stormtroopers

[sid6.7]

was watching starwars last night and was looking at their "armor"
and was curious what everyone else thought it might be from a traveller
point of view.

1. it looks like ablative but it sure didn't stop any lasers.
2. it also looks like combat armor but it sure doesn't stop lasers either.
3. i'm think it was just a fancy vaccum suit?

or am i just thinking to hard....

 

[far-trader]

I've never even been sure it was a vacc-suit

 

[deadlock]

Stormtrooper armor is nowhere close to being a vacc suit and as far as being ablative, it was something George Lucas may have not considered when he wrote and filmed Star Wars.

sid6.7, you are thinking too hard.

 

[Saxondog]

I would guess... something akin to a Chemical Enviro suit. Watching the opening sequence from "A New Hope", some of the rebels seem to drop from near misses but the troopers require direct hits. So it's good for a couple of points of defense but not much more.

 

[Icosahedron]

You are definitely thinking too hard!

The stuff is Combat Armour of course, but it's special Stormtrooper armour that's psionically tuned to its wearer, such that its Armour Value is proportional to the wearer's Charisma.

Therefore, when a rank and file Stormtrooper wears it, it stops a couple of penetration points, but when one of the good-guy heroes wears it, he can take a FGMP-15 to the chest and brush the dust off.

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

I don't think the Star Wars "blaster" is a laser weapon, anyway. I was always under the impression that it was some sort of pulsed plasma gun.

I seem to remember they have recoil, there's certainly some sort of ballistics noise when they fire, and the stormtroopers ragdoll pretty theatrically whenever they get hit. Lasers don't do any of that.

Although, to be fair, I can't imagine Lucas putting a true laser fight up on screen anyway, since it would have all the drama of a bunch of guys pointing at some other guys and making them fall down with little burn marks on their heads.

 

[jawillroy]

I've always assumed that Stormtrooper armor was the result of a centuries-old Imperial contract with a Sith-connected manufacturer. The first whistle-blower to raise the issue in public stopped breathing and died in front of the interstellar press, and nobody's said a thing since. Any efforts to introduce outside quality control or switch armor manufacturers have failed much the same way. Interestingly, the same combine holds the contracts for all Imperial small arms and ship's weapons aiming systems.

Seems to me they've got their hands in Space Station ventilation and exhaust port systems, too.

Now, when I Ref and there's laser fire, the beam itself is of course silent. When it hits something, though, there's a fair bit of noise as matter gets sublimed off, 'specially if there's anything in there to boil or expand. (Ick.)

 

[Gadrin]

You might need to try a Star Wars site (wookiepedia) or something to get the in-game RPG version of what's on the screen.

As someone posted on some RPG board long ago (I think SJG) when you get hit by a blaster you go down, whether you're wearing armor or not. They're very powerful weapons. Does someone get wounded by one ? Don't recall, but for the most part, 1-shot+hit = death. Princess Leia and her uber-pistol confirms this. This is probably the reason the stormtroopers can't hit anything.

GURPS does a nice job recreating the general feel (blasters are the old-sci-fi weapon) with their blasters, which I believe are particle weapons. It's also got the cool stun setting. I think in Empire one of the troopers shoots a few warning shots at Luke and starts a small fire. Might be plasma. Might just be FX. o:

I'd say the stormtrooper armor is equivalent to Traveller's plastic body armor, but I'd probably use GURPS for it's ability to use different types of weapon tech to overcome it.

I vaguely remember that combat armor in CT = Battledress ?

 

[far-trader]

...I vaguely remember that combat armor in CT = Battledress ?

Yep, for armor effect, the main difference being powered limbs (and other electronics) vs non-powered limbs.

 

[Darium]

In Star Wars IV A New Hope the battle in the Death Star with Leia and Luke on the bridge. Leia fires up at a Stormtrooper and you can see her bolt hit him in the shoulder. The blast bounces off and he flinches from the impact.

 

[epicenter00]

In Star Wars IV A New Hope the battle in the Death Star with Leia and Luke on the bridge. Leia fires up at a Stormtrooper and you can see her bolt hit him in the shoulder. The blast bounces off and he flinches from the impact.

That's because she's a girl.

But seriously, Stormtrooper armor is supposed to be Combat Armor. Of course, dramatic license is a huge factor in Star Wars, so blasters shot by the main characters can drop Stormtroopers in one shot, while the Stormtroopers rarely if ever hit the main characters.

More telling is when you watch the sequences of Stormtroopers fighting rebels (non-main characters or Ewoks) on Hoth or on Princess Leia's ship - they rip the Rebels apart both times, taking far less casualties than the rebels who are defending.

