Why does armor not lose environmental protection when you get hit by a bullet?


General Discussion


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This thread is for listing some cool reasons why a piece or armor wouldn't lose its environmental protection when you get hit with a bullet.

The book gives force fields as one example.

Some examples my friends and I have come up with so far:

• When the suit detects damage, it backfills the hole with foam at the damaged spot, keeping it's user protected.

• Bio-organic suit with an intelligent fungus. It grows mycelium fibers to fill in damaged sections, which helps maintain the environmental protection.

• Technomancer technology; when the armor gets hit with enough force (the AC), it shatters, forms into a mist, and reforms the armor, keeping the environmental protection active.

What other ideas can we come up with for why armor keeps its environmental protection after you get hit with a bullet or something else that realistically should tear through the suit?


Specifically for a Solarian with the Solar Armour Manifestation

-The inky darkness of the void, or the burning light of a star washes over the punctures and secures them.


Nanomachines seem a decent idea too. Just have a hive send nanomachines to basically form a scab over breaches in the armor.


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It would have to be in a way that still allows for damage, otherwise sundering armor wouldn't work. I personally like the idea of making outer space combat really intense by having environmental protection fail in space if you get shot. Makes space as spooky as it should be.

However I realize that doesn't answer the question, so how about environmental protection is a thin layer inside most armors that is repaired with nanobots? They don't repair the armor itself though, because any use of them should be saved for critical emergencies.

Dark Archive

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Reason #3 -- It is very cold in space, liquids like blood freeze instantly effectively sealing the puncture.

Reason #2 -- The environment suits are seal healing (note there are a number of materials that already meet this requirement)

... and finally ...

Reason #1 -- It's a game! to borrow from MST3000 "Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax""

Play well, and have fun


Necrotech. It seeps blood into rips and holes and then coagulates and hardens back into a bone like carapace.

The Exchange

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- environment protection is a force field not physical
- it works like scab formation and bleeding. The damage causes a liquid to fill into the area and self harden.
- the suit is ionic and self magnetises so any damage just "zips" back up
- it has repair bots crawling all over it. These are like little spiders that spin microfibre webbing over damaged areas.

Liberty's Edge

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OzInc wrote:
Reason #3 -- It is very cold in space, liquids like blood freeze instantly effectively sealing the puncture.

Space is not cold. Cold requires matter for you to be in contact with and transfer your heat to. In a vacuum, you are actually at risk of overheating as you can absorb heat from a "nearby" star and have no way to transfer it away. (So, as part of protecting you from a vacuum, armor has to either reduce the amount of energy absorbed or have an internal cooling system.)

Back on topic, out of character, an attack that hits does not represent actually connecting with an attack.

A more interesting answer would be the complex but miniaturized systems that go into the basic functions of armor (like environmental protection) are under sufficient enough pressure as to instant seal around punctures until nanites can more permanently repair the damage. This sometimes results in side effects like a foul smell to the recycled air.


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Smite Makes Right wrote:


Space is not cold. Cold requires matter for you to be in contact with and transfer your heat to. In a vacuum, you are actually at risk of overheating as you can absorb heat from a "nearby" star and have no way to transfer it away.

That's half right.

Only conduction requires you to be in contact with another object. You can still radiate heat away. Otherwise, there wouldn't be anything to transfer heat to you.

Additionally, there's no atmosphere to retain heat, so the only heat transfer to you is from radiation of any nearby stars - so long as you're in the direct path. If you have something blocking it, such as the dark side of a planet or moon (or space station), you'll be hotter than your surroundings and you'll radiate heat outwards. Likewise if you're too far away.

If you're in the direct path of a nearby star, and close enough for it to matter, then you're absolutely right.

Quote:
Back on topic, out of character, an attack that hits does not represent actually connecting with an attack.

If they do HP damage, it does. Only SP damage isn't an actual hit.

From Page 22: "Hit Points (HP) measure how robust and healthy you are—a reduction in Hit Points represents physical wounds, illness, or another serious physical impairment. Stamina Points (SP), by contrast, measure your readiness and energy, and they replenish more quickly and easily."

Dark Archive

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Smite Makes Right wrote:
OzInc wrote:
Reason #3 -- It is very cold in space, liquids like blood freeze instantly effectively sealing the puncture.
Space is not cold. Cold requires matter for you to be in contact with and transfer your heat to. In a vacuum, you are actually at risk of overheating as you can absorb heat from a "nearby" star and have no way to transfer it away. ...

I am sure that every Space agency is going to be happy to learn that space is not cold, so we no longer have to worry about the fact that the average temperature of space (the cosmic microwave background temperature of 2.7 Kelvin (-270.45 Celsius)) is not longer a concern or that objects no longer radiate energy into the near vacuum of space. Entropy is clearly no longer an issue as well.

In point of fact, while the starward face of objects gain heat as you suggest, the fact still remains that objects do radiate heat into the near vacuum of space and at 2.7 Kelvin, -454.75 Fahrenheit it would be hard to call that anything but cold.

Bookrat gave you far to much credit when he suggested you were half right, in point of fact, you were not correct, and knew only one detail but not how it relates to the subject.

I suggest before, you mistakenly correct you actually do a little more work learning. Reason #3, and #2 are actually based on NASA studies, so while tongue in cheek in my answers, they were soundly based on well defined science. Sorry to burst your bubble Smite, but this time "Smite
makes wrong."

