Power Armor in RPGs & the user's strenght

[Cikomyr]

Something that always bothered me in RPGs.. well, in fiction as well when I come to thing about it, is that power armor is often depicted as some sort of force multiplier/increaser.

If you think about it, Power Armor is a mechanized suit that will use it's own power to move around, lift and punch, following your commands. Whether you happen to be a wimp or an Olympic Athlete is not going to chance the force at which the suit will execute your commands. There is an upper limit at which your suit will try to execute your commands, based on its design parameters.

Basically, forcing in your power suit to increase its strenght power should have as much effectiveness as crushing your speed pedal to try to get faster (when you are already pushing it to the metal). At best, you will do nothing more. At worst, you may actually damage the sensory input.



Have you ever thought about why in, let's say, Dark Heresy, you get +20% strenght bonus in a Power Armor? Or in Fallout, you get +2 Strenght bonus? Just because *I* can punch stronger than you shouldn't make my powered suit punch stronger.

[JusticeZero]

Not all? It's often depicted as a vehicle, which replaces your stats.

[jaydubs]

Imagine there's this great big heavy box. You tie a hoveround to the box, and lock the pedal down. The box moves, but barely.

Now, imagine the above, but add a big strong person behind the hoveround who's helping to push it forward. The box moves faster.

Same principle. Just because you're in a suit of power armor, doesn't mean your muscles stop working. Instead of thinking of it as a robot suit that you're now piloting, think of it as a second layer of muscle and bone on top of what you've already got. If they guy inside is stronger, the net strength of the new unit is stronger.

[Jeraa]

Imagine there's this great big heavy box. You tie a hoveround to the box, and lock the pedal down. The box moves, but barely.

Now, imagine the above, but add a big strong person behind the hoveround who's helping to push it forward. The box moves faster.

Same principle. Just because you're in a suit of power armor, doesn't mean your muscles stop working. Instead of thinking of it as a robot suit that you're now piloting, think of it as a second layer of muscle and bone on top of what you've already got. If they guy inside is stronger, the net strength of the new unit is stronger.

Or when your car gets stuck in the snow in the winter. To get it out, someone steps on the gas, while one or more people push. Or when you manually open a garage door that has a motorized opener - the springs assist your muscles to life the heavy door.

Power armor boosts your strength because you are combining your own strength with that of the armor. Its not really any different than two people cooperating to lift the same object. Except in this case, one person is wearing the other.

That is assuming your arms are actually inside the suits arms. If they are totally separate (say, like the landmates from Appleseed, which are probably more mech than power armor), then yes. The suit should have its own Strength score independent from yours. But most power armor is not built that way.

[LibraryOgre]

A lot depends on the idea behind the power armor, really.

Some power armor is more like an assist suit... it helps your natural ability, but your natural ability still counts. It's got a reinforced frame so you can handle more weight, and maybe some hydraulics to help distribute the load or whatever, but it's still mostly based on what you, yourself, can do.

Other power armor is a robotic suit whose controls are the direction of your own limbs... you may be weak, but the entirety of the lifting falls to the suit and its motors... you just move your arms, and it uses the frame of the armor to do the work you're telling it to do.

All comes down to how the armor works.

[JusticeZero]

I believe the real ones actually are multiplicative; if it replaces force, you end up wrecking things, so they use a feedback system. however, I expect that that would be adjustable, rather than fixed at a set multiplier.

[Millennium]

Armor-as-force-multiplier only makes sense if the armor isn't much stronger than its pilot could deal with unassisted. If it gets too much stronger than the person, then the force added by the human becomes insignificant by comparison.

The reason that people can help push a car out of an ice/mud patch has more to do with friction than strength. The car's wheels can't get a good grip on the ground underneath, so they can't exert much force on the car: so little, in fact, that the humans who can get a good grip can actually make a difference. Even so, this is dealing with force on a very small scale: far less than what the concept of power armor calls for.

[Segev]

It varies by system. Power Armor in Mekton Zeta, for instance, is just a very small mecha and uses mecha stats entirely.

It depends what the system wants to model, and that usually depends on the setting for which it's designed. Force-multipliers make sense when they're power-assist or the characters' stats are just that high, and fits for more magical settings fairly well. Replacement makes sense for more realistic depictions of pilot strength and more sci-fi like settings where the armor really is a robotic suit doing most (if not all) of the work.

[Waar]

Have you ever thought about why in, let's say, Dark Heresy, you get +20% strenght bonus in a Power Armor? Or in Fallout, you get +2 Strenght bonus?

The rules want to emphasize the PCs abillites.

[Mastikator]

The suit adds to your own muscle strength. And in fallout the strength caps out at 10. If you start out with 9 it only adds 1, if you start out with 10 it does nothing.

[Cikomyr]

Maybe its my lack of imagination, but i have no idea how a suit couls possibly act as "force multiplier". I mean, i understand the point of internal movement feedback that allow the wearer to " feel" the resistance, and him increasing his effort to counter it.

However, a suit would be tuned to its wearer, so that it would apply maximum potential force at a set degree of command-force that depends on how its user programmed it. A whimp would go "apply maximum if i do a pressure of 30 kilos" while a strong man would go "apply maximum if i do a pressure of 60 kilos"

But in either case, "maximum" is defined by the suit's specs, not the users' strenght.

Its not like a lever, where you have actual force multiplication because of basic physic principles. Power Armor will punch through the power of its servomotors, not by decupling its wearer's strenght.

[Waar]

Maybe its my lack of imagination, but i have no idea how a suit couls possibly act as "force multiplier". I mean, i understand the point of internal movement feedback that allow the wearer to " feel" the resistance, and him increasing his effort to counter it.

