Gear

Energy Storage

Energy storage is usually in nanocapacitors, though starships usually have fuel cells that can run the ship’s lighter systems off the same hydrogen that would be fed to the fusion reactor were it online. An energy cell is usually a small, flat disk that supplies electrical energy for low-power devices like vibroblades and sensors. They have relatively low energy flux, which limits the amount of trouble they can get into; even if a crate full of them is in a fire, the worst it will do is melt down. power pack is an oblong cell with high energy flux, suitable for charging plasma in blasters. Because power packs have to discharge so much energy at a time, they are more likely to explode when maltreated, though blaster power packs are quite rugged and need a sustained insult, such as being put in a fire, before they will explode. A power core is the size of a shoebox and is used for heavy weapons and speeder bikes; a droid battery is about the same size but has lower power flux.

Information Display

A common design philosophy is that no matter how much high-tech gear you have, ultimately there will be situations where you have to rely on the Mark I Eyeball— that technology is not perfect and needs to have a fail-safe mode that leaves you your native faculties.

The traditional datapad is a rigid rectangular display using either electronic ink (e-ink), organic LEDs (OLED), photonic crystals, or interferometric modulation (IMOD). There are many variations involving flexible screens— basic ones wrap around the wrist like a bracelet, and fancy ones fold up like a paper fan that can be read crudely when completely closed (by illuminating the edges), or opened into a screen. Others can be built into a vambrace or gauntlet. Fancier ones use low-power force fields and holographic emitters to project a dynamic display with tangible buttons above a black surface; these can be handy if you need stealth, since they can switch to a purely infrared display or tactile only. (The interface cannot be given subtle tactile detail like Braille, but they can be made into distinct buttons.) A lightboard is a larger such surface on which people can sketch with a stylus; a computer within it can clean up handwriting to create formal notation, run calculations, and do graphing.

Augmented reality is usually handled through data visors and spectacles; faceless troopers are usually getting information through their heads-up displays. They may show up as pince-nez, or headsets wrapping around the back of the skull and providing earphones as well (usually via bone conduction). Gang members sport tactical models as a sign of thug chic, but they’re normally seen as gauche— the sort of thing that security, technical, and medical personnel use while on the job. HUDs are available as very expensive contact lenses and as cybernetic implants as well, but not being able to remove your HUD quickly when it crashes can be a big problem. The contact lenses are much cheaper than the implants (and the biocompatible ones can be left in for weeks at a time), and are usually complemented with hearplugs. All models of HUD also include shutters that can dim incoming light as well, both to reduce glare and to provide more immersive interfaces. Haptic gloves are available, though usually only used by professionals who need that level of feedback from a computer; usually a bit of jewelry (cufflinks, bracelets, camera buttons, etc.) is sufficient for your gesture interfaces.

Full-on virtual reality can be created using a 3m cube equipped with traction fields and grav plates to provide the sensations of acceleration and gross interaction, and a haptic suit to provide the fine interaction of touch. These are moderately expensive, and generally used by technicians who need to work in virtual reality or well-off videogame players. They don’t simulate interaction with a humanoid body very well; if you want practice in ballroom dancing or hand-to-hand combat, training droids are available for that purpose.

A protocol droid’s translation matrix can be embedded in a portable device that clips to your ear, but without a consciousness able to follow a being’s narrative, it will run into errors much more often than a droid running the exact same software. The delay involved in a conversation where someone is experiencing translation lag imposes a –1 penalty on social skills, which a protocol droid’s etiquette abilities would be able to negate. The delay can be slightly reduced by using a heads-up display to give people subtitles, but this interferes with eye contact, so it’s pretty much a wash. Cost is usually Fair.

Sound playback is usually achieved through flat carbon nanotube speakers.

Hearplugs are small devices that you insert into your ear canals when you get out of the fresher in the morning. They are hollow tubes that can close up to protect your hearing from loud noise; they have miniscule speakers and microphones that allow them to still process sound from your environment and allow you to make sense amidst cacophony, and to pick up your voice from bone conduction. Most models can also talk to your Talisman by modulating your body’s electrical field or communicating over skin conductance, allowing you to listen to music or your commlink without visible headphones. They are black and hard to spot casually, and shielded to avoid the threat of inductive heating. (The Etymotic EB-1 is the 2011 equivalent of the tech.)