Better luck next time


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Nanomachines, son!


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I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics.


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This is nifty and all, but can we get back to talking about cool ways for the armor to keep its protection?

Like a series of force crystals that project an energy field around you, protecting you from the environment, but not from projectiles.


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Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Companies hire the handful of people that can actually cast a wish spell in order to ensure their products are crazy awesome at breaking the laws of physics. This also explains how a huge 3 km starship only weighs 8000 tons.

Dark Archive

Sorry bookrat

At this point, I'm thinking classified technomancer magic, but that's a trademark so they aren't telling.


Maybe there is a layer of nanos that seal any breaches in the suit.


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Duct tape
Packs of bubblegum sold with every suit


According to Kathleen Lewis, apparently an expert on spacesuits, this is what would happen in real life, “In the case of a small puncture, usually the flesh would swell in the immediate area and stopper the hole. This can be extremely painful, but the victim would recover."


Melkiador wrote:
According to Kathleen Lewis, apparently an expert on spacesuits, this is what would happen in real life, “In the case of a small puncture, usually the flesh would swell in the immediate area and stopper the hole. This can be extremely painful, but the victim would recover."

That's what happened to Joe Kittinger at his record jump, IIRC


For the most part it's a weak force field, not only does it not offer any protection but it actively lets these things pass through the atmo layer with no loss to pressure. It's more important that you don't implode and explode at the same time.

The Space Suit has rules for damage affecting useability but they're almost as generous.


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I would assume any combat armor that was designed for space would have some self sealing capability. Easiest way is just to have a layer of fluid sealent that is liquid until exposed to vacuum. That way anytime something is punctured it would fill the hole and harden to seal it. If you had nannites to repair that is even better still but just stopping up holes is not that hard of a mechanical challenge. Hell it would be good to have even in non combat space suits just for micrometeorite strikes.


I'd be inclined to hand wave it, but there have been a lot of really great examples provided for why it might work that way. In a setting where you can get relatively affordable (for adventurers, anyway) cybernetic implants, where sentient rat men are scurrying about, and where a previously-invasive interplanetary empire joined forces with a burgeoning galactic collective to stop the invasion of an interstellar hive, it isn't so far to jump to consider that maintenance of environmental homeostasis would be such a fundamental feature of anything meant to be worn outside of one's native planet that they don't think about it. Self-sealing, nanite infusion, techno-organic materials that "grow" to seal apertures, or even outright technomancy are all well within the realm of viability.


Oh, my take on the whole space is cold so the blood freezes idea... the blood would first boil before it froze, so along with the decompression spewing that boiling mist into space before it fully froze into a fine mist of crystals, I doubt it would have time to actually coat the hole unless the suit fully decompressed,or at least decompressed enough for the blood vapor to form back into a coating... Think how hard it is to make a snowball from pure powder snow. Just my take on that. Personally, I just go with an inter lining of self-sealing material, like some sort of polymer material that just seals holes.

I think a more important question is how can it provide unlimited breathing for those critters that need to breath? How long does it's O2 supply hold out?

There's no talk of air tanks... I assume it's some sort of chemical scrubber and rebreather device, but even those aren't 100% efficient.

So... thoughts on typical limits of breathable air in seal armor?

I sort of like the idea of something like 1 hour per item level personally. Maybe as a free armor upgrade you can purchase higher mark levels of scrubbers to allow longer EVA times, and perhaps even require them to be replaced every so often...


Kvetchus wrote:

I think a more important question is how can it provide unlimited breathing for those critters that need to breath? How long does it's O2 supply hold out?

There's no talk of air tanks... I assume it's some sort of chemical scrubber and rebreather device, but even those aren't 100% efficient.

I mean Starfinder's isn't 100% efficient either, it's just super good (possibly somewhat magical) filters that will last for 1 day per tier. Unless you're an android (or in space a Star Shaman) in which case you just don't need to care either way.


Oh, I forget how it works...

Ever see that green goo you can pour into a punctured tire that'll seal it back up long enough to drive to a garage and replace it? Something like that could work as an explanation.


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I honestly went the opposite way and made armor breachable by Piercing and Slashing attacks. 1% per point of damage inflicted. This incentives melee attacks and firearms in a vacuum environment, it also makes a repair kit and air bubble REALLY important.


I also like a more religious idea, the god of space has blessed every suit and as long as you say a little prayer everyday or before you get into the suit then it works.
MDC

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

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Removed some posts. Remember that even when you disagree you need to keep your posts civil and that tone, particularly sarcasm and hyperbole, can be difficult to convey or interpret in a text-based medium, so its important to be conscientious with your word choice.


Forcefields.

Sealed off sections like quarian armor.


I'm mundane, and I think this was suggested, but:
1) Just because it's a hit and does damage does not mean it penetrated. Impact still does damage.
2) Unless it's an improvised space suit, sections will automatically seal off. Also, limited self repair as seen in Mass Effect Andromeda's prologue (crack? easy. whole face plate gone? not so much).


Maybe the hit point damage you take IS from the suit being punctured?

The laser may not burn you, but the heat melts part of the suit and it drips onto you. The projectile pokes a hole in the suit and part of the suit fragments go into your body. The frost ray makes part of the suit brittle and you lose body heat in that area to the void. The suit gets a hole from the disintegration ray and the little vesicles inside that contract to keep air pressure cut into your limb.

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