N7 Combat Hardsuit Mk I
Overview
The N7 Combat Hardsuit was a top-of-the-line variant of the standard Systems Alliance armour. Produced by Hahne-Kedar Shadowworks, a subsidiary of Hahne-Kedar Industries, the armour was designed for use by Systems Alliance Special Forces personnel and entered service in 2175.
Kinetic Barriers
The most identifiable feature of the N7 Hardsuit is it's matt black armour plating, with a red stripe running down the right arm, between two thinner white stripes. But the armour's most outer layer is actually the full body Reflexive Infantry Kinetic Barrier projection system. A Scaled-down varient of the shielding used by warships, these Kinetic Barriers come as standard issue on all Alliance armours.
The system works through the use of hundreds of tiny mass effect field emitters on the exterior of the armour plates. An object traveling at sufficient velocity, will trigger the barriers' reflex system. Activating the emitters around the point of impact. Generating a localised repulsive mass effect field, stopping the projectile in it's tracks.
The kinetic barriers are reflexive to protect the soldier from incoming fire, but still allowing them to sit down without knocking away their chair.
When the kinetic barriers are struck, a visible blue shimmer is visible at the impact site. As the barriers absorb kinetic impacts, it causes significant strain on the suit's Mass Effect Drive. Sustained or large impacts can push the Drive to it's limits, resulting in an overload. To prevent this, there is a built-in failsafe that cuts power to the shields, before the drive reaches critical levels. The wearer must then take cover and wait for the shields to recover or risk damage to armour plating. When the shields have fully recovered, an audience sizzle can be heard, followed by a blue shimmer across the armour as all the emitters bacome fully operational.
The kinetic barriers' repulsive mass effect fields are rated to be capable of defending upto 17 megajoules of kinetic energy. This is sufficient to withstand fire against most micro-scale mass accelerator weapons. But, higher yield weapons that exceed this threshold can deactivate the energy shields in a single hit. Absorbing the fully 17 megajoules of the objects kinetic energy, but leaving what ever energy remains to be transmitted to the suit's armour plating. Kinetic barriers are also only effective against weapons that inflict kinetic damage and can not block directed energy weapons or slower moving melee weapons.
Armour plating
The armour plating of the N7 Combat Hardsuit cover the soldier's whole body and are of layers of the Ceramic-9 generation of ablative ceramic composite armour plating. These plates are crushed under extreme mass effect fields, giving them the durability of titanium, while only being a fraction of the weight. These plates are particularly effective against directed energy weapons. With the surface layer boiling away, when heated dispersing the heat and leaving the plates in tact. Their also capable of withstanding a moderate amount of kinetic energy impacts.
The plates are bolted together and the main armour plating is broken down as follows:
The boots are each a single piece and consist of a 15 millimeter thick sole. with a toe and heel plate secured to a midfoot plate that goes over the foot. The lower legs consist of 4 plates. A calf plate and a shin plate. With the ankle plate secured to the heel plate and the bottom of the shin plate. With the knee plate connected to the shin plate via a hinge to allow full bending of the knee without exposing it. The soles of the boots also include mass effect gravity plates and electromagnets to weigh down the feet in low gravity and clamp onto a ship's hull in zero gravity.
The upper leg has 4 plates. one at the back and front of both the hip and thigh. The side of each front hip plate also has a magnetic holsters for a sidearm.
The 3 waist plates contain ammunition and utility pouches, the magnetic holsters for grenades and the suit's power cell. As well as another magnetic holster at the back for a gun.
The gloves have an armour plate over the outer forearm.
The upper arm armour includes the bicep plate overlapped by the pauldron, which are connected independently from each other to allow full rotation of the bicep.
The ceramic chest and back plates are the thickest and provide the most protection. They are bolted together at the shoulders and on the sides of the upper torso. The chest plate had the signature N7 logo on the right side of the chest and the soldier's rank in gold on the collar. The back plate both protected the Mass Effect Drive and held 3 more magnetic holsters. Including the heavy lock, a magnetic holster at the centre of the back plate that could hold heavy weapons.
Power
The entire suit is powered by a hydrogen oxygen power cell. The power cell is composed of an anode, cathode, and an electrolyte membrane. A typical power cell works by passing hydrogen through the anode of a power cell and oxygen through the cathode. At the anode site, a catalyst splits the hydrogen molecules into electrons and protons. The protons pass through the porous electrolyte membrane, while the electrons are forced through a circuit, generating an electric current and excess heat. At the cathode, the protons, electrons, and oxygen combine to produce water molecules. As there are no moving parts, fuel cells operate silently and with extremely high reliability. With the only byproducts being heat, water and electricity. The hardsuit's power cell is rectangular in shape, 6 cm wide, 10 cm long and 3 cm thick and slots into a port on the left hip.
