Power Armor in Science Fiction (Fallout, Warhammer 40k etc.)

Get 'Designing a Space Frigate', the latest Official Spacedock Reference Book, here: / 100184147
Spacedock delves into powered armor in sci-fi in the wake of the recent #fallout show.
#warhammer
THE SOJOURN - AN ORIGINAL SCI-FI AUDIO DRAMA:
www.thesojournaudiodrama.com/
BECOME A CHANNEL MEMBER:
/ @spacedock
SUPPORT SPACEDOCK:
www.patreon.com/officialspace...
MERCHANDISE:
teespring.com/en-GB/stores/sp...
Do not contact regarding network proposals.
Battlezone II Music by Carey Chico
Spacedock does not hold ownership of the copyrighted materiel (Footage, Stills etc) taken from the various works of fiction covered in this series, and uses them within the boundaries of Fair Use for the purpose of Analysis, Discussion and Review.

[@rawwarsfudge2144]

In my mind, what differentiates power armor and mechs is where the pilot's limbs are. In power armor, the pilot's limbs are in the limbs of the power armor, while a mech pilot's limbs do not reach into the mech's limbs.

[@warmachine5835]

I use the same heuristic, and I think it holds pretty well. You can still get "petite mechs" this way where the squishy human is in a much smaller space, but ultimately their limbs do not leave the 'cockpit' portion.

[@skipperg4436]

In StarCraft's marine's limbs partially occupy the armor's limbs. So is it mech, or armour?=)

[@tearstoneactual9773]

You wear power armor, you drive a mech.

[@RainShadow-yi3xr]

Agreed

[@acarrillo8277]

@@skipperg4436 Power Armor. The Starcraft Marine's limbs extend into all the suit's limbs and the wearer drives the suit with body motions. The only portion of the suit that the wearer does not occupy is the hands.

[@LordMithril]

I know what its called but I cant unhear "Halo's miauw miauw suit"

[@riccardogemme]

And now we must all spread this

[@NaderVaderYT]

through me off with that one lol that shit is wild

[@logion567]

Thor 2 reference I assume? Edit after watching: yup

[@tvrkm6897]

... Jonathan?

[@dragoninthewest1]

[Kat Dennings has entered the Chat]

[@kevingriffith6011]

Power Armor is one of the really cool things sci-fi does that has a real, practical niche. You're not going to be outfitting entire armies with power armor, as I'd imagine you could field some twenty traditional infantry for the price, but there are operations that could really take advantage of having some armored support where vehicles just aren't practical. They make a great supplement to a standard infantry squad: They carry heavy equipment, advanced tech and are highly resistant to small-arms fire, making them quite literally "The lightest possible tank imaginable", and they'd do what a tank does, just smaller. I'd say they'd even be good things to kit your personal bodyguards out in, but frankly walking into a building while wearing power armor sounds like a good way to take a quick trip to the basement.

[@jakeaurod]

IDK, with the advent of drones and smart bullets, increasing levels of armor might become necessary. That might require muscle-assist systems. I could see a basic powered armor becoming necessary for front-line assault troops or military police in an occupation with an insurgency. Think of it less like a man-tank hybrid and more like a knight or dragoon updated with modern tech.

[@carloshenriquezimmer7543]

@@jakeaurod At the same time, advanced sensors, improved armor composits and smart small arms made an infantary drone possible. Think of the military bodies on the movie "Surrogates", but less like a human lookalyke and maybe more like the robots in "Elisyum", "Lost in Space", or "I am Mother" Have a experienced marine SEAL or army Ranger piloting it in an immersive simulator, and an auxiliary to monitor the all-around sensors, so the pilot can concentrate on figthing while any possible threat would be spotted beforehand. That eliminates the worst part of the problem, the operator. The shape of the armor, the integration and interaction with the equipment, even the limits of movement speed and reaction time are all dependent on the user's body. Having him in other place makes it all simpler.

[@jakeaurod]

@@carloshenriquezimmer7543 The weak point is maintaining a signal. That might suggest AI with local could be better, but that introduces other problems. As long as humans are involved in fighting wars, humans will be targeted ,even if it's well behind the front line. If humans are targeted, they may want armor. If armor is heavy, humans will want assistance carrying and/or wearing that armor.

[@justinthompson6364]

I disagree that power armor could never be army-wide. Even twenty regular infantry may be insufficient to compete with power armored troops if the battlefield is deadly enough. Efficacy per manpower might be more important than equipment costs, either because there there's no population to spare, space super-industrialization has driven down the costs, or you just need all you can get from the limited number of people you can cram aboard a transport.

[@jtjames79]

In the military you already wear armor. You can get a hip based assisting exoskeleton for less than a thousand bucks. Powered armor. For most soldiers, hip and knees are all you really need. For heavy weapon teams, instead of one guy carrying the weapon and two guys carrying the ammo. You can bring two heavy weapons, a loader, and a robot to carry the ammo. During combat you would actually turn off the exoskeleton. They really aren't good with sudden movements. But your troops get to the battle not exhausted from marching.

[@ProeliatorDeus]

I'm surprised you didn't touch on WH40k's solution to "the armor getting hit would still severely injure or kill the person wearing it" bit via the bio-engineering and cybernetic reinforcement of the "pilot" wearing the armor. Space Marines having reinforced bones, backup/redundant organs, denser musculature, etc. plays really well with wearing a giant bulky armored suit without turning them into a crash-test dummy when they take an HE round to the chest.

[@blueberry1vom1t]

To expand on what op is saying. We see durign the Pariah Nexus a space marine has one of his lungs collapse and his heart stops. This is painful for him, but thankfully he has 2 hearts and 3 lungs so the redundant organs keep him from becoming combat ineffective. If you want something to last a long time in the worst conditions, redundancy is a good method to employ. And what is armor, but adding extra redundancy to it's wearer.

[@MehrumesDagon]

Arguably this is further displayed in stat sheets of non-space marine power armors - Adepta Sororitas, while being equipped in power armor, do not have black carapace or other modifications, and end up with same strenght and toughness as normal human. (but with 3+ armor saving throw, identical to standard space marine armor)

[@tau-5794]

@@MehrumesDagon Sororitas should theoretically have similar if not quite equal strength to Astartes since they are both in power armor, but the TT's strength stat isn't granular enough to show that difference and so sisters that should be between guardsmen and marines lean closer to the guard and get the same stats.

[@CT-tt3bd]

@@tau-5794 Sororitas power armour doesn't enhance strength because they don't have the black carapace that links their body with the suit.

[@adambielen8996]

@@tau-5794 No, Soroitas are normal humans whereas Astartes are significantly stronger. The armor of the Sister would have to be enhancing her strength way more than an Astartes' armor enhances his for her to come close.

[@JCIce007]

James Rhodes getting severly injured from an impact when the suit had no power makes me think that Tony also invented inertial dampening and it just hasn't been mentioned on screen.

[@kevinwestrom4775]

He did incorporate an Inertial dampening field, for both reducing the impact of incoming bullets & cannon shells, as well as protecting the user normally when accelerating very rapidly, changing direction almost instantly, and when landing at a high speed/ crashing. He used it in the comics version of his suits of armor at least. In the movies, who knows..

