Name: EtM P.A.Ds (Energy to Matter Personal Attire Deployment.) Description: “Halt, evildoer! Release those catgirls at once!” "Vha-ah-ah! Vhat can a mere man like yourself do against zhe powers of zhe night?" The spiky-haired, hot-blooded hero slid a device into his belt-buckle. “Lemme show you. Arbiter Rainbow! TRANSFORM!” He raised his finger to the sky, and a prismatic radiance engulfed him. - The model shambled down the runway, her shoulders sagging and her mascara dripping down her cheeks. The crowd gaped, taking in her potato-sack dress, the bulky necklace around her neck, and the distinct lack of a catwalk. As they began to whisper, however, she struck a pose. In an explosion of brilliant light and stage pyrotechnics, she was wrapped in flowing satin and glimmering sequins, leaving orange trails behind— like a phoenix risen from the ashes. While the crowd Oohed and Aahed, she smirked from behind her masquerade mask and strutted onwards. - “Roger that, mission control.” The spaceman slid a cartridge into a slot on his excessively bulky wristwatch. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his suit had changed form. He was now clad in a bright-green hazard suit and gas-mask combo, to deal with the toxic environment. “Uh, sorry, Captain, seems like there’s been a mixup. Radiation readings were a false positive. But the planet’s temperature is meant to increase to nearly seventy degrees celsius once day starts.” Darn. Annoying, but no biggie. He slid the brilliant-green cartridge out of his ‘watch’ and replaced it with a yellow-hued chip. After several long moments, his suit had been outfitted with the appropriate thermal protection. He felt warmer already. - The EtM Personal Attire Deployment system makes use of Hammerspace Storage to function. It typically has two components, which can vary greatly in form. The deployer apparatus is usually worn on the body as some sort of accessory. This can be a watch, a belt, or some form of handheld device. It can even be a weapon. It's also the power source for the reconstructor. The blueprint apparatus is a secondary device that’s meant to be inserted into the first. The shape of this device doesn’t matter, as long as it can fit into the deployer and provide the blueprint for a construct. The blueprint contains the material banks for Annihilation Storage, and determines what the deployer creates. An example of the two-piece apparatus. The belt is worn around the waist, and the blueprint is contained in an outdated-looking mobile device. Once both devices are in place, the user must provide some sort of signal to start off the process. This can either be voice-activated or somatic, but a mix of both can be used. The EtM storage then constructs their new attire, swiftly deconstructing their current attire via Annihilation lasers if necessary, and ensuring that they’re accurately coated in their chosen garb. A flash of light accompanies these transformations, making it difficult to hide. The EtM PAD is always displayed on the outside of the armor, or partially integrated, to give the user access to it. There are multiple variations to these devices, making it relatively modular. The important options are: Drive or Cartridge, and One or Two-Way. The EtM P.A.Ds that use the Drive function are capable of constructing armor of up to medium weight class. The armour is able to form with a single major technological function, such as having built-in grav-fists or energy-dash apparatus, or something like a hardlight shield, assuming its weight does not violate their existing limitations. It can also contain non-electronic parts such as mechanical exoskeletons or synth-muscle to boost strength. It cannot construct handheld equipment to accompany it. Things like HUDs and minor comfort items are negligible P.A.Ds using Cartridge functions can only construct armor of up to light class. In return, they're able to rapidly swap between different blueprints without first deactivating the armor, such as swapping from a heat-resistant voidsuit to a cold-resistant one. Armor made by cartridges are much simpler, and cannot contain major abilities in their blueprints. A device can either be One or Two-Way. One-Way attire is simple. The drive deploys the provided outfit onto the user, and then deactivates. They’re now wearing it, end of story. There’s no function to deconstruct it or remove it, and it must be done manually. A One-Way deployment completely empties the drive by only storing the EXACT amount needed to fulfil the blueprints. As the drive is emptied out and shut off after this, it’s no longer vulnerable to detonation. Two-Way deployers, however, are constantly scanning the user and recognising their current state. As the drive has the potential to deconstruct the attire at any moment, it remains active and can contain spare material. This spare material can be used to rapidly and automatically repair portions of the armour, preventing things like suit breaches from killing one in space. Once the blueprint device is taken out, the attire is forcefully deconstructed once more, allowing one to doff their suit quickly. Abilities: - The device provides the means to instantly begin constructing or deconstructing an outfit around the wearer, to equip them for situations that may require a change in attire. As this technology exists in the Fringe, the most common and obvious use of it is to create suits of armor for personal protection. The main benefit this provides is the surprise factor of facing an opponent who’s suddenly well-protected, after being in civilian wear mere moments ago. Another possible use is swapping specialized PPE to explore planets and biomes with, without having to carry around bulky equipment. - Minor repair of armor. The EtM storage can only contain enough actual material to form one full set of armor, but can hold an amount of spare resources to make up for