Today we are talking about ACPAs or Assisted Combat Personnel Armor, some of the styles, how they operate, their weaponry and uses in Cyberpunk 2020 and potentially Cyberpunk 2077.
Powered Armor as defined in the Heavy Artillery sourcebook is a combat environment suit which 1 has been augmented with rigid or semi rigid composite plates of armor and 1 assists the wearer in carrying its own considerable bulk, and that of the various weapon and utility devices through some sort of powered assist.
With the introduction of Power Armor, a new category of professional Solos began to gain momentum, who could be compared to the brute jet-fight pilots who are well versed in their heavy artillery and equipment. These Solos were called Troopers, with a special ability called Combat Sense like regular Solos but specialized for ACPAs.
Powered Armor have a large array of weaponry and can fit into one of three categories in Smart-Linked, Targeted or Guided.
Smart Linked ranged weapons are machine guns, portable cannons and other simple projectiles, targeted ranged weapons have parabolic trajectories without guidance systems like unguided rockets and propelled grenades, and guided ranged weapons are luxuries on the battle field that virtually assure a successful hit by locking on, such as anti-vehicle and air missiles.
Next let’s jump into the components of what makes up an ACPA and how it’s integral to the Trooper on the battlefield.
Power Armor became feasible with the birth and development of the linear frame, a metal and plastic scaffold of synthetic musculature and rigid supports.
With traditional linear frames not being strong enough for ACPAs, and with R&D teams envisioning the ability for troopers to be able to run, rip open doors and carry heavy artillery, they needed an incredible strong frame. In a rare collaboration Militech and Orbital Air developed an extremely light weight frame made of a crystalline poly-nucleotide lattice and plastisteel fibre.
The quality and composition of armor plates found in PA suits worldwide vary.
All ACPA suits are considered watertight down to 30m and have a filter / rebreather system that allows for 1 hour of sealed operation. They are driven by a fuel cell that allows them to operate for 24 hours straight, although they can be replaced in the field. Pilots and troopers wear skintight, low-friction bodysuits which act as cooling garments, and the ACPA itself requires the wearer to have interface plugs with a vehicle link in his processor.
A suit’s reality interface is integral to the function of the unit. This makes armor combat look a lot like netrunning. Its usually placed in the helmet, and the simplest implementation of this is the aperture-based reality interface. This relies on openings in the helmet protected by projectile resistant glass or plastic but leads to the same vision restrictions as a medieval knight.
Enhanced aperture adds additional lenses and auditory receptors to the suit, to improve peripheral vision and wideband aperture enhances upon this by adding smart targeting and adjusting lenses to help again with peripheral vision.
Full-HUD Wideband adds automatic targeting and an acquisition system whilst environment calculating integrated wideband HUD adds computer power for the trooper to interpret the geometry of the terrain.
Virtual Reality interfaces are the best and interpret the environment for pilot with sophisticated graphics and auditory warning. This is where Troopers and Netrunners are effectively one in the same in how they use their interfaces.
ACPAs also have reflex and control systems that regulate how the Trooper interacts with the outside world via his neural interface plugs and vehicle link. From basic control which is essentially the full range of human motion to high boost to command and control computers which allow increased neuromuscular function and highly automated actions to occur respectively.
ACPAs are equipped with auto-doctors which are automated medical systems to help improve a Trooper’s combat survivability. Examples from lowest tier to highest include the RussianArm KwikFix, the Arasaka Monitor, The Bodyweight Medic, the Militech Repeater and the Orbital Air prime.
Safety systems are also integral for ACPAs and escape hatches are on most units. Self-sealing compressors, food and filtration systems, extended power cells and life support are seen in some ACPAs depending on what they are being used for.
Power Armours are also equipped with audio visual means of communication including satellite uplinks, cell phones, radio links, scramblers, laser communicators, thermal targeting, image enhancement, radar and more.
When it comes to movement ACPAs can climb using sets of blades similar to wolvers, and fly using jets, gliders or Flyer wings. They can also skate around at high speeds and utilize an underwater jet to use at depth.