[@karlbrundage7472]

Any tech that can produce repulsor fields and beams could be adapted to create an inertial damper field. DARPA, get to work!

[@lovell8983]

yeah but the real physics wouldn't be very happy about that lol

[@Hust91]

I am very curious how you figure that. We have tech akin to repulsors (rockets, em thrusters), they're just much less efficient or less powerful, but it doesn't work for a single instant of inertial dampening of the kind nerded to protect a squishy pilot from extreme g-forces

[@JCIce007]

@@Hust91 Iron Man repulsors seem to only selectively follow the principals of equal and opposite reactions. There are many times when he blasts things wothout getting pushed back himself.

[@Kurzula5150]

If you've got your arms in the armoured arms and your legs in the armoured legs, it's a suit. If you're in a cockpit working with joysticks and pressing buttons, it's a mecha.

[@pills-]

🤔Me, thinking of how they pilot Jaegers from Pacific Rim by using a full workout gym...

[@Lightningchase1973]

And in - between Avatar Mech Suits, you are in a cockpit, but the suit movingaccording to your legs and arm movement, not operated with joystick and Co.

[@phalanx3803]

i had the same though if its something you pilot its a mech if its trying to be an extension of you is a suit.

[@KwadDamyj]

Someone offers me a free Ferrari: I sleep. Someone offers me a free suit of power armor: GIMME GIMME GIMME!

[@shinygoldenpotion1587]

me: runs over the opponent who has power armor on with a ferrari

[@leftoverthoughts2275]

@@shinygoldenpotion1587 What that would achieve would depend on the suit and the type of Ferrari. If it's a Ferrari tractor vs. the mercenary suits from Dominion, you're talking; if it's more like a Testarossa vs. a Glitter Boy, you're going to look like the villain in that Munsters movie who tried to run over Hermann.

[@LordCrate-du8zm]

If you try and run over a Space Marine your car will be flattened.

[@missjayspeechley9213]

@@shinygoldenpotion1587 Good way to wreck your Ferrari

[@Pegasuz1233]

You have to pay taxes to own and maintain Ferrari, but there's no regulation for taxes on power armor and the IRS wouldn't dare to fight you. The choice is obvious

[@DragobAttack]

I love the Spartan II Soliders and Armor from Halo, where they had to heavily kybernetically modify the Spartans, so they could survive using the armor. The armor would kill any person without reinforced bones and muscles.

[@WolfeSaber9933]

One of the 2s, I forgot her name, actually had her strength enhancements limited because her natural body was quite strong, like a ten year old picking up a grown man and throwing him so hard into a wall it killed him.

[@kingjonstarkgeryan8573]

They technically take that from Warhammer 40k since 40k is really the first example of combining super soliders with power armor.

[@WolfeSaber9933]

@@kingjonstarkgeryan8573 Didn't 40k come before Halo?

[@IrishWarrior00]

Its a good demonstration of the suits getting more advanced also through the generations. The original ones were more crude but powerful requiring the enhancement while the more recent ones for the S4s keeps the same power without as large a chance of crippling the user.

[@Woopor]

@@WolfeSaber9933 all of them have to limit their strength. Chief claimed he would have broke his fingers saluting in MJOLNIR for the first time if his enhancements hadn’t made his bones super tough

[@shadowsayan3454]

Samus Powersuit is hella underrated, highly adaptive,modular, and the scan feature is what everyone want when dropping on an unknown planet.

[@18Krieger]

The Powersuit is crazy lore-wise. Its my favorite but one might argue thatt its not really Power Armor. Being more organic in nature and part of Samus body.

[@timogul]

Also, you can crumple up into a ball about the size of a human torso. Edit: and more importantly, _uncrumple._

[@shadowsayan3454]

@@18Krieger I mean with Chozo Technology the border between Technology and Bio Technology are very blurry

[@Twisted_Logic]

It's honesty very much like the nanosuit from Crysis, but instead of alien nanotech it's out and out space magic

[@g.f.martianshipyards9328]

Nevermind that it can also store an absurd amount of missiles and power bombs and has infinite power beam and bomb ammo. And that's without upgrades like the wave beam or Gravity Suit. Samus' armor might just be the most overpowered power armor there is.

[@supremegodemperorpalpatine4872]

"TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!" "Well I'm sorry, I'm not Tony Stark."

[@EmonWBKstudios]

😠 - Mjolnir (Me - yol - neer) 😊 - Mjolnir (meow - meow)

[@Starwar111ITA]

Surprised that you didn't mention the H.E.V. suit, one of the most iconic power armors in a game franchise. Coolest thing is that unlike most power suits, which boost the wearer's power (strength, survivability) by a very large amount, the suit that Gordon wears keeps him just barely above a normal human's level of strength and protection, with some small power boosts to justify things such as the player swinging the crowbar 4 times per second.

[@Croz89]

Makes sense since the suit isn't designed for combat, it's basically really advanced PPE. Its job is not to protect against bullets but hazardous environments.

[@ThatKobold1351]

I think the reason for Fallout's suits blocking the force transferince is due to the suit being raised slightly off of the wearer's body. While the exoskeleton is skin tight, the armor itself isn't, so its able to deform and bend from the blunt force instead of transfering it to the wearer. Its also shown in the game that armor pieces can break and become useless in combat.

[@UGNAvalon]

Crumple zones in armor?? 🤔

[@ThatKobold1351]

@@UGNAvalon exactly! It makes sense for protection, but it does offer some disadvantages, like very limited field repair

[@Sorain1]

@@ThatKobold1351 Funny thing is, armored plates that can crumple but be simply field repaired (beaten back into shape) is one of the perks of that design. But of course, your point has validity, damage to a frame would be catastrophic and beyond any kind of field repair work.

[@Mannchini]

I love how bruised and banged up Bobbie always was in The Expanse after combat in her armour. Sure it helped but it was no cheat code to falling of a multi-story building

[@Krahazik]

I think her suit should have gotten a bit more love here.

[@JesmondBeeBee]

​@@Krahazik Agreed. Some of my favourite scenes in the Expanse involved Bobbie walking into a hail of bullets like it was a light rain shower.

[@alessiodecarolis]

Exactly, the Expanse's power armours were one of the best "gadgets" of the show, after the ships, naturally. Also if they didn't help so much, at least initially, against the bio-monsters.

[@Joshua-yf5mh]

Although I have mixed feelings about changes made to the outcome of her fight on Io, I do love how power armor is depicted in the show and books. S2/book2 also took into consideration on removing the occupant in an emergency ("popping the suit") and also the size of the occupant, since at least in the book it's remark a few times that Bobbie's is custom sized for her and that the standard size is uncomfortable for her to wear. I'm rereading book 8 and I'm both dreading and excited about the last scene she's in power armor. iykyk

[@brokenursa9986]

The whole fitting the power armor to its wearer thing is addressed in the book _The Forever War_ by Joe Haldeman. In the book, each suit is specially fitted to its wearer, and their caloric intake and outtake is carefully monitored to ensure they stay within the tight tolerances of the suit’s fitting. The book even shows the results of what happens when someone is loaned a suit that’s not fitted to them, and it’s not pretty.