damage. A Two-Way drive will automatically attempt to repair damage that causes the attire to deviate from the state in the blueprints. For clothing, this can mean repairing tears or rips. But more commonly, it attempts to patch up armor or reseal breaches in suits. For calculation’s sake, it can contain an additional 30% of the armor’s mass. This allows one to patch up something like a shattered or breached breastplate once, or deal with a huge amount of minor scratches and tears, but anything catastrophic and armor-shattering will consume most of the mass to fix it. - Apart from reading inserted blueprints and creating attire from it, a blank Cartridge/Drive may be inserted into two-way deployers. This will allow it to deconstruct foreign sets of armor or clothing and allow it to be re-deployed in the future. If it attempts to do this to highly complex attire, such as suits with delicate electronics and moving parts, it’ll likely heavily damage it and turn it unusable, resulting in a non-working blueprint and destroyed set of expensive power armor. This is due to attempting to deconstruct AND scan a complicated blueprint at the same time. The blueprints have to be pre-provided, if any amount of complexity is desired. -Annihilation can be used to feed the device raw materials and restore mass for blueprint construction. Deconstructing your armour is an easy way to get most of it back, but you'll definitely need a topup sometime. -Advancements in tech stability have allowed for small amounts of fuel to be stored within the device. This is only enough for personal use, such as jetpack fuel and canisters for plasma-fists. This is done by projecting a miniature, extremely small-scale and low-intensity stasis-field, which delays the fuel from chemically reacting to the annihilation laser and allowing it to be converted into energy. Conditional Abilities (Optional): - Two-way Drives can remove equipped armor by converting it back into energy. It then reconstructs whatever the user was wearing before, allowing them to seamlessly return to their previous state. Perfect for swapping out of disguises. - Brilliant light during the transformation sequence, which can potentially dazzle people or creatures sensitive to it. Limitations: - The improvement of EtM technology allows attire to be deployed fast enough to be useful in combat. However, it’s not instant. It takes several seconds to fully deploy, so doing it out in the open is highly inadvisable. The process is slowed down if the user is on the move or not relatively still, upping it if they’re running or diving around. The user can be vulnerable during this period, as attire forms from the point of the PAD and expands outwards. It’s enough to allow one to duck behind a barricade and emerge twelve or so seconds later, in order to deal with incoming fire, so it has to be used strategically- Unless one speeds it up by making it easier on the device. (See Conditional Limitations) ClassificationDurationDuration (Min) (Posed)Duration (Max) (Moving)Ultralight ArmorTwo turns (Eight seconds)One turn (Four seconds)Three turns (Twelve seconds)Light ArmorThree turns (Twelve seconds)Two turns (Eight seconds)Four turns (Sixteen seconds)Medium ArmorFour turns (Sixteen seconds)Two turns(Eight seconds)Six turns (Twenty-Four seconds)-As EtM storage consumes a large amount of power by default, it’s best to not flippantly use a PAD. Using it as a glorified wardrobe is an easy way to rack up a humongous power bill, or even cause an explosion if one is insanely careless with it. This makes it a money-sink if constantly used. Charging it can be done in any way an electronic device can conceivably be fuelled, but the cost increases depending on the complexity of the armor and how much damage it’s already sustained. Power is stored in the deployer, and Drives take far more power than Cartridges. 2-3 times per charge for the Drives, and 4-6 times for the Cartridge. Conditional Limitations (Optional): - As it’s a relatively complex device, ALL EtM PADs have sizing issues. They’re rather bulky and unwieldy compared to other devices— not so much that they cause inconvenience in handling, but are visible and oftentimes incredibly obvious if no attempt is made to disguise them. One could be a belt buckle that bulges out, or a watch that’s double the size of a normal one. This is the cost of having to fit such complex technology into a small device. - A VI within the PAD is responsible for recognising the position of the user’s body and deploying the outfit around it. Typically, it’s slowed down immensely by the need to scan the position of the user’s limbs, calculate the length of their appendages, and deal with the shifting of their anatomy, all to ensure that the armor forms correctly and joints are in the right places. This is the reason that it takes so long to deploy correctly, as coating a moving body in armor is more difficult than creating a static item. The user of the device is able to set a specific combination of signals and gestures for the device to recognise. These are typically large actions that cannot be accidentally performed, such as dramatic flourishes or snaps of their fingers. The user can then enter a pre-set pose, allowing the transformation sequence to begin. By staying in this pose, the VI only needs to make minor calibrations, and can reduce the amount of time taken to complete the whole process. The nature of this speedy transformation makes it obvious when one is about to do it, due to the amount of physical steps needed. One has to stick the Blueprint in, perform their activation code, and then potentially strike a pose. After witnessing this once, it’s clear to anyone that the PAD is about to be used, and the possibility of being interrupted is very real. If one is unable to create the pose for any reason, such as having an injured limb, they have to use the slow way. - EMP