Disclaimer: I'm not sure if this goes here or in the Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew/ section, so I'll post it here.
First off, I am TERRIBLE at pricing for magic item creation, doubly so for new technological item creation. That being said, perhaps someone could help with the pricing for a new technological armor.
Basically, it's equivalent to mithral agile half-plate that allows the wearer to fly with 1 charge/round with a max charge of say 25 (basically trying to duplicate the Archangel Armor from X-COM: Enemy Unknown)
I know mithral agile half-plate would cost 9850. According to the technology guide, creating a technological item that duplicates a spell would use the 'Use-activated or Continuous' category. Fly is a 3rd-level spell, which requires a minimum of a 6th-level character. According to the rules, as a minimum it would be 3 x 6 x 2000, plus the 9850 for the armor, equaling 45,850.
After it's all said and done, the armor should provide +8 AC, have +2 ax Dex Bonus, and a -1 ACP for climb and jump checks, but -4 ACP for all other checks.
Am I doing my math/calculations correctly?
The other option would be to add the capability to fly to the HEV suit, which would fit the X-COM: Enemy Within rendition of the Archangel Armor. Considering the HEV suit costs 61,000 gp, how much would adding the capability to fly cost?
You have a slight mistake, you need to account that charge is basically charges, i would price 5 tech charges as one magical charge per day due to them draining much faster, that should reduce the price a bit, another way to cut cost would be to require 5 ranks of Fly to use which would cut 10% of the price off, then you could require another 5 ranks in say, knowledge (engineering) to cut the price another 10% and finally require the technologist feat to cut off another 10% for a grand total of 30% price decrease in exchange for it requiring special knowledge and training to operate
I was going off of the rules in the Technology Guide. They state:
Pricing and Creating New Technological Items
New technological items can and should be created, using existing items for inspiration. A new item may resemble an existing magic item, such as how jet packs function like winged boots, but there should be differences beyond just battery power to keep technology distinct. When pricing a new technological item, use the existing guidelines for estimating magic item value. There's no extra cost associated with technological items since they have extra weaknesses to go along with their advantages. Items that use charges should be priced as if they were use-activated, not as if they were charged in the way a wand or ring of the ram is charged, unless the item is disposable and has 50 or fewer charges, as the assumption is that a newly crafted technological item can be recharged with relative ease.
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This generally isn't for a player to craft. It's more of an available item for purchase in my homebrew sci-fi campaign.
I see, well i stand corrected on one point, but adding the other things I mentioned will still help significantly (30% off is pretty good at those prices)
You DO need to remember to discount the 'fly' portion with the number of charges. Take a look at the difference between charged and infinite - a 50-charge item is half-cost. Spell-trigger wands (50 charges) have a x750 multiplier; therefore their 'infinite' multiplier is twice that, or 1500gp. If a use-activated gizmo (x2000gp) has charges, then the price for charges is half that: x1000gp.
Here's the thing, though - you want round-by-round activation (of which, considering what you're trying to emulate, I kind of approve.) It IS a tough thing to do, however, because you can presumably recharge it somewhere, or it recovers charges at a certain rate, or some such thing.
The next thing to do is to look at things that grant flight. Wings of flying give you flight at will for 54k; a plumed mantle gives you 30m of flight per day broken into 5-minute increments, plus a continuous feather fall effect, in addition to some funky illusion and perception bonuses, for just under 40k.
In any case. If you go with the 50 charges, you're looking at 3 x 6 x 1000, or 18k, but you need to find some way to recharge the system. I'd personally trim the side bits off the plumed mantle (keeping the permanent feather fall), split the 30m up into 1-minute increments, and call it 40k plus the cost of the armor.
I don't know why new magic item cost are so confusing for me.
Looking at existing technological armors, the gravity suit provides the fly at 1 charge per minute, giving a total of 24 minutes of flight until the suit can be recharged. It costs 40k for it, and it is considered light. Even using this as a basis it would equal about the same that you suggested (40k + armor cost (9850 for mithral agile half-plate). The only thing with using the gravity armor is that it provides a +5 armor bonus at the rate of 1 charge per hour.
Come to think of it.. I don't know why I'm wracking my brain with this. I could easily just physically attach a jetpack to a HEV suit, so 78k.
Or much cheaper for a non-HEV combination.
EDIT: 79k for the HEV+Jetpack.