[@kfeltenberger]

Or when they fall on their back…

[@makky-kat3719]

This is what the MMC recon marine suits in The Expanse are too. I don't know if it was in the show too, but in the books Bobbie Draper is a nonstandard-enough size that she hadn't gotten one of the newest generation of suits yet.

[@dotnet97]

That is also how it is irl for the closest thing to power armor we actually use, space suits. Some are modular but custom fitted, and others are entirely custom made for the associated astronaut.

[@Belligerent_Herald]

Is that really power armor though, they are treated more like hardened exo suits. Either way great book.

[@brokenursa9986]

@@Belligerent_Herald They’re not referred to as power armor in the book, but the suits are armored and provide the wearer with increased physical abilities, so I think that fits the definition.

[@thestanleys3657]

"theres meat under that armour and meat can be ground"-paladin kodiak

[@robwalsh9843]

I hear the Starcraft 2 Terran music and kept expecting to hear "SCV here!" and "Fueled up and ready to go!"

[@jjkrayenhagen]

In emergency services, there's a saying: "in every collision there's three impacts. The car against the the other object. The person against the interior of the car. The person's organs against their insides." I've yet to see a media account for the third one. Rhodey's a great example, his organs should have been mush from that impact.

[@RorikH]

I feel like it would've been a great opportunity to bring up that time in Iron Man 3 where Tony fixed the problems with Extremis, thus creating an extremely powerful healing factor serum. Wait a minute.... Extremis in its original form gives off a ton of heat... what if that's how they create Red Hulk in the MCU? Mixing Hulk Blood with Extremis?

[@steemlenn8797]

It's especially strange if you remember how many late medieval weapons were made specifically under the assumption that they would not be able to do any first collision damage. A hammer danging on your full plate armor might scratch it, but that is not the important point.

[@HarrDarr]

@@steemlenn8797 There's almost no evidence for the effectiveness of blunt weapons against armor. Almost all maces and warhammers are bladed for the explicit purpose of penetrating, not delivering concussive force. While the concussive force is great, hit placement is significantly more important (head), a hit against a cuirass is not going to break ribs, you have like 4 additional layers of cloth (gambeson), potentially mail and a jacket underneath. Arrows and bolts would also not break your bones or rupture organs in armor, so why would a mace?

[@yjlom]

@@HarrDarr because that arrow was loosed from up to 300 m away, and is a) very unlikely to be optimally aligned b) much slowed down by air resistance already?

[@lc1138]

@@yjlom Arrows from 300m have to be shot in a parabolic trajectory. They might actually be at their max possible speed when speeding down on you from the sky. But they're obviously not as sturdy as a crossbow bolt, and you indeed have to be unlucky to be hurt by an arrow while wearing plate. Wearing anything less, however, you'd have to rely on a shield or on God's good temper. Late crossbow bolts are known to penetrate even the best plate. Huge machinery with steel bow and steel bolt, maybe steel string. Lots of energy.

[@padawanmage71]

i LOVE the Starcraft music in the background! "...Halo's Meow-Meow armor.." LOL!

[@DrakonPhD]

Never expected both the Chieftain and Garand Thumb referenced in a Spacedock video, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless! Power armor is always awesome.

[@Hindsightt2020]

Using Statcraft 2 music reminded me of a specific upgrade for one unit: the Marauder. Shock Absorbing Gel, in the upgrade's description it said that while the power armor the Marauder soldiers wear is sturdy, the human inside is squishy, and that there's been many times when soldiers die inside while the armor is more or less perfectly fine. The solution of adding that gel layer helps mitigate losses from kinetic forces on the soldier. (It just added 25 hp to the unit)

[@RorikH]

Meanwhile firebats just use soldiers so nuts that a severe concussion is an improvement.

[@PillarofSmite]

Let’s not forget the powered armor / drop pod combo for that cinematic sci-fi coolness.

[@TheVeritas1]

Yes!

[@lordcola-3324]

StarCraft music goes hard!

There are things to criticize in StarCraft, but the music is not one of them, they'd absolutely hit it out of the park.

[@ImperatorZor]

A good solution to size for the heavier suits of power armour is to have the suit's hands not be were the wearer's hands are. Instead the hands (and the biofeedback systems they use to register movements) are located in the suit's arms. The wrist and the hand of the suit are solid robotics. That way you just have to slip the hand in with a variable geometry biofeedback glove. It also means the hands are stronger while the user's hands are better protected.

[@carnosaur93]

agreed, and they actually even specifically show this in that classic starcraft2 suit-up trailer, i always thought it was a cool detail in it

[@timogul]

It can be more complicated than that though. For example, if the armor had the proportions of a human, then even if their hands ended "above the elbow" of the mech, they would have a much more reduced ranged of motion, OR the torso would have to look SUPER thin, because the shoulders would be limited to where human shoulders are. Actually, a great tool for looking at this is a video where Cosplayers made life-sized armor promoting the Anthem game, and the tankier one requires some real trickery to both look like the armor in the game and fit an actual human in it.

[@hughsmith7504]

EXO-squad had a good solution to this. The arms where controlled with joysticks located on the upper arms.

[@RorikH]

@@timogul Yeah, I think the best fit would be disproportionately short upper arms and longer forearms.

[@timogul]

@@RorikH Again though, you would need super narrow shoulders for that, proportionate to the scale of the suit. You would look like someone crammed into a tight box. Either that or the pilot would need to hold his arms out to the sides in ways that would not be comfortable or allow decent movement without tearing his arms off. If it's an Iron Man style suit, you can get away with some movable plate around the shoulders, but anything say 10ft tall or more, you would need to either keep the arms fully in the torso, or have them sticking out the sides of the torso, separate from larger mechanical arms that are puppeted.

[@ARandomTroll]

Reject power armor embrace bipedal forklift technical. cue Brigador ost

[@DankGank]

StarCraft music makes me smile from ear-to-ear

[@Stukov961]

Kinetic impacts is why I vastly prefer my power armour on the chonky side. It's easy enough to picture Starcraft and Fallout armour having multiple layers of shock absorption between the outer shell and the meat. Hell, for the latter there's padded sections on the inside you can clearly see when it opens up, showing that someone clearly thought about it

[@danielm6049]

I always imagined the fitting would be fairly simple. Taking FO4 power armor as an example (T-45 all the way), I figured an inflatable lining with sensors would both fit a wide variety of users and protect from impact. The only direct contact with the suit being the feet, which you can see from the game has adjustment and shock absorbing.

[@RorikH]

I like that. Too much fictional armor ignores the padding real life armor had beneath it.

[@dhwwiiexpert]

I wonder if that's what the recon armor is as, canonically, it's intended to be worn under power armor, even if it isn't actually modeled.

[@LordInsane100]

Fallout lore - older than the fusion core thing, incidentally - actually had it that the very first iterations of power armour _didn't_ have a sufficient internal power source - a cable to a generator was plugged into them and basically had the soldier act as a somewhat mobile turret.