protection is important in such drives, and comes by default. However, if the deployment apparatus itself has taken physical damage, yet the drive has not been removed, a subsequent EMP will cause it to detonate. It’s best to call it quits once one’s equipment is in danger. How does it work: The EtM P.A.Ds utilize either the drive or cartridge to provide blueprints for attire. Once the blueprint has been inserted, the device immediately generates an inward ENDI Scan, and compares it to the previously-scanned proportions of the wearer. A two-way drive uses this quick and constant flow of neutrinos to monitor the condition of the user and their attire. The ENDI scan is of extremely low resolution, as all it’s attempting to detect is an outline to deploy the attire around, and can thus fit easily into the device. Following this, the attire is reconstructed, swiftly forming a protective shell or snazzy new outfit around its user. A simple VI is used to calibrate where the armor goes and adjust for deviations in the user’s positioning, making sure that it’s shaped the same way each time. This transformation sequence generates a great deal of light, and once it’s done, the wearer is armored up and ready to go. Recharging the apparatus can be done in many ways. Spare batteries can be swapped out, it can be plugged in, it can use solar or alternative charging (albeit at a slower rate), and some models can even be fed materials if they utilize the same micro-reactors that existing tech uses. However, no matter what, nobody is going to be able to transform all day without caveats. Flavor text: Due to the extremely high potential of EtM Storage, as well as the glaring limitations of it, particular interest has been paid to it in the past five years since its inception. One advancement in the field is the improvement in the deployment mechanic, allowing it to be contained in smaller devices and activated faster. One permutation of such improvements was the EtM PAD, which saw use in covert ops, battlefields, undercover work, and oftentimes, in performance art. Being able to instantaneously swap outfits had a huge variety of purposes. While hardlight, both faux and true, can do something similar, it’s impractical for long-term use and lacks durability, making PADs the superior option for armor and attire that needs to last. CivSpace and Fringe companies have both managed to come up with their own brands and customized versions of this piece of technology recently. Despite it only becoming public recently, there have been rumors of such devices existing in the past. There are tales of transforming heroes on distant worlds— like Floran tribesmen with magic belts, or Avian artifacts that coat one in the garb of a battle-priest. Or perhaps even in the depths of the Undercrypt, or technology left behind by the Ancients. Referenced Technologies (Optional): Hammerspace Storage & ME Networks- Lore Attainability: Open (Would prefer to be DMed before use, to keep track)- But as mentioned, a singular individual is very unlikely to be able to maintain it without some form of sponsor, organization, or personal wealth. It’s also not impossible for some kind of scientist character to come up with their own edition, as blueprints and reverse-engineering are accessible. I'll also likely be making some sort of tech/production company to provide these IC. Tags: Industrial (?) Category: Wearable
Changelog: -Moved the conditional limitation on charging to regular limitations, and mentioned that there are limits on repeatedly transforming. Added a few paragraphs about charging potentially being an issue, to emphasise the fact that something like this needs upkeep. -New limitation where the device cannot be instantly reconfigured. -Added mention of the tech potentially having been discovered by earlier civilisations, just as material for event-makers. 06 Aug 2022 -Added a clarifying sentence under description to emphasize that electronics are possible to create with a Drive.
Update: After being informed that the old EtM apps that I refered to are no longer Approved, I've rewritten the app to account for current Hammerspace technology lore. Ready for grading once again.
Hello! Apologies for the long wait. I'm going to have to give this app a pending for the time being. I have several concerns and questions. - What materials does it replicate when it creates armor? Can it replicate only durasteel armor? Violium? Can it do mixed materials? Does it depend entirely on what materials are put in? Does it retain the intrinsic qualities of those materials it recreates? I.E. does it deform like the original materials? Shatter? Does it maintain all of their strengths and vulnerabilities? More specificity or clarification is needed. - The deployment time, as is currently written, is a little too quick for PvP combat given what this tech can do. One suggestion would be 2 turns for light armor, 3 turns for medium armor, and then potentially one or two additional turns based on the mobility and stance of the user at that time, as the app mentions that being highly mobile causes the process to slow down. - Being able to deploy with technological functions is a considerable advantage and possibly quite difficult to achieve, as it would require the EtM PAD to create complex microelectronics and almost certainly take away from the quality and strength of the armor if it could recreate those technologies, however the application itself states that if you tried to deconstruct complex/delicate electronics and moving parts, that it would cause a blank cartridge/drive to be heavily damaged. It doesn't really make sense for it to be able to deploy technology such as that if it can't deconstruct that technology in the first place. - Annihilation storage lore quite explicitly states that it cannot store volatile materials safely-- this would include fuel and plasma-fist canisters.