A holoprojector scans tunable lasers across rapidly fluctuating low-power force fields that diffract the light and build up a freestanding image (which is not opaque to its background and generally has to be kept fairly bright for contrast). A holoscreen creates holograms that appear to have depth, but only exist with the confines of the display itself; against the black background of the holoscreen, one can get much better nuance. Holoscreens are commonly used for entertainment and telecommunication. Holoprojector cost starts at Poor with liter-sized images, Average for a cubic meter, Good for a life-size meeting display, and Superb for the 10m cube advertising displays. Holoscreens start at Poor for a datapad-size display, Mediocre for videophone-size, Average for a personal entertainment system, Fair for a family one, Good for a home theater, Great for a wall, and Superb for a billboard.

Fancy devices use holograms and traction fields to create virtual user interfaces. This means that the interface has no moving parts and can reconfigure on the fly, far better than a capacitive touchscreen; such devices are usually noticeably more expensive than those with regular buttons or flat touchscreens.

Augmented reality tutorial sims are available for most skills, at a cost of the level of skill to be attained plus one (so instructional material for getting to Average is Fair); player characters must still provide the experience points. Learning a first-level stunt like Expert can be facilitated with a Good-cost sim, though real-world application is required.

Information Storage

Holobooks are used for transporting large quantities of information, while datacards and dataspikes are convenient ways to store modest amounts of data without having them get so small that they’re easily lost. Moving it around from person to person can take place via wireless radio links, modulation of the body’s electric field, or acoustic signaling through the skeleton. High bandwidth requires a direct scomp link.

A code cylinder is somewhat like a generic Talisman, used as an access token in installations so secure that they do not allow the usual smooth wireless handoffs and all authentication must occur via scomp links, or for resources where it is deemed important that there be a physical token used. Some military and mercenary outfits consider the use of code cylinders a crutch for people who can’t practice good data hygiene; others tut over the inherent insecurity of software.

Tracking

RFID tags can be used for all manner of tracking. The smallest and most passive ones, spime dust, can be used to mark ownership; naturally, there are many devices for locating and burning out these chips. Larger and more sophisticated ones can be used for tracking; the longer the range, the bigger the device. Active-on-demand tracking devices that work at a range of a kilometer are available as thin, transparent circuitry that can be applied with an adhesive or applied with a specialized sniper rifle. Most manufactured gear contains short-range passive spime dots or threads that include data such as user manuals, washing instructions, and so on, which are only detectable at a range of a decimeter and readable at a centimeter, to discourage spam droids from identifying your gear at range and targeting you with advertisements based on your brand choices.

Telescopes

A petalscope is a collection of special-purpose minimally smart droids, each of which consists of a 1m hexagonal mirror-segment, maneuvering using cold-gas thrusters and traction fields and positioning with laser interferometers, which deploy into a set of precise positions to create a single telescope (much like the real-world Keck telescope). They are only safe to deploy in sufficiently deep space that debris won’t smash the mirrors; it’s not a good idea to have them in low orbit around a planet with active space traffic. Many ships carry one crate of 7 mirrors, which is useful for anything from planetary survey to astrogation. Capital ships have much larger arrays, but they need to know where to point them... They’re reusable as long as you’re very careful when packing them up. A pack of 7 droids, in a secure storage container that protects the optically-precise front surface mirrors from being damaged by ordinary handling, has Great cost.

Mechanical

Hydrospanners. Multidriver: electronic screwdriver with a MEMS head that can reconfigure to whatever shape of bolt or screw you need to manipulate. Somewhat expensive, since it’s hard to make MEMS that finely detailed and also strong enough to do tool work. Entrenching tools.

Ultrashort pulse (USP) lasers (2 3) are often used where lower-tech societies use mechanical cutting implements.

Optical

While folded optics allow cramming binocular-quality optical zoom in something that looks more like a pair of goggles, most people just use photoreceptor-based systems, which can pick up information from most bands of the spectrum, though they still have their source limitations (e.g. infrared doesn’t penetrate dust or moisture well). Electrobinoculars cost around ¤1000 (Fair); they are available as goggles (which also double as tactical data visors) for ¤5000 (Good).