[@justarandomyoutubecommenter728]

Really? I’ve never heard that, the closest I can think of are vague mentions of unremarkable models before the T-45 in the occasionally canon , occasionally not Fallout Bible

[@EGRJ]

In the MCU Iron Man 3 tie-in comic, he says the War Machine Mk 1 isn't properly calibrated, so it might hurt Rhodey. And IIRC, both Rhodey actors are the same height as RDJ. (See also: Paull Rudd and Michael Douglas.) Also, in Iron Man 3, the Mark 42 is tight around the the ol' main thruster, because it's sized to fit Pepper too. And like most women, she lacks that equipment. I assume Tony's suits after the Mk 1 all have some kind of inertial dampening. Vision hit War Machine's suit in the reactor, so the whole suit was "dead stick". And finally, I assume they all have some sort of hairstyle protection tech from the Mk 2 on.

[@Vastin]

I tend to draw the line between suits and mecha at the point where the wearer's musculature is no longer mechanically relevant to the motion of the limbs - usually because they are no longer present in the limbs. This allows for a suit to be somewhat larger than the wearer, but once the suit's joints no longer line up with the occupants it's not really a suit anymore. You are now riding in it rather than wearing it. Even then the lines can and do blur with some designs (does it count if just your hands are remote? What about an EXTRA set of limbs? Etc), but it resolves many cases and gives you a decent guideline for judging the rest.

[@greg_mca]

A space marine is power armour, a space marine centurion is a mech. Likewise a tau stealth suit is power armour, while crisis suits are mechs

[@IrishWarrior00]

I found the easiest way to think of it is you "Wear" a suit and "Drive" a mech.

[@maze4184]

the starcraft music POG

[@Reinforce_Zwei]

The thing with the MCU suits is that they could incorporate a tiny amount of vibranium and call it a day for impacts. Hell, with sufficiently high technology, absorption and redirection of incoming "energy", or even the storage of that potential energy could be part of the design. Like the Ironman suit being supercharged when Thor hit it with lightning, if you know the wavelength that your enemy uses then you can figure out ways to absorb or attenuate it to render it less harmful or even harmless.

[@89alcatraz89]

You missed one part about nanosuit, especially nanosuit 2, that also explains the transfer damage problem with nanosuit the wearer still does take damage, the suit just creeps into the wounds to keep it's user alive, eventually making them completely dependent on the suit to live

[@aprikosenboy1995]

Plus forced breathing and defibrillator. Prophet was basically a Walking corpse at the beginning of the second game.

[@admiralbimback2062]

Don't they wear some protective undersuit that you can see on Prophets dead body, that prevents this?

[@Daemon2k15]

​@@admiralbimback2062thats more to help them take the suit off. You see in 3 that after a while the nanosuit overwealm that undersuot and they had to skin it out of them

[@admiralbimback2062]

@@Daemon2k15 Yeah that's the main reason so it doens't fuse with their skin, but probaly also helps keep the suit from some small wounds where the suit isn't necessary.

[@Daemon2k15]

@@admiralbimback2062 i mean you dont need the suit for a scrath

[@jaquigreenlees]

The undersuit for some armours could also have a trickle power supply to charge up the energy levels, piezoelectric quartz crystals being the example of an extremely tiny electrical charge being generated from an impact.

[@RainMakeR_Workshop]

I always drew the line between power armour and mech at whether you wear it and control its limbs with your limbs directly, or you sit inside it and operate it like a vehicle.

[@christiancorralejo8726]

A concept that would be neat to apply to power suits is capes. With the right materials, they can be both wearable solar panels to help charge up power suits and provide some additional protection from bullets, fire, etc. Plus they just add style.

[@RorikH]

Addition: Weaving heat-conductive filaments through them to use as radiators.

[@Sorain1]

@@RorikH Being able to tell someone has been pushing themselves because their cape is glowing white would be a great visual.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

Tau Battle suits sit on the border of mech/power armor. That said, the Black Carapace creates a neural connection with the armor.

[@EvelynNdenial]

i'd say anything that doesn't fit your arms and legs into the arms and legs of the armor is a mech. so tau crisis suits would be mechs since the guy is scrunched up inside the torso but the xv 15/25 stealth suits would be power armor.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

@@EvelynNdenial XV15, XV25, XV22, XV01 are powered armor suits full stop. XV8, XV9, XV88, are on the boarder. XV95, XV109, and KX139, are freaking mechs.

[@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem]

​@@EvelynNdenial I say it's more a difference of moving in the armor (like Iron Man suits or Mjolnir from Halo) being power armor and piloting or driving mechs (like the Mantis, also from Halo, or Armored Cores from... Armored Core).

[@tau-5794]

@@mikewaterfield3599 I don't think the 01 even counts as powered armor, it's closer to marine black carapace and just allows the wearer to more efficiently pilot a vehicle instead of giving any strength enhancement. 8 and up however are full mechs, just small, the Tau inside is basically scrunched up into a fetal position in the torso. The only borderline mech/power armors in 40k I can think of are centurion suits and paragon warsuits, where the legs are in part of the armor's legs but the arms are separate from the suit's, either crossed over the chest or in separate mini-arms for motion control.

[@mikewaterfield3599]

@@tau-5794 there was a fluff story from the fifth ed codex, apparently it has as much protection as standard fire warrior carapace armor and contains life support systems along with the integrated multi tracker and target lock. Ergo in my head cannon which apparently matters most with modern GW, its power armor.

[@ilejovcevski79]

"Swooshing about" in the armor isn't the only reason why the force of an impact would kill you. Even in a perfectly tailored 0 tolerance, 100% fit, second skin armor, your internal organs and tissues are still squishy. It's not the velocity that kills you after all, but the change in it, that is, the acceleration, vis-a-vis the force. And this works both ways. Just like a sudden stop from moving fast (like in a terminal velocity fall) would burst your organs even if your skin/armor survived, so would a sudden impact that would cause you to move from stand still. No amount of armor protection would help here, except for sheer bulk, but that would break the limit between armor and mech.

[@mortman200]

Halo Mjolnir gets around the damage of impacts by incorporating a "hydrostatic gel layer" between parts of the suit, basically a super advanced future ballistics gel compound, and then it also incorporates the armor lock ability to fuse the suit in one position to avoid injuries from crashes.

[@resurgam_b7]

It doesn't hurt that the wearers of said suits have bones coated in ceramic and muscles 5 times denser than a normal human's 😂

[@EyeOnTheTV]

Needed to talk more about how the user interfaces and controls the suit. There are many different approaches depicted in sci-fi. Tony Stark seems to merely talk to the built-in AI and it intuitively knows what he wants like magic (I don't think that's ever really explained in the movies) . Astartes wear a cybernetic interface body glove that allows them to feel like their armor is part of them and is totally devoid of any AI management system.

[@TheVeritas1]

On that note, in the comics, Iron Man's armor has a non-intrusive cybernetic interface that read his mental commands and activates the needed systems. It took years for Tony Stark to develop this interface, which may explain why the system doesn't appear in the MCU. In Halo, the Mjolnir armor works in a similar manner to the Iron Man armor except that the user must be implanted with a device in the base of his or her skull so the interface can work properly.

[@granmastersword]

@@TheVeritas1 also, said implant the Spartans get for their armor is actually standard gear for all members of the UNSC to have. Among many things, the soldiers have them to better interface with equipment like vehicles

[@TheVeritas1]

@@granmastersword Nice.

[@adambielen8996]

A Space Marine's Black Carapace is what allows them to interface with their Power Armor. And the Black Carapace is installed/grown under their skin and has ports that connect to the suit.