It can deploy any of the materials used to make something that would be considered medium armour, yeah. I didn't feel the need to specify that since people tend to come up with their own specifications and material compositions for their character's armour. It recreates a pre-designed suit, so would of course retain the properties of what it's made of. Agreed, will edit a new timing system in shortly. I think I'll use a funny little table for reference. The intention of that part was to make it impossible to obtain some new suit/tech, and instantly break it down into a usable state with the EtM PAD. One would instead need to take the time to generate a blueprint, simulate everything, ensure it works, and then provide raw materials for the device to deploy. It's why it doesn't break the blueprint when deconstructing a suit in the first place. The segment regarding blank cartridges damages the suit because it'd be attempting to deconstruct a suit AND generate a brand new blueprint based on that deconstruction at the same time. Yeah, that's part of what the tech is for. It's applying for a technology that would allow this limitation to be slightly overcome, and allow for small amounts to be created. Though, if that's not accepted, I'll just have it be a situation where the user has to carry the fuel on their person and load it in only once the suit is deployed. Lemme know what you think, please!
The issue here isn't really that it can't deconstruct tech instantly. I actually think it is a good thing that it can't do that, although I would appreciate if you could specify how long it would take and how much money/power it would take to deconstruct and test that tech. What I was more so getting at is that it's quite a hard sell to be able to essentially summon something like a power fist or a mechanical exoskeleton and armor in the middle of a fight. I think there needs to be limitations on the tech that an individual can summon with the armor, and I think it should add additional time to the armor formation as well based on the complexity/combat power of what you are summoning with the armor. I'm really quite iffy on the fuel thing as currently written. I'm not totally against the idea but it's not explained how this tech manages to overcome that weakness and prevent volatile materials (such as fuel) from just detonating when attempting to convert them into energy. It's just not justified well in the current state of the app.
I don't think it really matters that much, as it's something that can just be handwaved and handled offscreen. The only important detail is that it can't be done on the spot, with any immediacy, and would need to be taken home to a lab or something. It just doesn't feel very necessary for me to zero in on this one detail and determine a set amount of days and weeks of OOC research. I think the issue I see with most of these suggestions is that everything is already possible without the app in the first place. All these new limitations that I'd add could easily be bypassed without much effort IC or OOC. For example: If it can't break down fuel and create the armour with loaded tanks, it's negligible IC to just carry a fuel canister in a holster and immediately load up the Plasma fists when the armour forms. Or if it's something like energy dash tech, just showing up already wearing the apparatus and then having the armour form around it. Or wearing Grav-Fist gauntlets and forming armour that lacks hand portions, since it's already present. The same effect in the end can already be achieved through mundane means (Including just showing up fully kitted, which means you DON'T have to spend twelve or so seconds t-posing), and adding all these specific caveats just sorta throws a wrench in the point of it being flashy power-ranger transformation and make it annoyingly inconvenient, to the point where it may as well not be used at all. Sure, I could come up with all these things, but then it'd just be a matter of making leaps like I mentioned above to optimize it with reasonable mundane methods. It just subtracts from the cool factor and makes it a little pedantic when the spirit of it could already be achieved in other ways. There's also 17 pages of approved apps, as well as even more Deferred ones that are technically passed/allowable without apps. And I don't think it's feasible or reasonable for me to go through all of them to check what can or cannot be formed and calculate additional transformation metrics on how strong or complex they are. There are immediately obvious things like Rocket Boots, Plasma Fists, Arm Mounted Grappling Hooks, that make sense to put in an armour set. So I'd say anything that could be an integrated, worn suit function would be possible to create, as long as it doesn't exceed a certain level of mechanical complexity. Like if the app mentions nuclear fission, or creating microreactors, or using quantum technology, it's clearly too advanced to bang out in a short period.
You make several good points here and you've convinced me that some of my own points were a little pedantic. I'll concede given the arguments made. First pass. Just be certain that people using this tech are people that would actually reasonably be able to afford it given how expensive it is, or likewise, people that attempt to reverse engineer it is people who actually have the knowledge and money to do so.
Gotcha! Thanks. I'll add a mention of that into the attainability section and request that people let me know when they're using it. Also gonna try and work out a lil' bit of technobabble for the fuel stuff, which'll be edited right in.
I'm stupid and realized late that turns are actually 4 seconds. I'll just edit the thread later though. It changes little in actual CRP and the turns would be the same. Second pass.