Night vision apparatus includes light amplification (which has difficulty with changing light levels), ultraviolet imaging (which requires a source of light, which can make you a target), and infrared imaging. The far infrared is the range for thermal imagers that pick up body heat and can fail to pick up droids and other ambient-temperature hazards; the near infrared is more like visible light, passing through glass normally, and can work off natural near-IR airglow from the sky while outdoors. Good goggles integrate all these spectra to provide a useful image; military-grade ones have a great deal more processing and can integrate feeds from goggle-wearing and droid companions and produce a synthetic deep-scan view, showing objects behind obstacles.

Cybernetic replacement eyes are available with light amplification and imaging from the near infrared on up; thermal imaging won’t work in cybereyes, any more than you can take useful pictures with a camera whose metal is glowing. Extremely expensive cybernetic eyes can sometimes be mistaken for organic ones, but their users report that the image always seems to lack a certain richness.

Sensors

A portable scanner integrates information from multiple different sources. It contains software-defined antennas that can implement ground-penetrating radar, photoreceptors to pick up on optical frequencies, and ultrasound emitters and detectors. They are typically loaded with multiple libraries of heuristics for looking for anything from land mines to life signs. Operating one gives a +1 to Alertness checks. Cost is Good (¤1500).

The Aural amplifier RECG p51 employs an array of microphones to sift out signal from noise to filter important signals like voices and footsteps from background hubbub. Cost is Good (¤3000).

Inertial guidance is quite good as long as you aren’t using antigravity technology.

Many places of business have sensor gate built into their entrance, scanning for hidden weapons, over-powerful servos on droids, etc. Weapon-check safes are extremely secure, certified and maintained by the manufacturer. Establishments that maintain a weapon-check safe also provide cyber restraint gear (usually taking the form of a heavy elbow-length glove) that prevents people form using implant weaponry inside.

Privacy

A privacy screen is a low-power force field that blocks sound waves and diffuses light enough to stymie lip reading; it won’t stop blaster bolts or people walking through it. Cost is Fair for an installed system, as for a restaurant booth, and Good for a large backpack-sized one. They are bulky enough to be very inconvenient for thieves and mercenaries.

Illumination

The glow rod (aka luma) is common throughout the galaxy— cost is Terrible (¤10). They are extremely efficient, using quantum dot lighting to produce the chunk of blackbody curve for most species’ visible spectrum.

Medical

A medpac is a first-aid kit that can clamp on your belt, with spray bandages, sterilizer spray, coagulants, a wound stitcher, a canister of fleshseal spray foam, clonk cleaners, a spray hypo with a set of popular loads (antibiotics, analgesics, etc.), and other basics, with the case itself containing a basic first aid application that anyone with smart glasses can follow; cost is Mediocre (¤100).

A medkit is the size of a bulky backpack, cost Fair (¤1000), and allows a paramedic to exercise their full skill in the field; it includes a spray splint, a smartcloth thermal blanket that can exert pressure or heat someone in shock or chill someone with a fever, a telescoping stretcher, a pint of heme replacement, a canister of numb-spray, and a basic medisensor with a preloaded expert system. Usually a hassle to carry around, but well worth keeping in the trunk of your speeder. A military-grade one costs Good (¤5000) and has a high-quality medisensor, endoscopic surgical unit capable of using bone glue to patch up breaks, uses living bandage instead of fleshseal spray, and has a High Quality aspect that can be tagged.

A medical capsule is a repulsorsled containing a full trauma support system, cost Great (¤10000), capable of keeping one occupant alive for a week until they’re taken to a well-equipped medbay, or inducing hibernation to make them last even longer. They are fairly well armored (Armor:4) and contain acceleration compensators to protect patients from jostling during emergency evacuations.

Medisensor

A portable medical diagnostic suite, with size between that of a thick mass market paperback novel and a shoebox depending on quality and sophistication. It uses contrast-enhanced ultrasound and terahertz radar (2) to assemble a picture of the inner workings of a being, full-spectrum photoreceptors to scan for discolorations and temperature variations, and can run fluid samples past an extensive set of microarrays for analyzing proteins.

Torture Support System

A favored tool of the Sith: a device that looks like a dark grey metal centipede whose legs are hollow, flexible tubes that stab into a being’s back on either side of the spine, infiltrating circulatory and nervous systems to keep the being alive through tortures that would otherwise kill them. It can shock the heart into beating and lungs to pump even when the autonomic nervous system would give up, and injects drugs into the bloodstream to prevent the victim from losing consciousness.