[@voidtempering8700]

​@@TheVeritas1He also has invasive types, such as the Extremis.

[@opossums-will-sing]

I like the XCOM 2 power armour: it primarily exists to allow the wearer to carry heavier weapons, particularly alien tech that requires a power source. The armour provided isn't any different to equivalent ballistic plating, although the final (heaviest) version allows the user to simply wear more of it. It also helps explain how a human could use a grappling hook to move around without ripping their own limbs off. Human joints are terrible under tensional load, but steel doesn't have to be.

[@Twisted_Logic]

The Chozo power suit from Metroid should also be noted. It's arguably more space fantasy than scifi, but it much like the Crysis nanosuit it becomes part of the wearer and seems to be able to materialize and dematerialize around them. It also seems to be capable of adapting to and incorporating more or less any foreign technology simply by contacting it. Really cool stuff

[@caav56]

Don't forget that Samus wasn't even using the most advanced version of it (Raven Beak was)

[@JoshuaBenitezNewOrleans]

Regardless of any other factors. Power armor as a concept has been one of my favorite fantasy/sci-fi tools in all of the categories. There is pretty much setting where power armor doesn’t automatically make something cooler.

[@RecolitusMorbus]

I think it's pretty easy to distinguish between them in size. If you're wearing it like plate armor (that's powered), that's power armor. If you sit in like the suits in Apple Seed or the AMP suit in Avatar, that's more an "arm suit." Once you get bigger than that, like Titans in Titanfall, that's a mech.

[@Krahazik]

Size does seam to be a major factor with most recognized mechs being at least about 2 stories tall for the smaller ones and whole skyscrapers in height for the larger things. Most power-armor is usually in the area of a single story in height and smaller that the wearer wears.

[@GamerM1235]

I think my favorite example of 1-size fits all in armor. Is Stargate-Atlantis. The Asgard of the Pegasus galaxy have their environmental suits with a squishy foam / goo, that melds to the occupant. Probably designed with the hopes they would eventually return to their ancestral 'more human' form. But still adaptable to their current mini form. (Edit: Also has one of the coolest shoot-out scenes involving an arm-shield projector that isn't actually 'God like' in it's technology and does eventually fail. Which is oddly rarely seen for such an advanced race. But makes the whole encounter that much more memorable.)

[@TheVeritas1]

I loved that suit developed by the Vanir (Pegasus Asgard). It was such a cool plot twist when the Vanir revealed their true form.

[@champisthebunny6003]

I have to agree that the way the Fallout 4 power suits is presented, is a big improvement over F3 and FNV. The issue of getting in and out in F3/NV, is sidesteped entirely, and the suits in those 2 games, had no power source, not even a hand-waved one. Basically, magic. in so many words. So, this aspect, including both a greatly improved and visualized entry system AND a power source really redeems the concept. It also makes sense a Fallout 4 PA soldier would need to keep enemies to his front as best possible, as the rear would be the weakest part of the suit. Which, is true with tanks as well, that are also quite vulnerable from the rear. I tend to be less sold on the notion of magic nano-suits where the entire suit just 'appears' out of thin air more or less, then magically conforms to the user.

[@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem]

I agree that NV/3 power armor kind of sucks, but there IS a confirmed power source. Up until 4 retconned the fusion cores into existence, cannon said that all power armor had an internal fusion reactor that gave all necessary power for the armor. How it lasted so long and what fuel it needs would almost definitely be covered by repairs/maintenance and lack of use (most, almost definitely all, power armor hasn't been used continuously over the 200 years since the nukes fell). As for them just magically appearing on you, that's just how clothes work in the Fallout games, even 4. The difference there is that 4 doesn't consider PA to be another set of normal armor or clothes, which I agree with, unlike the fusion core retcon.

[@bladester9087]

Power armor: Moves/controlled by your movement directly (Mjolnir, Iron man, Fallout power armor) Mech: Controlled through input to a processor or other medium (Veritechs/Destroids, Jaegers, Titans, Zoids)

[@TheTrueAdept]

... no one brings up one of the grandaddy's of PAs: Traveller Battle Dress. Take one cup of Starship Trooper Marauder Armor, one cup of practicability, one cup of specialized variants, and you get the 3rd Imperium's three variants of battle dress (which can tank modern light autocannon in the face and come out fine). Oh, and they can fly and act like SST Marauder armor if need be. It should be noted that after training in *_USING_* the battledress, the second biggest thing for training is getting their users to understand that they're not invincible.

[@steemlenn8797]

Dress? Oh, Magical girls! Invincible plot armor build in without any metal or other strange stuff :D

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@steemlenn8797 ... it's not magical girls, it's just how Traveller terms their armor. Combat Dress: armored combat uniform Battle Dress: Power Armor

[@Sorain1]

@@steemlenn8797 That's been my logic for magical girl durability a lot of the time. Force fields that aren't in the visible spectrum, maybe some kinetic dampening fields or the like.

[@Snapper314]

Regarding a person in power armor surviving impacts, in the case of the MCU Iron Man, there was a possible explanation (that was never actually explained). Tony's Repulsor Tech not only enabled flight and acted as weapons. Running a low power field of Repulsor energy INSIDE the suit acted as a Kinetic shield that dampened any impacts. I suspect a small residual amount of that field lingered inside the War Machine Armor, which enabled "Rhodey" Rhodes to survive the fall in Captain America Civil War.

[@doko239]

The OG example of Power Armor comes from Starship Troopers (the novel, not the film), and is generally described as being a weapons platform first, vehicle second, and armor a distant third. Its main purpose was to give an infantry unit drastically increased mobility (hence the term "Mobile Infantry" used in the book) while also carrying an absolutely TERRIFYING amount of weaponry and ammunition, the idea being "get in, get out, and blow up as much stuff as you can in between".

[@Sorain1]

Because in setting, weapons tech is leagues beyond armor below around the starship scale. Hence your 'armor' is not being hit.

[@Jayjay-qe6um]

"Feels like you can take on the world in there, doesn't it?" -- Paladin Danse, Fallout 4

[@ZearthGJL]

The Frontline Series, by Marko Kloos, addressed the fact of armour sizing by literally having a fitting process of a week for the HEVA armour. It subsequently turned to one day after a few years. That, and the suit didn't save everyone.

[@yodaslovetoy]

I want power armour as my daily driver!

[@timogul]

The issue with powered armor is not that the man is sloshing around in the suit, any decently designed suit would safely secure the pilot, so that he would not slosh around in any way that was not helpful. The REAL problem is the pilot's brain and other organs sloshing around _inside the pilot._ bouncing off their skulls, for example. It's basically impossible to make a suit that could handle the g-forces and impact forces that powered suits often take in a way that would prevent the pilot getting a concussion or tearing connective tissues, at least without magitech like "inertial dampers."

[@shinygoldenpotion1587]

and most power armor would get one shotted by an rpg 7 even if the armor survives the whole thing would atleast be knocked back a few meters

[@shorewall]

@@shinygoldenpotion1587 Put some Explosive Reactive Armor on that bad boy then.

[@scifirealism5943]

Inertial dampers require gravity manipulation. If you produce a gravitational field opposing acceleration, the acceleration field will be cancelled out.

