requires an integrated hood.

• CBRN Sealing: The armor is equipped with an internal nanotech immune system, low-power anti-radiation fields, chemical scrubbers, and a self-sealing undersuit to protect against chemical, biological, radioactive, and nanotechnological threat. Armor of this sort provides full protection against most forms of environmental hazard.

• Powered Armor: Depending on the armor type (bio or hard), this can take the form of either synthetic muscle and powerful servomotors, or vat-grown muscle tissue genetically typed to the user. Powering an armor adds +2 to the user's strength and +1 to the user's dexterity, increasing his strength and agility, and simultaneously reduces the armor's penalty by -1 (min 0), but increases expense (+1 to cost, min cost 3). Armor that is already powered (the VAS, BioVAS, and Chameleon) cannot accept this enhancement, while extremely lightweight armor such as reinforced clothing or crash suits can only be powered to a limited extent, adding +1 to Strength and no other bonuses. Power armor normally has a standard endurance of 24 hours without recharge, but for a biotech armor, formatting the armor the armor's musculature integrates with the user's cardiovascular system, giving it near-indefinite powered endurance.

• Enhanced Sensors: A suit can be fitted with various sensors, several types of which are listed below. The first sensor option also adds +1 to the wearer's Awareness rolls. There are also standalone sensor systems with any (or all) of these capabilities.

Thermal: Thermal imaging allows the user to see heat, adding a bonus success to detect someone with a body temperature drastically different from the environment, but +1 difficulty to any roll to see someone with a body temperature close to the environment. Thermals also allow some interesting feats in certain environments, like tracking someone's movement via the warmth of their footprints.

Low-Light: Removes all penalties for lighting as long as there is any light source available.

Acoustic: Improved acoustic scanners can triangulate the location of gunfire, footsteps, and even heartbeats.

EMI: EMI sensors allow the user to track unshielded powered-on electronics, the bleed of power lines, active radio emitters, and other systems which create electromagnetic interference.

Terahertz Radiation: Terahertz radiation scanning allows its user to see through thin, nonmetallic walls.