Agricultural and Pastoral

While it’s formally a Livestock Electrical Euthanasia Device, it’s colloquially a snuff gun: a high-tech version of captive bolt pistol; when activated, it has a cluster of thin arms that quest over the head and neck of the presented creature, identify the right place to apply an electrical current, and deliver a charge that shuts down the creature’s autonomic functions. (The motion of the arms also leads to it being dubbed a death lobster.) This requires that the creature be just as hapless as would be required for slitting its throat, but the intimidation effect of the arms moving is very effective, so sinister types on pastoral worlds often have one. The creature’s general type must be in the machine’s database; most sentient beings are similar enough to some form of livestock that the gun will not error out when presented with one. Cost is Fair; the size is a bit larger than a heavy blaster pistol.

The typical Handheld Field Orchiectomy Device, usually referred to as a steer gun, is an offshoot of medical droid technology and has a lower complication rate than an emasculator or elastrator. It is a single-purpose surgical implement that can quickly remove the testicles from anything from a barve to a bantha, applying a nerve block, sterilization, surgery, and suturing in half a minute and depositing the oysters in a hopper in the hilt. While modern technology can clone up new ones, so use of the device is not irrevocable, it is still a popular threat, and features in many domestic dispute accounts on pastoral worlds. Cost is Fair; the size is like a pair of blaster carbines glued side-by-side.

Security

A security kit is a set of gear for bypassing security systems; it includes a scanner capable of using ultrasound and electromagnetic induction to monitor the workings of devices and listening in on comlink frequencies to detect if you’ve triggered alarms, a multiprobe endoscope capable of splicing into electrical and fiber optic links, and other such gear. The kit can be placed in a simple pack on the belt or spread throughout a jacket. Fair (¤1000).

Technical

A typical high-tech toolbox is likely to contain a hydrospanner, power prybar, laser welder or sonic welder, vibrocutters, and a tech scanner (which can read spimes and connect to diagnostic ports on equipment— only a specialist can repair items in fine details, but the unspecialized Technician skill is sufficient for messing around with configurations and swapping out parts whose diagnostics don’t pass). Cost for a toolbox is usually Mediocre (¤250). Starship toolboxes always include a plasma cutter and welding goggles for doing hull patches, pressure film spray (which forms a light membrane that distorts over even a pinpoint leak and makes it obvious when viewed under polarized light).

Culinary

The typical middle-class kitchen is full of sensor-laden appliances that talk to the spime packages of food, weigh the amount of ingredients being added, calculate calorie, nutrient, and vitamin content dynamically, and tell the serving dishes, which in turn talk to the talismans of the diners about their nutritional needs, diet, and food allergies. This is all invisible to anyone who doesn’t have a heads-up display on.

Hygiene

The standard refresher (fresher for short) has all the appurtenances for hygiene in one place; they are usually fabricated to have simple hookups to standard water and power. A typical starship fresher is the size of a closet, with a sanisteam, sonic shower, or turboshower (with dozens of programmable nozzles that can run a variety of cleansing routines, spraying you with clear or soapy water at various temperatures, then drying you afterward), fold-out toilet and sink on opposite sides, and a sonic steam-cleaning cabinet for your clothing (which cleans, dries, and presses it while you perform your ablutions).

Cargo

A servo-lifter is a powered exoskeleton for loading cargo. Cost is Great (4). Loader’s gloves have Average (1) cost and go up to your shoulders; they provide extra grip strength and protection from crushing when shifting crates. A basic propulsionless repulsorlift cart is Average (1), is 2m×1.5m, and can carry a ton before its fields give out; a heavy-duty one that can shift 4 tons is Fair (2).

Clothing

Hooded robes are popular across the galaxy. Convergent evolution has selected for humanoid races as the most popular body plan, and a hooded robe does a good job of concealing the differences between species. The hooded trenchcoat is currently quite popular.

Smartcloth is a popular fabric: it contains sensors, processing elements, and contractile fibers that allow it to loosen and tighten to keep the wearer comfortable in differing climates. A smartcloth overcoat or robe can serve well in the desert or snow, and can be augmented with a heated underlayer powered by a small energy cell for colder climates or an evaporative cooling insert for hotter ones.