[@timogul]

@@scifirealism5943 Yeah, and IF you had the technology to do such a thing, then fine, but that's something we have no clue how to do, so it means those sorts of power armors wouldn't work well in a more hard sci-fi setting that tries to avoid "magitech."

[@scifirealism5943]

@@timogul we know how to create gravitic fields, it's just gravity is a very weak force and only comes in positive charges.

[@odaxiumkirshinra6220]

Madox-01 is an anime from 1987 that has one of the best depictions of what a realistic powered armor could look like

[@hanneswiggenhorn2023]

I like starcrafts approach to the problem what happens when you get hit in power armor: you die. The power armor can only really protect against light arm fire, and the coil/powder hybrid rifles everyone uses go through them like a hot knife through butter. But because you need the power armor to fire the rifle (and because it's still somehow only like 5 times the price of the rifle) it still makes pretty much sense to use it

[@Soguwe]

My favourite power armour are the suits the Vanir wear in Stargate Atlantis They're just so cool and have just the right amount of screentime They're powerful, built to withstand extreme conditions, can house both the Asgard twigs and the _arms_ of late series Daniel, and look rad as hell They're also clearly a Lantean design, even though they're built by Asgard. As is their spaceship, their FTL variant of a puddle jumper. Such a cool faction, such a cool design, they're awesome

[@CantankerousDave]

Problem is, the Asgard are much smaller than humans, so their joints don't line up with those of the human-sized suits.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

in some of these cases the answer to kinetic damage is to reinforce and reengineer the person underneath, Space Marines, and Spartains both have extensive augmentations and in the case of SMs extensive genetic manipulations to withstand stuff that would normally kill a person. you can try and rip out a SM's heart, he's got another one as just an example

[@EspressoBreve]

power armor with cybernetic entanglements is next, but also 'shields' of some sort. I guess this would be the equivalent of 'The Borg'.

[@Manuel_Fal_Conde]

at the moment, I can say about 3 types of the best power armor: the crysis 3 nanosuit, the armor of the black panther and the iron man of the Marvel universe. 4th place - Space Marine Warhammer power armor, 5th - Starcraft Marine armor.

[@TheVeritas1]

The Black Panther suit isn't really power armor since it doesn't enhance the wearer's strength. This make sense because all Black Panthers are superhumanly strong. I agree that the suit is a very cool design.

[@DocWolph]

You wear armor. You pilot a mech.

[@Rrgr5]

You forgot one of the best depictions of Power Armor in cinema, Edge of Tomorrow, that one is the closest to something we can actually make in real life with some quirky features, but over all, the user is as weaker as he can be, he can become better to the point of becoming almost unstoppable, but requires a lot of training.

[@walterlyzohub8112]

Good point about the crumple zones in cars. Perhaps there is a layer that absorbs impacts sort of like mesh but after impact the areas fill with either air or fluid that pushes it back into shape. Ready for the next impact.

[@oscarphillips3654]

Halo's Mjolnir-powered armor handles impacts in just this manner in addition to containing the "artificial Mucessels" and other systems of the suit its underlayer contained a non-newtonian impact gel that would instantly harden to absorb impact forces and then relax back into a gel once the impact force had been spent keeping the wearer safe and relatively unharmed and it seemed to work pretty well since Chief survived a fall from orbit and was relatively unharmed and Jonson's comment suggests that he had done so before as well.

[@MalloonTarka]

Very relevant interesting tech for power armor would be inertial dampening. Or, as _Schlock Mercenary_ did it with the mercenaries' suits, _deceleration distribution._ See, it's not the fall that kills you. But it isn't the landing either. It's one part of your body decelerating while another part (the opposite side, or your organs such as your brain)... doesn't. Yet. But if your entire body decelerates at the same time, all you have to deal with is the velocity being turned into heat. Go fast enough and it might become a problem, but otherwise you just feel a little toasty afterward.

[@saladinbob]

Damage mitigation: Not exactly. Suits of armour are designed to transfer the kinetic energy away from the body, similar to how crumple zones work. The crumple doesn't slow or stop the energy transfer, it simply moves it around the passenger compartment. This is why power armour like 40K's is more realistic, the oversize pauldrons (shoulder guards) are designed so to deflect the kinetic energy from a bolt away from the wearer's head. Iron Man's suit is just pure science fantasy - it works don't think about it.

[@LARGO125]

It's ironic that he makes such a big deal about it, when we have technology now that does what he says isn't possible. My D30 motorcycle armor does this so well that I've actually had my friends hit me in the shoulder with a hammer to show them how good it works. I never felt a thing.

[@wellendowedplatypus9024]

@@LARGO125 It's a difference of scale. Hitting you with a hammer is nothing compared to the explosions, falls, or hits the armor is taking in each setting. Brody falling like that would have liquified his organs because he would have hit the ground much faster than the terminal velocity for a human body (because of armor density) while flat against a metal wall. Marvel and many other settings essentially treat inertia as if it doesn't exist. Which is fine IMO for a soft setting that does not bank on realism but not OK for something like the Expanse which keeps its space magic away from most human tech.

[@Meravokas]

You are under the wrong impression on how Mjolnir armor is powered in Halo. The back of the cuirass houses a micro fusion reactor that's good for 15 years of charge. Or at least usable charge to power the armor. The secondary nanocrystal layers don't provide any power to the suit but are part of what increases the reaction speeds of a Spartan in armor beyond "Brute force". Providing a lightspeed (As it is using optical signals) connection from brain to suit to muscle. Linking wearer and armor and allowing thought to more literally translated into movement.

[@SeedemFeedemRobots]

one role that seems to be overlooked is power armour that is less about armour but for allowing squads to carry around heavier weapons that are normally crew served or otherwise infeasible to be used individually, and support for some kind of jetpack so the forces can make better use of terrain elevation and vantage points. throwing its defense in favor of mobility and firepower. i guess it would fall under exoskeletons as mentioned but im saying more like the mobile infantry from the war thunder april fools event

[@TheSaneHatter]

I'm surprised that, under "exoskeletons," yo didn't mention Ripley's freight-carrying suit for "Aliens," (a la "get away from her, you . . . ) perhaps because it's not a weapon(?) But it's an interesting design, with an open-framed, unarmored cockpit that seems designed to accommodate a wide range of body types, as standardized industrial equipment.

[@Belligerent_Herald]

Let’s have a shout out for 1959’s Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, grand daddy of them all. Power armor was cool then, power armor is cool now.

[@mootootwo]

The ergonomic issues are best addressed when you get into the scales that are found in VOTOMS / Heavy Gear / Appleseed. At that point, you can have an adjustable cockpit like are found in modern fighter planes and automobiles. That size is really a nice sweet spot for various realism and real-world usability quibbles, which is probably why you see it in Cameron's Avatar stuff. Even in his Aliens power loader.

[@aldraone-mu5yg]

4:30 I think Octo Camo from MGS4 is a pretty interesting example of this. Its focused on stealth rather than strength but Snake is so physically old by that point that the suit has to do a lot of the work for him.

[@UncleManuel]

Robert A. Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" came to my mind in an instant. He described the fighting forces power armor pretty detailed (f.e. the suit functions are controlled by eye / eyebrow movement) and in training the snazzy instructor could remotely disable the power source, making the soldier pratically a temporary statue. Not bad for a book that came out in 1959! 😎🤟

[@aleistercrowley7549]

Stopped reading the comments when I got to yours. Hear, hear. Heinlein's cap troopers were the bomb! From orbit to ground-pounding and everything in between, their power-armour was tops!

