Armorsmith Archive

I keep seeing people upset that heat and cold protection are opposed in the new system, so I wanted to provide a different look at how thermal protection works in relation to people:

While heat and cold protection are both applications of restricting thermal conductivity, and it would seem that one layer is good on both, the human body does not support both at the same time very well.

A thermos or ice chest, which can generally protect against both hot and cold, works on the intention of preventing the outside temperature ftom affecting what is inside. Since the Human (I will stay away from non-warmblooded character types)body creates heat naturally, the ways to insulate against extreme heat and cold use different philosophies.

To protect against heat, the intent is to keep outside temperatures from affecting the inside; and allowing internal body heat to escape as well. A one way system is desired with all heat not needed to keep the body operating at peak efficiency escaping out to the environment. Star Wars technology may have different materials, butwith current technology the only way to achieve this is to use an active cooling method inside the insulation along with enough insulation to keep out the outside heat. A steam suit used on submarines is a good example of this. Subs have air sockets for breathing apparatus throughout the boat, and steam suits can plug into these in order to give the body a cusion of circuilating air to keep the body cool.

To protect against cold, the intent is to keep heat in, and prevent the escape of any more heat than the body can lose and still maintain life. For moderate to severe environments, this may mean a jacket or parka, or insulated ski suit - while extreme environments may require clothing with heating built in.

Because the basic philosophy is different, there is not easy way to protect against both - Space suits are the only current technology example that is designed against both heat and cold, and they are not designed for easy movement on the ground - Fighting in one would be out of the question.

Try going to the desert in a snow suit - or to the arctic in a tank top and shorts with a mist sprayer. The results would be deadly.Insulating a house or other space is a different proposition entirely - and still is not efficient enough to negate the need for a system to heat or cool the space for human use in most cases.

Because of this, the developers' decision to make heat and cold opposing makes sense to me for any heat generating body.Trying to protect against both at once would make the result too cumbersome to use. I could go with a combo piece for heat and cold that did not have as much protection from either, but to get big protection from one, you will have to sacrifice protection from the other.

Mon Calamari and Trandoshans should be non heat-generating, but since they have no special requirements for this in game I will assume they had to develop this trait in order to become independent and evolve. Cold blooded PCs would not have to worry about keeping heat in, so their insulation would not have to be as complex.

Aramathin
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thu, when i argued about that point in the heat cold synergy thread i wasnt thinking about an environment...

and i dont think we need to... when we are talking combat, we arent surrounded for a longer time by very high temperatures...

we most probably are hit by aflames of a FT , we hold our breath and duck... the armor would need to protect a rather short time, it would need to have a very low thermal conductivity... or even if we are hit by a heat bolt which tries to melt our armor away, its something about specific heat capacity... remeber we are doing this in layers not in the core or the design... which make sense, because we arent make environmental suits like the space suits... which are designed for retaining in a hazardous environment for a longer time...

combat armor is only hit for a comparitivly short time, their for needs very low thermal and electrical conductivity...

but see more information about that in this post:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=armorsmith&message.id=80381

but i agree that cold and heat can be argued to be mutual exclusive, and should be, thu for other reasons

Sehera

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