How much of a limitation would Needs END be?

[LoneWolf]

So giving the soldier in the field the decision on what to use is a poor design feature?   What happens when the soldier is facing a foe that can only be hurt with a particular weapon, and the suit shuts it down to preserve the radio?  Or when the only thing keeping the soldier alive is the force field, but the engineer decided that the climate control was more important?  Or when the soldier is 1,000 meters up trying to reach an escape vehicle but the engineer in his infinite wisdom decided that the radar takes priority over flight?  Those are the real death traps.

 

An engineer cannot foresee every scenario and a good one will recognize this and factor it into his designs. A bad engineer is one who is so arrogant that they think they know more than anyone else.  That is why most engineers use peer review to spot problems.  

 

[unclevlad]

Yes, IMO it's a poor design decision...but in part, it's also showing that your "can only recharge at the base"  is an issue.  Even if all it has is a level of secondary charging, it would help.

 

The scenarios you're mentioning feel principally like a writer's contrivance...and in part like systemic artifacts.  As has been noted, the power requirements for a force field, HTH energy weapon, or energy blast are multiple orders of magnitude higher than for the comms, most sensors, or life support.  And remember:  your construction only needs to retain *1* END in the Reserve.  So if that force field is costing END, it isn't gonna last anyway.  

 

If comms shuts down...so presumably does tracking and location.  So retrieving the soldier...and the suit...becomes much more difficult.  If the life support shuts down, it can't be brought back up, so the soldier's life expectancy might be measured in minutes (if it's a sealed suit).

 

Mmmm...there's a limitation in APG that I like for "real world" force shield-like defenses.  Damage-Based END Cost, p. 62 of APG I.  Costs END to activate, but not maintain...which is something you want.  END is drained when damage is blocked...-1 END per 5 or 10 points of damage blocked.  Great way to model the classic Star Trek "shields are down to 27%, Captain."

 

So what you can do here is, build the END reserve to power the weapons and the defenses...where the defenses are built using damage-based END costs.  Now the shielding remains intact for very long periods without issue.  You get the "OMG I can take this shot but that'll take the shields down!"  What you DON'T say is that this causes such a total drain on the systems that the minuscule power needs for comms etc. can't be met.  Fundamentally:  even priming the weapon for fire still takes 1000x the power needed to run the essential systems.  The powered defenses would be similar;  they need a much higher steady-state energy level or they shut down.   In both cases, we're talking the difference between needing the equivalent of 110 volts and 5-30 amps, and running off a couple D cells.  Sure, feel free to run the END reserve to 0...but 0 in the END reserve is NOT the same as 100% empty.

 

If you do want to keep it, I'm beginning to lean to a physical complication on the entire armor suite, on this basis.  Pretty big one, but that might be my bias showing.  Infrequent, certainly;  whether I'd call it Greatly or Fully might depend.  Would the suit be able to move at all?  If not, that'd be Fully Impairing.

 

 

 

 

[LoneWolf]

The suit is sealed but the self-contained breathing is bought using a fuel charge.   The only life support that I had been thinking would get the limitation would be the immunity to heat and cold, and even that was not decided. 

 

As I said earlier at this point I have pretty much decided not to bother with the limitation.  The general consensus was that it was not worth the – ¼ limitation.  So at that point it is not worth the trouble putting on.