[@Werewolfwrath]

Another thing that I think also tends gets overlooked a lot regarding power armor designs is ammo storage for built-in weapons. Granted, guns having seemingly bottomless magazines is a common trope in fiction, but many fictional power armors will have several different weapons built into them without any consideration as to where all that ammunition would be stored inside the suit or how that would affect the person wearing it. This isnt an issue so much for energy weapons, as you can handwave it by saying that they're linked directly to the armor's main power source, like how Ironman's repulsors are powered by his arc reactor. But for ballistic weaponry, it's a bit harder to jusity where all their ammunition is coming from.

[@addedcheese]

40k does do the size of the wearer being an issue even if it is far too rare to be anything but character flavour for the big chunky guys. There are some mentions of Space marines using terminator plate to modify their armour to better fit their bulk and then there is Tyberos with his modified dreadnaught parts. But still, a handful mentions in what is supposed to be at least a million astartes is just flavour text. Even so it's nice that someone pays attention to it.

[@crackedjabber]

On the subject of energy density, Battletech covers that with their power armor. Elemental Suits have detachable battery packs that allow continuous operation for up to 24 hours. They also cover the size issues. While not described, there are adjustments to allow a normal person to fit into an Elemental suit usually designed for someone 7-8 feet tall.

[@rifleman2c997]

@@captainkirk4271 GM owes us fusion power.

[@crackedjabber]

​@@rifleman2c997Just 10 more years... for the last 60 years.

[@alect525]

@@rifleman2c997 Where's my Marauder?

[@MjolnirFeaw]

I love the power armor of the Hamilton's Fallen Dragon book. It starts as a synthetic muscle extra to the bearer, fed by the wearer's own circulatory system. And then as time and campaigns go by you add hardened synthetic skin, and sensors, and computer suite. The result is something that multiply the wearer's abilities, instead replacing them.

[@Grimmance]

You can make a modular suit that's held together by fittings that can basically explosively separate with springs. The whole suit can open normally or be turned completely modular for repairs or emergency exit. The issue then becomes preventing accidentally tripping it with damage, but that's more a secondary concern if the safety stuff is buried. Not enough thought gets put into power capturing energy from the shock absorbers, our tendons (specifically Achilles) do that to conserve energy, and a lot of energy would get wasted as heat from the shock absorbers that could theoretically be used to power a hydrauluc turbine, potentially a tesla turbine to minimize parts and foot print.

[@Yandarval]

If you have a seat and joysticks etc. Its a mech. If you wear it, its power armour. If its ten metres tall and it mimics your limb movements. Its a Mech.

[@RorikH]

And if it mimics the movement of you and your friend together, it is a Jaeger!

[@mecha_moira6443]

Regarding the iron man suit, I had always imaged that since tony had perfected repulsor tech, the interior of the suit used some variant of this to act as an inertial dampener, to allow impact forces to sort of be smoshed away, absorbed or negated, allowing him to be battered and bruised, but not liquified.

[@aleistercrowley7549]

Had to. Without inertial dampers, a human body wouldn't last five minutes.

[@tba113]

Kinetic impacts to the armor being transferred to the wearer was touched on in-universe in the Terran campaign of Starcraft 2. One of the upgrades you could snag for your Marauder anti-armor heavy infantry between missions was installing a thick layer of "kinetic foam" inside the suits. The game described the upgrade as how the armored suits themselves were incredibly tough, but the soldier inside was... Less so, especially when it came to getting smacked around by artillery shells and space monsters. Being able to soften the blow by way of an impact-absorbing gel layer would help mitigate sharp impacts and keep the troops fighting fit much longer than the conventional armor design. In the actual RTS gameplay side, the upgrade was a bit less impressive. Still helpful, sure - it gave your Marauders an extra dollop of hit points, which is always handy - but "being a bit tougher" feels like it kind of over-simplified things.

[@RorikH]

Meanwhile firebats just use soldiers so crazy that concussions are an improvement.

[@gunxsword5732]

To me it is a bit simpler: If you are still standing once you enter it, you are in a suit. If you are seated or lying down, you are in a mech.

[@yjlom]

so for you the Pacific Rim thingies are suits?

[@gunxsword5732]

@@yjlom huh, I actually forgot Jaegers existed. I guess they fall outside that little of mine.

[@Sorain1]

Not a bad general rule. Runs into the pacific rim gray area, but that's a rarity. (The only other mech I can think of is the Gundam fighters from G Gundam.)

[@zuzoscorner]

OH, let not forget old school Metroidm Samus funky alien tech suit

[@kevinshepardson1628]

The power armor in Schlock Mercenary properly accounts for gross impact with what are essentially souped-up inertial dampeners made with gravitic tech: The wearer is made to "fall" with whatever acceleration vector is needed, and since injury comes from some parts of the body accelerating differently than others, they're left unharmed by even the most violent of impacts as long as their armor can keep up.

[@ivanivanovic5586]

Fun fact, the power pack on war40k space marine power armor was supposed to be the jet pack(the nozzles on the sides were exhausts for said jet pack) at the beginning, not sure when it was changed to the power pack it is now. I myself am not a fan of that particular piece of power armor(and primaris "upgrade" didn't address/change it in any meaningful way), so i designed my own instead(made it more compact while keeping the main function and rearraigning the exhaust vent size and placement. Now you could mount actual backpack modules(that hold your additional ammo, food, drink, o2 etc) on top and bottom of it, or swap top module for the jet/jump pack if needed).

[@TailAbNormal]

Reminder. Power armor is something you wear. A Mech is something you pilot.

[@garypalmer997]

Love the fact you had starcraft music playing in the background the entire time

[@acarrillo8277]

Reposted from a different video but it's relevant here. A TA is a Tactical Armor, a small Mecha from the anime Gasaraki. "Power armor generally implies the operator's limbs extending into at least one set of the extremities. For instance a Landmate from Appleseed while being only slightly smaller than the TA from Gasaraki is a power armor rather than the TA being a small mecha. With the Landmate the pilot's legs are within the upper legs and the thorax and pelvis of both pilot and armor are in the same location. Also there is the drastic difference in piloting systems, a TA is heavily automated with the mecha's system making most movements and the pilot just pointing it in the direction they want to go and what to shoot at. Whereas a Landmate relies on the pilots ability to judge every aspect of maneuvers from aiming carried weapons to the amount of force applied to leap from one platform to another. Now the line get's blurry with telemetrically operated mechs like the AMP suit from Avatar or the Giant Robots from Robot Jox, but they're still mecha."

