Starship Troopers: Armor: M-1A4 Power Suit

The standard issue M-1A4 suit issued to members of the Mobile Infantry, power armor is the greatest ally and closest friend a trooper can have. In the words of Johnnie Rico of Rasczak’s Roughnecks:

‘Powered armor is one-half the reason we call ourselves ‘Mobile Infantry’ instead of just ‘infantry’. Our suits give us better eyes, better ears, stronger backs (to carry heavier weapons and more ammo), better legs, more intelligence, more firepower, greater endurance, less vulnerability.

‘A suit is not a space suit – although it can serve as one. It is not primarily armor – although the Knights of the Round Table were not armored as well as we are. It is not a tank – but a single M. I. private could take on a squadron of those things and knock them off unassisted if anybody was silly enough to put tanks against the M. I.

‘A suit is not a ship but it can fly, a little – on the other hand neither spaceships nor atmosphere craft can fight against a man in a suit except by saturation bombing of the area he is in (like burning down a house to get one flea!) ‘We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die.’

With a suite of servos, electronics and augmentation equipment as advanced as human science can create, a power suit turns its wearer into something inhuman. Tireless, protected from the elements and shielded against all but the most serious forms of harm, it is easy for a Mobile Infantry trooper to feel like a god among men when using one. It is only the sudden swipe of a bug mandible or the disorienting blast of a Skinny beamer that brings him crashing down to reality again.

Name: Power Suit
Model: M-1A4 Power Suit
Type: Powered Armor
Scale: Character
Weight: M-1A4 Power Suit: 86.18 kg; M-1C8 Command Suit: 90.71 kg
Coverage: Full

Game Notes:

• Physical Protection: STR+3D
• Energy Protection: STR+2D
• Dexterity and related skills Penalty: -1D

Benefits & Drawbacks of Power Suits

M-1A4 powered suits and their command variants, M-1C8 suits, grant a +2 pip bonus to the wearer’s Strength, a +1 bonus to all ranged attack rolls and a +1 bonus to the wearer’s to Initiative checks. Both suits have a battery life span and air supply for eight hours, as well as a reserve supply and back-up battery with a further hour’s worth of power which allows the wearer to survive for up to nine hours in hostile environments (space, underwater and so on).

Powered suits cause its wearer to suffer a –2D+2 penalty to Search checks, a –1D penalty to Acrobatics, Dodge, Running, Climbing/Jumping, Sneak and Hide checks. Wearers without the Power Suit Skill feat only gains a +1D bonus to their Physical Resistance.

Integral Equipment

A power suit (both standard and command) includes the following equipment items as built-in devices that cannot be mislaid or lost.

• Visor: Also called a snooper because of its various visual and aural enhancing modes, the visor is a wrap-around piece that can be raised or lowered with a shake of the wearer’s head. Operated by staring at certain reticules and blinking, the visor is a standard part of the M3-a tactical helmet and a vital part of a trooper’s combat kit. It grants infrared, ultraviolet, Low-Light Vision and Thermographic out to a range of 60 meters each. They essentially allow a trooper to make out his surroundings despite any distractions and obstructions that may be present. A working visor also negates 1D+1 of the Search penalty caused by wearing power armor.

• Periscope: Attached over the left audio sensor of the M3-a tactical helmet and activated by raising one’s eyebrows in a quick, tight expression, this thin visual stalk raises to a height of two feet, allowing a trooper to see over the walls of a fortification. The periscope also allows a trooper, if he has a weapon capable of doing so, to make indirect fire attacks without having to count Medium-sized obstructions within 1.5 meters as cover for his target.

• Communicator: Built into the M3-a tactical helmet and the back plate of the suit is a high-band communications rig with an effective vertical range of high orbit and a horizontal range of 8 kilometers. This communications gear has three channels, each of which can be set on the fly or pre-programmed before a mission. Changing or setting a channel requires a Communications check (Difficulty 15, Difficulty 20 during combat).

• Helmet Lamp: A powerful flashlight that casts a circle of light 4.5 meters in radius up to a distance of 35 meters. The helmet lamp has four colored lenses in red, green, blue and amber, interchangeable by blinking rapidly, for use during different ‘marking’ missions. It also has an ultraviolet bulb that is only visible in the ultraviolet spectrum.

• Environmentally Sealed Bodysuit: There is no way for gases, liquids or other contaminants to get at a trooper inside a suit of powered armor. This protects him from all attacks except acid and neural disruptors that use these mediums for transmission. Sealed suits also protect a wearer from harmful atmospheres and vacuum; they are the reason a trooper can survive in deep submersion or in the void of space.

• Air Supply: A reserve air supply is built into the chest plate of a power suit. This extends the eight hour supply in the trooper’s armor to nine hours before becoming exhausted. This reserve unit replenishes itself naturally over the course of 24 hours if exposed to a breathable atmosphere and can be instantly refreshed with the right equipment at a SICON outpost or aboard a Fleet vessel.

• Jump Jets: The reason for the word ‘bounce’ in a trooper’s terminology, jump jets are situated in both a trooper’s boots and his armor as a collapsing backpack unit. Using jump jets, troopers can fly over a limited area and reach elevations of up to 60 meters. Jump jets use fuel and can only carry a trooper for 300 meters before needing to be recharged. This allotted distance can be spent in any increment up to 27 meters per round, such as 20 jumps of 15 meters or whatever a trooper needs during a mission. Jump jets do not allow a trooper to hover or fly, they simply enhance the trooper’s jumps. If a trooper is hit mid-jump the suit allows the trooper to land safely, thus not taking further damage from falling. A trooper in mid-jump cannot dodge.

• Temperature and Biological Regulator: Powered armor has a built-in climate and health control that handles many basic jobs, including the innocuous one of making certain that exhaled carbon dioxide does not condense on the viewing surface of a tactical helmet. Temperature regulators can only operate for 24 hours before their power cells and chemical supplies are depleted but while they are active, a trooper can gains STR+1D+2 resistance to fire or cold damage suffered each round and gains a +1D+1 bonus to all Stamina checks brought on by exhaustion, temperature extremes, starvation or thirst.

• Belt Readout: All forms of power suit have a small computer attached to the front of their main belts. This readout is intended for another’s use as the wearer is not generally capable of seeing its screen. This device monitors health and physical condition constantly and transmits this information to a command suit’s visor display. It can also be used by hand; at the touch of a button, a user can tell the wearer’s health, whether he is suffering from fatigue, starvation, thirst, poison or disease.

• Command and Control Suite: M-1C8 Command suits also incorporate a special five channel communication rig with a 16 kilometer horizontal range that grants a +1 bonus when making Communications rolls for establishing communications and dealing with interference. This is a superior rig that adds considerable weight to the suit, but its profile is part of the armor itself and does not make a visible difference.

Source

• Starship troopers Wiki: M-1A4 Power Suit
• Starship Troopers RPG Sourcebook (pages 93-96)
• thedemonapostle