 

[Jacqual]

The reason that the Stormtroopers cannot hit anything is the simple fact that they went to the Stormtroopers Acadamy of Marksmanship. All Graduates of the school recieve a -5 penalty to their base weapon skill of 0. Now boba-Fett I think I spelled it right, even though he is a Stormtrooper clone never went to the Stormtrooper Acadamy which makes him dangerous.

 

[R_Chance]

In Star Wars IV A New Hope the battle in the Death Star with Leia and Luke on the bridge. Leia fires up at a Stormtrooper and you can see her bolt hit him in the shoulder. The blast bounces off and he flinches from the impact.

IIRC in the boarding scenes in IV the troopers take hits and keep on going. There are also a lot fewer of their bodies on the deck despite their being on the attack down narrow corridors. I think the drop them in their tracks with a single blast routine in later Star Wars films is a reflection of the "heroic nature" of Skywalker and company. Stormtroopers seem to do pretty well against ordinary rebel soldiers (as do the clone troopers in II / III). Essentially it is fantasy dressed up as science fiction... and those high level hero type characters can drop well armoured low level troops in piles in your typical FRPG. Almost forgot -- I'd say combat armour

 

[Gadrin]

In Star Wars IV A New Hope the battle in the Death Star with Leia and Luke on the bridge. Leia fires up at a Stormtrooper and you can see her bolt hit him in the shoulder. The blast bounces off and he flinches from the impact.

Well I officially stand corrected: one guy.



What I really liked were the 2-legged-walkers (in RotJ ?) that mashed those tree-trunks with their cannons. Nice effect and they seemed not to be civil-war caliber barrels either.

 

[robject]

I don't think the Star Wars "blaster" is a laser weapon, anyway. I was always under the impression that it was some sort of pulsed plasma gun.

Oooh, a PPG, sort of like Babylon 5. Kewl.

 

[jfetters]

was watching starwars last night and was looking at their "armor"
and was curious what everyone else thought it might be from a traveller
point of view.

1. it looks like ablative but it sure didn't stop any lasers.
2. it also looks like combat armor but it sure doesn't stop lasers either.
3. i'm think it was just a fancy vaccum suit?

or am i just thinking to hard....

I always imagined the armor as a kind of ablative. Really crappy ablative...

 

[castiglione]

The armor is reflec.

Unfortunately, cost cutting on the part of the Empire has led to really crappy armour being the norm. This problem really didn't become a real problem until a certain farmboy from Tatooine waltzed onto the scene because the average yokel on an Imperium governed world was just too cowed by the fearsome appearance of the white hats to do anything against them.

The reflec is also why arrows worked well against them. They were designed presupposing combat against similarly armed adversaries, not aboriginals armed with primitive weapons.

 

[G. Fieendish]

The reason that the Stormtroopers cannot hit anything is the simple fact that they went to the Stormtroopers Acadamy of Marksmanship. All Graduates of the school recieve a -5 penalty to their base weapon skill of 0. Now boba-Fett I think I spelled it right, even though he is a Stormtrooper clone never went to the Stormtrooper Acadamy which makes him dangerous.

Boba Fett was a straight forward clone, as mentioned in Attack of The Clones, unlike the Clonetroopers whose growth was accelerated & made more docile & controllable, by various methods ....
In addition, Boba was taught by his "father" Jango as a bounty hunter....
As for the boarding action in A New Hope, the troopers were from the 501st Legion a/k/a "Vader's Fist" and such were effectively Veteran/Elite troops, under Darth Vader's personal command....

 

[captainjack]

The armor is reflec.

Unfortunately, cost cutting on the part of the Empire has led to really crappy armour being the norm. This problem really didn't become a real problem until a certain farmboy from Tatooine waltzed onto the scene because the average yokel on an Imperium governed world was just too cowed by the fearsome appearance of the white hats to do anything against them.

The reflec is also why arrows worked well against them. They were designed presupposing combat against similarly armed adversaries, not aboriginals armed with primitive weapons.

even more importantly, and, yes,I'm a geek, is that originally the primitives were intended to be Wookees; now imagine every scene where a stormtrooper is taken down by a teddy bear as actually being an enraged wookie, and it all makes more sense......

Still, we must remember that the ewoks, cute ad annoying as they were, were real bastards - nasty ambushes, scorn for all but overwhelming force, and a willingness to cook alive and eat their prisoners....plus, one has to ask, where did all the food for the victory feast come from ? Given all the empty stormtrooper helmets........and the fact that pastoral gatherers seldom have much of a food reserve.......ummmmm. welllll.

 

[shadowdragon]

and don't forget, all the material and radiation from the death star raining down on the planet probably killed off the owoks shortly thereafter anyway, but i digest, you were talking about the meat served at the party.- one wonders how many stormtroopers were precooked from reentry- if their armor is ablative that is...