The cheapest clothing (shirts, tunics, trousers, skirts, sarongs) starts at ¤10 (Terrible), becomes decent at ¤50 (Poor), stylish at ¤250 (Mediocre), and haute couture at ¤500 (Average) and up; shift higher for an entire outfit. Stylish and better clothing usually incorporate smartcloth that adapts to the wearer’s size fluctuations or acts as built-in corsetry. Many poorer people dress in logo gear, turning themselves into walking advertisements, because such clothing is subsidized.

Videocloth is a flexible electronic ink display; it’s a cheap cousin to advanced camouflage systems. Mixing smartcloth and videocloth can allow clothing to change its appearance a great deal on demand; the cost for articles of this is usually ¤500 (Average) or more. The upper crust often wear ¤5000+ (Good+) outfits that have multiple configurations, each associated with a famous designer.

Aerogel gear can provide extremely lightweight insulation.

An adaptive camouflage cloak or poncho has Good cost.

The same sensor advantages available to people in high-tech armor are also available in more subtle form, such as bejeweled headbands or hatbands. Cost is Fair (¤1000) if you just want 360° of photoreceptors at your command, Good (¤5000) if you want military-grade radar, sonar, and chemical samplers, Great (¤10,000) if you want it to be extremely well-camouflaged. The data must be feeding to a tactical data visor or HUD contact lenses to give you Enhanced Senses.

Footwear

Soleskins are disposable adhesive coverings for the soles of the feet that will protect against ordinary urban environments; they are extremely cheap and often provided to slaves.

High-quality shoes (cost Mediocre) have adaptive soles can change hardness with the terrain they walk on, providing comfort in many environments, and use smart fabrics that can open or close pores to allow the feet to breathe or keep them warm and dry based on the differential between the inside and outside of the shoe. The motion of the wearer provides all the energy needed to run the smart systems.

Flying boots with jet assist or repulsorlifts are a staple of the holovids, but making a control system for two separate units wavering at the edge of a being’s mass is extremely difficult, and none have ever been made into a practical product. Repulsor boots have Mediocre cost and can use a repulsorlift cushion to function as skates, skis, or snowshoes on slick surfaces, but the soles are thick and inflexible and they are usually only used in sports.

[come up with a name]

Best damn boots in the galaxy. These are expensive boots that are custom-fitted to an individual, made of extremely high-tech smart materials. Energy from the wearer’s footsteps creates power for the internal systems, which can affect the flexibility of the boot for the current activity, making the sole hard on rough ground and supple indoors, the insides soft when propping your feet up, firm and supportive when in motion, and completely rigid when climbing a wall. They can close tightly around the wearer’s shins to keep the feet dry in a driving rainstorm, or open small pores to vent heat and moisture and admit cool breezes. They are tested in climates from arctic to desert. Available modifications include extending crampons for climbing and walking on ice, springing out spars and membranes for swimming or walking on snow...

Armor

I can’t see a thing in this helmet! — Luke Skywalker

The commonness of unencumbering light armor (based on shear-thickening fluids, sometimes under computer control, magnetorheological fluids, and/or auxetic fabrics) has led to a shift to stronger weapons: no one wants to swing a punch without combat gloves or buzzknucks, no one would try to slice someone up without a vibroblade, and shooting people demands energy weapons that can burn through armor where bullets would bounce off.

Basic and advanced flexarmor feel like heavy leather, and are non-encumbering; they typically have a hood that can be raised to protect the head, while heavier armors have a helmet. Typical configurations are either a hooded robe, hooded trenchcoat, jumpsuits, or jacket-and-trousers sets.

If you do not have armor proficiency and the required Might for the armor, you suffer the encumbrance penalty to Guns, Melee, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, many uses of Athletics (including climbing, running, jumping, swimming, and swimming), and Endurance’s use for stamina. Powered armor gives +2 to your Might, up to a design maximum (usually Epic); enhancing Might by more than 2 makes the armor too difficult to control. (The same technology can be applied to mobility suits for people who have negative Might; a suit with no armor that enhances your strength to Mediocre has Good cost.) Heavy armor— as long as its power cells hold out— can also boost Endurance by cooling your body when it overheats.

Light armor, such as a combat jumpsuit, is flexible and slightly encumbering; it is fairly common street wear in rough parts of town. The helmet usually does not seal against environmental hazards, unless it’s a space suit. Business armor is well-tailored and elegant in design.

