Rifts Up Close: The Crusader

By Tim Willard

In 69 PA Northern Gun Industries released the Crusader fully environmental body armor for sale on it's trade convoys. The suit, tailored to resemble the suits of armor of knights of old, proved to be a hot seller, and the design was quickly copied by Bandito Arms and several smaller armor manufacturing companies. The fact that the armor design was copied and put on the market by 74 PA led to the little known "Corporate War" of 81 PA that took place mostly off the radar of most people, when Bandito Arms and Northern Gun mobilized military assets, covert operations assets, and hired mercenaries for corporate espionage. Several smaller companies were absorbed or destroyed in the 2 year long shadow war, but neither Bandito Arms nor Northern Gun were able to gain the upper hand.

The armor is the standard modern multi-layer composite laminate, with additional protection provided by a neo-Kevlar polymeric fiber skirt protecting the groin and thighs of the wearer. The suit also possesses electronic suites, environmental capability, is highly mobile, and provides enough protection to enable the wearer to survive a point blank shot with a SAMAS rail gun.

The outer armor is a simple chain-mail looking affair, sitting on top of a ballistic gel impregnated kinetic dispersion layer. While the armor appears to be standard chainmail, there are no gaps in the environmental sealing provided by the chain-mail appearing covering. The armor is stable at high temperatures, and provides some limited protection from thermite plasma detonations.

The environmental system protects the wearer from high temperatures, however the fiber laminate of the armor has proved to become brittle at extremely low temperatures, normally only replicatable in laboratory conditions. The system is computer controlled, and can be overridden via manual instruction from the wearer from the wrist console. The suit possesses two high-pressure oxygen canisters, designed to provide a sealed environment in hostile conditions for up to six hours. The life support systems provide air circulation within the suit, as well as uses coolant tubing inside the inner armor layers. The suit can also self-purge is the presence of airborne contaminates or fumes are detected within the armor itself, flushing out the internal air system. However, the system is high pressure, despite the fact it can take up to 4.9 seconds to flush the suit, and some wearer's have gotten nosebleeds, ear-aches, or suffered headaches from the pressure of the environmental flush. In addition, the radiation shielding is adequate to allow the wearer to explore areas with moderate radioactivity. However, it cannot stand up to high radiation areas without the armor itself becoming contaminated. The radiation shielding is minimal at best, and does degrade over time, becoming nearly worthless after roughly three years.

The radio within the suit is single frequency tunable, with a decent range in the FM bands, directional or omnidirectional use, and the antenna is placed within the high "guards" of the medieval appearing helmet. The radio is well shielded, preventing energy weapons discharges from interfering with broadcasts, allowing excellent battlefield communication. The radio can also store up to 25 minutes worth the incoming radio messages, providing the message has a preprogrammed header code. The header code is easy to program in with a standard armor diagnostic tool, as well as easy to apply to outgoing messages.

The helmet does not contain a full HUD, although small LED's are embedded around the auto-tinting visor. One set tracks armor status, with blue (100-90%), green (90-75%), yellow(75%-50%), orange (25%-50%), and red (25%-0%) to report armor integrity status. A blue LED blinks for incoming transmission, and a blue/red LED to state whether or not the armor is on internal life support or not.

One place this armor excells is in providing wearer mobility. The extremely flexible design allows covert operations troops and para-military forces nearly full mobility, and is often worn by Juicers, M.O.M. enhanced, or otherwise "super-human" warriors.

The armor's "shield" is based off of old high threat reaction law enforcement riot shields, and provides slightly more protection that a the breastplate of the Juicer Assassin's Plate. The shield weighs 11 pounds, and enhanced warriors have been recorded parrying railgun bursts, energy weapon strikes, and even bolts of mystical energy.

Another advantage this suit possesses is the ability to be repaired in the field. The fibers are easily cut away if the suit is soaked in the proper chemicals for 2 hours, and can have patches rebonded within 20 minutes. The suit is then soaked for another hour, and the patch is "set" by allowing it to dry for 3 hours. All told, a suit can be repaired, in the field, within six hours, even if the suit was nearly breached.

Northern Gun sells the proper equipment for repairing the armor for a paltry 5,000 Cr for single packs (allowing the armor to be completel repaired from scratch three times), or 250,000 Cr for a 100 kit pack, allowing small settlement militia's the ability to repair the armor for several months, or even years.

Most repair shops repair Crusader body armor for less than 25% of normal armor repair costs, making this armor a good choice for cash strapped para-military or militia forces.

One strange thing noticed about the armor, is that vibro-weapons do significantly reduced damage to the armor, and laboratory tests have shown that it has something to do with the energy dispersal patterns of the chain-mail style covering.

A person can remove the armor completely in less than 15 seconds, thanks to emergency extraction links, as well as dress in the armor in less than a minute.

The suit's ion-lithium battery can be recharged quickly and easily via power conduit, which can be hooked into any standard power source. The battery can be charged within an hour on fast charge, or six hours on trickle charge, and possesses enough energy storage to allow the armor to run at full capacity for up to 480 hours before the internal electronics can no longer be powered. An adapter to allow the armor's battery pack to be recharged by power armor nuclear packs costs a meager 75 Credits from Northern Gun.

Weight: 11 lbs
Available Sizes: extra small through extra extra extra large
Mobility: Full
Availability: Average

Manufacturer's Cost: 11,000 Cr
Wholesale Cost: 29,000 Cr
Manufacturer's Recommended Price: 40,000 Cr
Black Market Price: 42,000 Cr
Wilderness Price: 25,000 Cr