Captain Equipment: Aegis RIG

[Butterrobber202]

The Captain is the most valuable member of the crew on the Horizon at nearly any given time. With that in mind, the gear they are issued should reflect that fact. As it stands, as far as "combat" gear goes, the captain has a flash, armor vest, helmet, sunglasses, energy pistol, autorevolver and the current Captain voidsuit. The Captain's voidsuit is kinda ass on purpose from a development stance from a few years ago, with its design revolving around the following idea, "Don't give the Captain solid protection or we might get Captains leading calvary charges when they don't need too."

That idea is all well and good, and was pretty well-founded in the period it appeared in, but I think now that the WL is more heavily moderated and expectations are higher, we can safely move away from it without causing much issue. 

Captain Voidsuit Armor Values, for reference.

Spoiler

My argument here is going to be mainly, not only is the Captain voidsuit relatively mid, its actually worse than a Security Voidsuit because it has a 1.5 slowdown. If the Captain is the most important person on the ship, let's give them some emergency gear to keep them afloat. 

I think it would be cool if the Voidsuit was replaced with a specially made RIG called the Aegis that has excellent bullet and laser protection, but next to no anything else to encourage Captain to hide in it in the back-lines. As for modules, I think the IIS Module, Leg Actuators, Maneuvering Jets and a pair of unique modules would make the Aegis worth having around:

Zeng-Hu Life Preserver
When the RIG wearer's BA drops below a certain threshold, this module injects the wearer with a slew of stabilizing chemicals. 
Emergency RIG Release
Utilizing a key inside the CMO's locker, this module instantly retracts the Aegis RIG to allow Medical access to the wearer. Key access can be turned off and on by the Captain, but automatically flips to allowed access if the Captain drops below a certain BA threshold. 

I'm willing to try and commission someone for some new icons for the Aegis if the developers are interested in this suggestion. 

[Lmwevil]

I like it

[ClemTheDuck]

honestly emergency RIG releases would be nice as a standard or a module for regular hardsuits in general. 

[Codename: Bear]

I like this idea and also support the emergency RIG release being a model accessible to all RIGs.

[Shimmer]

1 hour ago, ClemTheDuck said:

honestly emergency RIG releases would be nice as a standard or a module for regular hardsuits in general. 

That would be a good way to increase survival rate for miners who aren't robust, honestly, and give them a reason to ask a machinist for a suit.

[Arrow768]

I do not think that the armor values of the suit need/should be increased from where they are right now.

The captain should not get into a situation where these increased armor values are needed.
After all, they have quite a few different people they can send into situations where a hostile encounter is likely.
(i.e. HoS, XO, Bridge Crew, ...; depending on what needs doing)

I also believe that having subpar armor and knowing that might encourage a captain to actually surrender and cooperate with the antags instead of high-tailing it out of a situation and tanking/ignoring the shots that connect.

[Butterrobber202]

44 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

I do not think that the armor values of the suit need/should be increased from where they are right now.

The captain should not get into a situation where these increased armor values are needed.
After all, they have quite a few different people they can send into situations where a hostile encounter is likely.
(i.e. HoS, XO, Bridge Crew, ...; depending on what needs doing)

I also believe that having subpar armor and knowing that might encourage a captain to actually surrender and cooperate with the antags instead of high-tailing it out of a situation and tanking/ignoring the shots that connect.

The goal was not to increase the current values, but make the RIG only have defenses against ranged attacks, protecting the Captain on the backline. Ideally it would have 0 melee protection at all, or other protections at that. The point of the RIG is to prevent the Captain from being sniped or shot, not save his bacon on the frontlines. Additionally, most people atm would simply not put on the Captain's Voidsuit right now because the slowdown is more likely to get you killed than anything else. 

Edited January 10, 2024 by Butterrobber202

[Carver]

This sounds fun to steal, but I do worry it'd be stolen with such regularity that it indeed shouldn't be very useful in combat at all (at least either armour or speed-wise, a buff to the speed would probably be fine and balanced). I love the idea of the modules though, and the Captain graduating from a voidsuit to a hardsuit.

To leave a fun fact, once upon a time the Captain's space suit was the best suit on the station with wickedly effective armour. This was in an era where rounds were, generally, more fast-paced and gamey - yet even so it wasn't used too much because it was just as slow then as it is now (even if it arguably looked S-tier then due to how the helmet was sprited).