However, a suit would be tuned to its wearer, so that it would apply maximum potential force at a set degree of command-force that depends on how its user programmed it. A whimp would go "apply maximum if i do a pressure of 30 kilos" while a strong man would go "apply maximum if i do a pressure of 60 kilos"

But in either case, "maximum" is defined by the suit's specs, not the users' strenght.

Its not like a lever, where you have actual force multiplication because of basic physic principles. Power Armor will punch through the power of its servomotors, not by decupling its wearer's strenght.

Do you know of any system where power armor actually stacks multiplicatively with the users strenght? (as opposed to having a constant strenght or adding a constant modifier to the useres base strength)

[Mastikator]

Maybe its my lack of imagination, but i have no idea how a suit couls possibly act as "force multiplier". I mean, i understand the point of internal movement feedback that allow the wearer to " feel" the resistance, and him increasing his effort to counter it.[snip]

There are exoskeleton suits today that aid muscle movement. People who have used them have experienced greater strength, and when they take it off feel sluggish and weak.

It's very simple really. When you push on something, you apply a force to it, it accelerates as a result. Force = mass x acceleration, so acceleration = force / mass. If you have a suit that increases you applied force by say... 100% up to 5kilonewton then that would allow you to lift an object 510 kilograms heavier than previously. 5000newtons/(9.8m/s^2) = 510kilograms

[Cikomyr]

There are exoskeleton suits today that aid muscle movement. People who have used them have experienced greater strength, and when they take it off feel sluggish and weak.

It's very simple really. When you push on something, you apply a force to it, it accelerates as a result. Force = mass x acceleration, so acceleration = force / mass. If you have a suit that increases you applied force by say... 100% up to 5kilonewton then that would allow you to lift an object 510 kilograms heavier than previously. 5000newtons/(9.8m/s^2) = 510kilograms

I understand the concepts of "multiplier" in term of system input.

I dont understand it in term of "upper strenght limit"

An exoskeleton will be able to lift, say, a ton. It will not be able to lift more just because you can lift 100 kilos yourself. If you try to lift 1100 kilos with the exoskel, you will damage it, or at best just fail in your task.

You may try to add your strenght THROUGH the armor, but its more likely you will damage the internal sensors, who are not designed to withstand 100 kilo push.

[Cikomyr]

Do you know of any system where power armor actually stacks multiplicatively with the users strenght? (as opposed to having a constant strenght or adding a constant modifier to the useres base strength)

Multiplicative or additive is irrelevant. You should attaint a flat strenght score based on the armor's specs

[Sartharina]

I understand the concepts of "multiplier" in term of system input.

I dont understand it in term of "upper strenght limit"

An exoskeleton will be able to lift, say, a ton. It will not be able to lift more just because you can lift 100 kilos yourself. If you try to lift 1100 kilos with the exoskel, you will damage it, or at best just fail in your task.

You may try to add your strenght THROUGH the armor, but its more likely you will damage the internal sensors, who are not designed to withstand 100 kilo push.The thing is - the exoskeleton reinforces your own ability. The sensors can handle the 100 kilo push (Or far, far more) - the problem is the exoskeletons' structural strength, not the sensors, which is reinforced by the wearer's body, and vice-versa.
Multiplicative or additive is irrelevant. You should attaint a flat strenght score based on the armor's specs

This is unrealistic. We're talking Powered Armor(Mechanized exoskeletons), not Robots.

[jaydubs]

You may try to add your strenght THROUGH the armor, but its more likely you will damage the internal sensors, who are not designed to withstand 100 kilo push.

Why wouldn't they be? If you have the technology to produce a powered exoskeleton, you should be advanced enough to design a suit that can incorporate the user's strength. It would be wasteful and inefficient not to. In fact, I'm pretty sure we have force sensors today that can withstand far in excess of that.

It's also possible that by [insert future date when power armor is a mature technology] we could also augment human beings. Unless your suit is much larger than the person inside, that person will always be a non-negligible portion of the whole's mass and volume. Wasting that resource is silly. Better to hypercharge your pilot's bodies so they can contribute more.

Skeletons reinforced with advanced materials, genetically engineered muscles, and so on. You've mentioned Dark Heresy for example, and in that setting the Space Marines are engineered up the wazoo.

Thinking on it, isn't the Dark Heresy system set up where a +20% is essentially a static bonus anyway? From what I recall, it doesn't add 20% of your character's strength. It adds 20% to the target number on the d100 you have to roll under, no?

[Mastikator]

I understand the concepts of "multiplier" in term of system input.

I dont understand it in term of "upper strenght limit"

An exoskeleton will be able to lift, say, a ton. It will not be able to lift more just because you can lift 100 kilos yourself. If you try to lift 1100 kilos with the exoskel, you will damage it, or at best just fail in your task.

You may try to add your strenght THROUGH the armor, but its more likely you will damage the internal sensors, who are not designed to withstand 100 kilo push.

Why would it do that?

If you use two arms you can lift more than if you use one arm, because the extra arm applies additional force, but it wouldn't damage your arms when you lift more than a single arm possibly could. If you use an exoskeleton suit that adds force to your movement then you could lift greater weights still, but it would only be damaged if you lift an item that weighs more than the exoskeleton can lift by its own force, then stop using your muscles when it is already up. I mean, it's like lifting a rock above your head and then letting it out.

...why would you do that?

[Bulhakov]

Have you ever used an electric screw driver? It's a simple power tool with a fixed max torque, but for very tough screws (or if the battery is low) you can add some extra force by twisting the handle and/or with a second hand by gripping the screwdriver head.

I guess this means that if the max force exerted by the power armor is comparable to the pilot's, then the pilot's strength will count for a lot, if the power armor is extremely strong, then the pilot's strength doesn't count for a lot.