One of the systems powered by the power cell is a scaled-down Element Zero drive core. The Drive generates dark energy by running an electric current through the Element Zero at it's heart. This dark energy flows to the mass effect field generators which convert the raw energy into fields for practical use. This powers both the shields and gravity plates in the boots and is located in the armour's back.
Titanium Reinforced Kevlar Body Suit.
This is the last visible layer of the N7 Combat Hardsuit is as it sounds. layers of kevlar plates, reinforced by titanium fibers. It's highly flexible, but very strong. giving additional protection from kinetic based weapons.
The gloves have an additional ceramic plate on the back of the hand and feature haptic adaptive interface technology. When interacting with computers using holographic interfaces, a microframe chip in the back of the right glove links to the system. Once their accepted, motion accelerometers in the soldier's fingers match his hands' location with that of a proportionate but smaller "mirror" set of controls inside the computer itself. As the user presses against the holographic field, force-feedback in the glove kicks in, giving a slight resistance. A person can feel his way through using a touch-screen that isn't actually there.
This is especially important as the left glove incorporates a holographic omnitool, consisting of a computer microframe, sensor analysis pack or scanning and analysing the environment and a minifacturing fabricator, allowing the user to repair and modify equipment on the battlefield.
The palms of the gloves feature sensors that detect the weapon being held and provide relevant data from the weapon's smart targeting system to the suit's sensing suite. Including weapon temperature, ammo capacity.
There are numerous structural hard points on this layer. These are the main connection interface between the armour plating and the bodysuit
The bodysuit is also entirely airtight, water proof and limited radiation proof. This suit can maintain a constant, breathable 1 Earth atmosphere of internal pressure at all times. Capable of withstanding pressures anywhere between hard vacuum and 35 Earth atmospheres.
The body suit is also has various medi-gel conduits. Medi-gel is an all-purpose medicinal salve combining many useful applications. It is a local anaesthetic, disinfectant and clotting agent all in one. It's design to grip tight to flesh until subjected to a certain frequency of ultrasound. Sealing it, preventing blood loss, preventing infection and speeding healing.
The inside of this layer is the suit's computer microframe containing a number of internal systems including a navigation and sensing suite that uses radar and motion sensors to track enemies and allies and can link to the soldier's ship in orbit. Utilising it's sensors to provide a map of the surface of a planet or even the internal layout of a ship if their ship is equipped with the right cyber warfare capabilities. This information is displayed on the omnitool's mission computer. The suite also provides sensor analysis on atmospheric pressure and composition, temperature and other important environmental information. The soldier can also manually. The soldier can also manually set a Navpoint for navigation.
Inner Skin suit
This is a skin-tight layer that covers the whole body upto the head. This layer regulates temperature and prevents the buildup of sweat.
Helmet
Made from the same material as the armour plating, the helmet contains a heads-up display on the visor. The visor in question only covers the wearer's eyes and is made of a synthetic sapphire crushed under extreme mass effect fields. Making it resistant to both energy and kinetic impacts. The transparent visor can also dim when exposed to direct light.
The heads-up display is capable of displaying mission critical and situational awareness data. A visual display from the motion sensors and radar is visible with enemy units showing as red blips and friendly units showing up as blue. Enemies on the battlefield are also highlighted with orange boxes to show energy positions in low visibility conditions.
The heads-up display also tracks the vitals and shield integrity of the soldier wearing it. This data is also transmitted to the computer microframe of any other Hardsuit linked to it. Allowing all soldier in a unit to monitor each other's health and shields during combat. Sensors built into the Hardsuit constantly scan enemy units. providing up-to-date data on the shield integrity, vitals and even weak points of hostile targets.
The hardsuit's computer microframe links to the smart targeting computer system of what ever weapon is being held through sensors in the palms of the gloves. Displaying information on ammo capacity, weapon temperature and display a targeting reticle matched to the angle and trajectory of the barrel. Sensors in the smart targeting system scan and analyse the environment and will adjust the position of the reticle based on wind speed, atmospheric pressure, gravity and other environmental hazards. Allowing the soldier to be as accurate in a howling gale as they would be on a calm day at the practice run.
The Hud gives a visual image of available grenades by detecting the number of grenade holsters occupied
Due to the localised nature of the kinetic barrier system, the hud can also alert the soldier to the direction of incoming fire based on which barrier emitters are triggered by impacts.
The helmet has a built-in speaker and microphone array to allow the soldier to hear outside of the suit's sealed systems. As well as allow them to speak out loud and over radio communication.
The helmet also contains an air filtration system visible by the nose. Capable of filtering 100% of toxins, particulates and gasses. The air is sucked in through the left side vent and out through the right side. In non-breathable situations, these vents automatically seal. Making the suit airtight and activating a rebreather unit on the suit's back that's pumped into the helmet via a tube behind the head.