[@greg_mca]

Possibly my favourite example of power armour has to be Shardplate in the Stormlight Archive. In that it is pure fantasy, ancient relics from thousands of years ago that the planet's preindustrial setting find so difficult to break through that whole nations are built around their ruler's individual suits. They fit themselves to the wearer and regrow with time, but need to be powered by the energy of the planet's continent spanning superstorms, which are unreliable, if possible to predict. Later this changes as we work out what the suits actually are, but that's thousands of pages in

[@adamzimmerman8345]

There was a sublime comic in the 90s called the "Iron Manual" (the later version they released after the first Iron Man movie is not the same thing) and it was essentially a rumination on how the Iron Man armor worked and how it evolved. It actually borrowed a lot of ideas conceptually from materials science and some of the work in the real world to make power armor. One of the key things it mentions is that the "Iron Man" hasn't actually had much iron in it in years. As far as durability, the implication is that the Iron Man armor (remember this is before concept of the Arc/Repulsor reactor) is sort of an energy sponge. It can absorb kinetic energy, energy conveyed from particle beam or directed energy weapons, etc. to power itself, and (borrowing in idea from the Star Trek the Next Generation Technical Manual) the gist is that there's something of a force field/Structural Integrity Field running throughout most of the underplating of the Iron Man armor. And like the SIF on the Enterprise, the big challenge that Stark talks about is the "lag" between the armor's ability to dampen the inertial force hitting him and compensate appropriately. It was also one of the first times the comic acknowledged that the suit was highly automated; long gone were the days where Stark managed the suit's systems; just as fighter jets had to get more advanced to account for the operator's human response times, so too did the Iron Man armor. The fun thing was that he was talking about doping a metallic lattice using custom-grown bacteria and a lot of other really nifty ideas, sandwiched layers of different materials fulfilling multiple purposes, etc. because real world materials specialists did. The Iron Manual had a LOT of influence on later writers' explanation of how different Iron Man enhancile suits worked later on. Good stuff worth reading if you can find it.

[@adamzimmerman8345]

And I'd argue the nanosuits from Crysis are more along the lines of a technological equivalent of a Klyntarr/Symbiote a la Venom given the biofusion aspects.

[@Sorain1]

@@adamzimmerman8345 I think there's room for a Klyntarr to take lessons from power armor in the setting to up it and it's partners durability. It'd be a fun explanation for such a thing. (plus, you can make getting a chance to examine said armor an entire plot into itself.)

[@chengong388]

If you can move all the robot limbs without moving the pilot's limbs, it's a mech. Otherwise it's a power suit.

[@kevinwestrom4775]

Stark's Iron Man armor does have an IDF(Inertial Dampening Field) to handle both incoming impacts, bullets, cannon shells, vehicles, Hulk fists & then when he needs to very rapidly accelerate/decelerate when flying, or when he crashes into the ground upon landing.

[@augustovasconcellos7173]

If you want a plausible power source power armor, internal combustion engines are worth looking into. Gas has 20× the energy density of batteries, and that's even accounting for the inefficiencies of road-legal IC engines. Some more exotic engine types can achieve much greater efficiencies, mind you. Given that these engines will obviously need to be very small, you should gravitate towards more mechanically simple designs than the piston engines of your car. Even if these designs have their issues, mechanical complexity is something you scarcely can afford at smaller scales. One promising option is rotary engines. Especially the newer designs from Liquid Piston. They're reasonably quiet and efficient, very small in size, have few moving parts, and are quite powerful pound-per-pound. DARPA and the USAF are both funding it, so that should tell you something. Regardless of which engine you choose, you hook it up to an electric generator and a micro-hydraulic system - Boston Dynamics can help you a lot with that - and then you'll be golden.

[@TheWampam]

There is not much space between the efficiencies of a real engine (at least at its best workpoint) and the maximum efficiency a thermal engine can thoretically reach. Besides that, you have to add a lot of weight for the engine, the transmission (either hydraulic or electro-mechanically) and will get a huge problem with all the waste heat a powerfull engine will produce.

[@augustovasconcellos7173]

Road legal engines have efficiencies of about 20%. We've already built engines that can pull off 50% thermal efficiency. Also, most of the waste heat is going out through the exhaust. You absolutely can deal with that. As for the transmission: hydraulic pumps and electric generators both have much higher power-to-weight ratios than IC engines. They won't be much heavier than your powerplant.

[@Sorain1]

@@augustovasconcellos7173 Waste heat is pretty much a non-issue to power armor design today, since it'd be for in atmosphere work. Even the worst heat conditions are nothing on having no atmosphere in terms of PITA for cooling.

[@johnn1250]

Power-suit vs mech, is an easy to differentiate. Mechs have cockpits with controls to move the machine. Power-suits, if you want to move your arm you have to move your arm within the power suit arm. This also limits the size of the suit to one person inside it.

[@Dingus_Khaan]

What I find interesting in 40K's power armor is that there's effectively two types: Mortal and Astartes. Astartes power armor is designed a lot like the Mjolnir armor, in that it requires sub-dermal implants known as the Black Carapace to use, but effectively becomes a second skin for the wearer. Mortal power armor is designed for, well, relatively normal men and women like Inquisitors and the Sisters of Battle. It just has dermal implants to connect to nerve endings in order to keep up with the wearer. As far as I'm aware, Custodes wear a variant of this this too, since they don't have the Black Carapace like Astartes. They're just literally built different, so they have the really good stuff.

[@olhristov]

Tony stark's nano suit can probably be distributing impact way more efficiently than an airbag and still be relatively invisible to the eye though imagine if they made the visuals for it by a bunch of its backside getting pushed away and from the force signifying that it was transferred around the body and then retract back to position... Gives me chills when I imagine it.

[@Stuntsnik11]

Power armor- operator's anatomy matches and fills the proper anatomical parts of the armor. Power suit- wearer's anatomy forms the anatomical structure of the suit. Mecha- vehicle that is designed to share anatomical similarities with its creator. Pilot is usually in a cockpit.

[@AdleisioCefnforDolphin]

So thought about impact suppression, woodpeckers. Hear me out, they can bang their head extremely hard into wood without injuring their brain. A lot of that is because of how their tongue wraps around their skull and provides cushion, but also their brain isn't allowed to slosh about in the cranium. Consider similar conditions in the form of tech surrounding their wearer. Where your body isn't allowed a lot of wiggle room. There is still the problem of concussions cause your brain is still in a soup of fluid. But theoretically I think this is how power armor could protect the wearer.

[@Sorain1]

So the problem is we need better impact protection in the pilot's skull? Workable.

[@doomspud6302]

Power armor would definitely need some kind of inertial damping system to survive most of the things they are shown doing. Like some kind of energy field that evenly distributes any kinetic force on one part of the suit across every single molecule within the suit. Without that, even using any sort of rocket boosters, like Iron Man flying around with his repulsors, would have to be super limited to avoid crushing the person inside. Though, that kind of thing might be getting dangerously close to magic, depending on the technology level of the universe your dealing with. That is actually part of the reason the early Spartans in Halo were heavily augmented even without their armor. Without physically reinforcing the wearer, even the armor's muscles could easily crush them if they weren't calibrated exactly right. And it wasn't until the later Spartan types that they managed to make the armor safe enough for un-augmented humans. And, of course, they have their magical shields to help explain why Chief can do things like falling from orbit without becoming a large can of very expensive soup.

[@edgarjoffre8838]

To me, the fact that power armour can take damage without transmiting the kinetic energy to the wearer would work by the fact that the armor is very rigid, and so it would not deform under impact, like you showed with the plate on the Garant's thumb video. People inside a tank would feel the damage of an incoming round (if the round does not penetrate) because the tank armour is rigid enough. This would not work for fall damage, however.