Space suits tend to have Good cost; at ¤2000 they’re cumbersome one-size-fits-all affairs, at ¤5000 they’re made of smart fabric that is skintight and offers good freedom of movement. Flightsuits are designed for starfighter pilots who might need to survive ejecting into vacuum: they use smart fabrics to provide limb compression to avoid blackouts during tight turns, and can sustain the wearer for about half a day as long as they don’t exert themselves. Spacesuits don’t block hard radiation well, so most people working outside usually do so under a particle screen provided by a force field generating droid nearby. Some such droids even provide a bubble of air and allow workers to operate in their shirt sleeves, though most spacers prefer not to work under conditions where one misstep can chuck them into hard vacuum.

Medium armor has rigid plates on top of flexible armor, and indicates that you’re ready for trouble; it’s hard to get into classier establishments with it on unless you’re carrying extra insurance. The helmet on medium armor can usually be sealed against breathing hazards, though most suits don’t have a full enviroseal.

Medium powered armor, such as the Corellian powersuit, uses myomer fibers to enhance the wearer’s Might by one, up to a design maximum of Superb; hotshotting it for greater enhancement is possible, though it gives you the aspect Don’t Know My Own Strength which can get you into a lot of trouble.

Heavy armor is entirely enclosed, with flexible material only at the joints, and indicates that you’re expecting a fight; some mercenaries and bounty hunters nearly live in it, though. It is fully sealed against environmental hazards (though the wearer has to choose to close the vents!), and usually has life support sufficient to sustain its wearer in extreme heat, cold, or vacuum for a brief time (¼ hour)— long enough to make it from the assault vehicle to the inhabitable target, and filters that last all day if you just need to survive in an otherwise-breathable atmosphere containing lethal war gases. Longer-duration extreme environment support can be attached in specialized backpacks (cost Fair).

Heavy powered armor uses servomotors and hydraulics to enhance Might by two, up to a design maximum of Epic, and provides a day of life support; cost is Superb (¤25,000–50,000).

Slow armor reduces your speed to ¾ of normal; mechanically, this can be compelled in pursuit and racing situations, and if you use Athletics to dodge attacks. Partial armor can be compelled to have no effect. Stealthy armor is made of materials designed to absorb vibrations and as many electromagnetic frequencies as possible.

The helmets of light and medium armor usually come with a short-range comlink, and can be easily retrofitted for a tactical data visor. All heavy and powered armor already have a visor integrated into the system. Armor proficiency is required to use a helmet’s data visor properly, giving the wearer an Enhanced Senses aspect. Helmets are often designed to give you the Faceless aspect, which can be tagged for Intimidation; this is so valuable to Sith lords that it outweighs the slight annoyance of the occasional impostor slipping in.

For sentients with a sonar sense, like Herglics, a system that synthesizes sonar images to give them an additional form of tactical input has Good cost. (This sort of thing can also be built into a very expensive hat.)

The shoulder plates of medium and heavy armor can be outfitted with additional sensors, active and passive, that feed to a tactical data visor. (Typical sensors include sonar, millimeter-wave radar, sensitive microphones that use stereolocation and Doppler signatures to track nearby objects, and chemical samplers that warn of biowarfare agents before they become lethal.) Cost is Good.

Gauntlet weapons, ascension guns, or retractable vibroblades can be built into the forearm guards of medium, heavy, and powered armors, one for each arm; guns can be customized with extra power or magazines in heavy and powered armors.

Another customization for armor is Adaptive Camouflage. The armor is covered in a chameleon layer (usually using electronic ink) that is constantly shifted to a pattern calculated to match the background observed by a network of miniscule cameras on the armor surface. Adaptive camouflage usually takes a beating in a battle and requires expensive maintenance. Cost is Great; the aspect can be tagged when sneaking.

An option available for any type of armor is Medical Assist. The armor is laced with biomonitors that keep tabs on the health of the wearer, and a medpac built into the armor can administer medicine when told to do so or when a preset program is triggered. The basic version is Fair; an advanced one that can only be installed in heavy armor has Good cost, and includes the ability to put pressure on wounds, tourniquets on limb segments, thermal pumps that combat fatigue and extreme environments, and induced hibernation when critically injured. This is a common feature on military armor, and units with poor data security pay the price when their armor gets hacked and deploys sedatives (or tourniquets!) in the middle of combat. Overall effect of the advanced system is +1 Endurance on top of the medpac benefits.

An option available for heavy armor is Extended Wear. The lining of the armor (and the tailored jumpsuit to wear under it) are designed to host a network of tailored microorganisms that break down sweat, blood, grime, and microbial interlopers, making it possible to stay in the armor for days on end without the interior becoming smelly and then septic. It’s even decent to sleep in, though not as comfortable as a bed. Cost is Good; for Great cost, you can buy it integrated with medical assist.

The backpack slot on heavy armor can be used for a jet pack if it isn’t providing life support or extra ammunition. Flying around the battlefield is a great way to make yourself a target, so jet packs are usually used for swift ascents of buildings or terrain; they usually have enough fuel for 100m of ascent. Cost is Fair. If you only care about going down, a grav chute uses antigravity technology to dump your gravitational potential energy into gravity waves and only has Average cost. You can theoretically fall from orbit with one, though there are issues with matching up your sideways velocity with that of the ground.

Sense Augmentation

Myopia is trivially correctable with outpatient surgery; the only people wearing glasses do so out of historical affectation or the need for a personal heads-up display. The latter devices are seen as working gear, and wearing a personal HUD in galactic society is the modern social equivalent of wearing a fully loaded carpenter’s toolbelt.

Security personnel and soldiers have heavily integrated tactical displays in headbands and helmets; in addition to a HUD, they also have earphones and haptic proximity sensors.

Paranoia

There is a large market for poison detectors, and there are many brands made to fit in a stylus that can be easily used to sample an item of food or drink. More expensive ones can fit in a ring, and very expensive cybernetic ones in a tooth.

Makeup

A universal makeup applicator uses microelectromechanical systems to adjust its brushes to precisely match the contours of the wielder’s face and draws from multiple reservoirs to provide the components for a desired effect: simply hold it to a different part of the face and the brush thins or thickens to match. They are extremely useful in disguise kits.

Fleshglue is used to attach jewelry directly to skin; it is rather painful to remove without a good solvent.

Gait-altering insoles are made of hundreds of small gel-filled cells that can change consistency from soft to firm to hard. (These are a side development of the development of shoes with smartsoles that adjust their hardness to the terrain.) The insoles can change how you walk, fooling gait-analysis algorithms; it takes a bit of time working with the settings to make your gait match someone else’s.

Alien Atmosphere

A breath mask either filters the ambient atmosphere, provides a supply of stored air, or both (for species that need an elevated partial pressure of a given gas). Models vary from full face masks (often needed for atmospheres that would irritate the eyes) to just a nosepiece (which requires discipline for remembering not to inhale through the mouth, but allows the wearer to speak more naturally; experienced wearers know better than to talk a lot when in a confined space and at risk of exhaling oxygen or methane into the other type of atmosphere). Usually Mediocre (¤250), with replacement filters and air canisters (lasting an hour) being Poor (¤20). Longer-duration systems are a bit larger and can do atmosphere scrubbing and recycling as long as they have power to run the systems; Average (¤500) and up.

Underwater

The aquata breather has Average cost and can provide up to 2 hours of breathing time underwater. Average (¤500).

Force fields can protect vehicles traveling to great depths, but no one has worked out how to make one small enough to protect an individual person. Dive suits that use liquid breathing can allow surface beings to survive at great depths; a more expensive option is pressure-mesh, which resembles finely scaled chainmail armor; when placed under high pressure, the scales link up into structures that can withstand the pressure outside. Preshmesh is faster to get into and out of than liquid breathing, but hampers the wearer more, and neither one can compete with a native water breather. (Thanks to Peter Watts’ Starfish [p199] for preshmesh.)

Skimboards

Repulsorlift skateboards, popular among youth and extreme sportsmen; they are smart enough to switch from a regular repulsorlift cushion to a lifting-body airfoil when the board leaves the ground, making it feasible to catch considerable air. Usually matched with grip boots that can hold to the board well, and even with hitcher guns that shoot gecko-foot-adhesive grapples that are anchored in a harness at the waist. Cost is usually Mediocre for a new one, and kids willing to sport logo gear and prove their brand loyalty can often get them for Poor cost. Skimboards give a +2 to Athletics checks for sprinting and (as long as there’s plenty of forward momentum) falling.