Powered Armor in Star Wars

[Megabot]

There has been plenty of examples of powered armor suits in sci-fi, but is there a reason why there is next to none of it in Star Wars? Most of the SW armor suits are based around the body glove with plates on top, with advanced sensor and temperature regulation technology but no powered servo limbs for enhanced strength. We don't see any bulky power suits like in 40k, or even anything like the Mjolnir armor from Halo. Is it yet another sci-fi brainbug, or could it have a realistic application in the highly technologically advanced SW universe? Are blasters far too powerful to block that such an armor suit with integrated personal shields isn't worth the expense? One possibility I can think of is that such a role in infantry could just as easily be filled by droids.

[Kuja]

[Illuminatus Primus]

Uh? Hazard troopers? Spacetroopers? Darktroopers?

[Megabot]

Uh? Hazard troopers? Spacetroopers? Darktroopers?

Boy do I feel silly, I'd completely forgotten about Dark Troopers. Anyway, to be more specific, could standard infantry be outfitted with powered armor, not just the elite forces mentioned above? Those examples are used in highly specialized situations, and their suits are bulky, but the gruntwork is done by soldiers in unpowered armor. Have there been any examples of more lightweight powersuits that can be fitted on your average foot soldier? The SW civilization seems advanced enough to be able to manufacture relatively cheap, Mjolnir-style armor for it soldiers, maybe something along the lines of this?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Uh? Hazard troopers? Spacetroopers? Darktroopers?

Boy do I feel silly, I'd completely forgotten about Dark Troopers. Anyway, to be more specific, could standard infantry be outfitted with powered armor, not just the elite forces mentioned above? Those examples are used in highly specialized situations, and their suits are bulky, but the gruntwork is done by soldiers in unpowered armor. Have there been any examples of more lightweight powersuits that can be fitted on your average foot soldier? The SW civilization seems advanced enough to be able to manufacture relatively cheap, Mjolnir-style armor for it soldiers, maybe something along the lines of this?

IIRC the SWRPG RCRB mentions that Stormtrooper and Clonetrooper armour have some kind of repulsors or something to increase strength.

[Stark]

So there should be power armour for all, and not just elite forces, like in 40k and Halo where.... power armour is for the elite? Oh wait!

[Darth Ruinus]

I thought Dark Troopers were droids?

[Stark]

There are two different types of Darktroopers, both of which involved human users. One is 'big armour with dude inside, it also flies' and the other is 'big armour with dude inside that flies AND IS POWERED BY THE DEVIL'. I think, anyway.

[Connor MacLeod]

There's more than that.

There are the cybernetic "darktroopers" from Battlefront 1 and 2. These two kinds also further subdivide depending on which game it is. (as I recall they were lagrely SW version of Space Marine "assault marines") Supposedly these are "non canon" according to Leland chee (This is debatable, since its based on interpretations of Chee's commentaries, and we know how those are taken by places like wookieepedia and how the Holocron is regarded..)

There are the Forcee senstiive "Darktroopers" from REbellion, whcih basically take the Dark Forces DT armour and put force sensitives in it

There are the Dark Empire 2 Dark troopers, which are basically force sensitive stormtroopers in black armour. Nothing special aside from the Force sensitviity as far as we're aware of, though we do see a few wileding very heavy (Machien gun like) weaponry.

And, of course, there are the droid darktroopers, which come in three different flavors as well, though I hear SWG introduced at least several
other variants of dark trooper as well.

If one got nitpicky, it probably would be subdivided further, but these are largely cosmetic differencecs or differences in armament (which IMHO are fairly silly.)

Alot of the "in game" Darkteroopers appear to be considered "gameplay" and thus non canonical, but again alot of this seems to be up in the air. (Bearin gin midn alot of the same people who call this stuff "gameplay" tend to include tons of other shit in other games like the equipment you can buy in KOTOR as "canonical"...)

Edit: And if that's not all, there are at least two or three "Spacetrooper" variants in the OT era, plus at least one version dating back to the Clone Wars era (all of which I believe have connections to Rohm Mohc, hooray retconning.)

[Old Plympto]

There was an article in Star Wars Adventure Journal for power armors back in the early 90s. The artwork sucked. But there were a bunch of armor types listed.

Here are two of them I found after a quick search on Wookieepedia.

Leviathan

Juggernaut 510

[Master of Ossus]

War droids also, largely, fill the role of powered armor. Why would you use a regular human when you can use a droideka? The droideka is probably cheaper and at least as effective.

[Aratech]

Alot of the "in game" Darkteroopers appear to be considered "gameplay" and thus non canonical, but again alot of this seems to be up in the air. (Bearin gin midn alot of the same people who call this stuff "gameplay" tend to include tons of other shit in other games like the equipment you can buy in KOTOR as "canonical"...)

Not quite sure what you mean here, Connor, are you talking about the game mechanics of the KOTOR series? They do have some kind of Correilian power armor in the game, as well as some others (though they aren't nearly as big on the holy crap factor as that Matrix armor stuff, the 'oh, we took plates of capship grade hull plating and slapped it onto a body glove' stuff)

[Megabot]

So there should be power armour for all, and not just elite forces, like in 40k and Halo where.... power armour is for the elite? Oh wait!

What I had in mind was more on the line of Starcraft or Metroid, where every human infantry unit we see wears such a suit. Though as MoO pointed out, such a role would be better filled by droids to begin with.

[NecronLord]

Space Troopers are mass manufactured. IIRC, every star destroyer has a few for boarding actions. Dark Trooper Phase 3s would presumably have been tremendously expensive, as they're made of phrik, an expensive material of extreme durability (so much so that it can resist lightsabers reliably - given taht General Grievous' magnaguards used it for thier staves, it might be considered the rich man's cortosis...). In that respect, the Rebellion/Supremacy idea of putting force sensatives in mark three dark trooper armour makes perfect sense. You can just go to Balmorra and buy some battle droids instead for most things, but for fighting jedi, that combination's near perfect.

[nightmare]

There's more than that.

There are the cybernetic "darktroopers" from Battlefront 1 and 2. These two kinds also further subdivide depending on which game it is. (as I recall they were lagrely SW version of Space Marine "assault marines") Supposedly these are "non canon" according to Leland chee (This is debatable, since its based on interpretations of Chee's commentaries, and we know how those are taken by places like wookieepedia and how the Holocron is regarded..)

Aren't those hinted at in... I think it was star by star too?

There are the Dark Empire 2 Dark troopers, which are basically force sensitive stormtroopers in black armour. Nothing special aside from the Force sensitviity as far as we're aware of, though we do see a few wileding very heavy (Machien gun like) weaponry.

And, of course, there are the droid darktroopers, which come in three different flavors as well, though I hear SWG introduced at least several
other variants of dark trooper as well.

One could interpret those as pilots without the suits and the suits without the pilots respectively.

[Lazarus]

I've wondered about this myself, and the response of 'darktroopers, gawd...' is hardly satisfactory. Canonically, the Dark Trooper programme consisted of experimental prototypes, not functional battlefield equipment, and in no way explains the complete lack of powered armour in the Imperial Military's inventory. 'They were clearly looking into it' also doesn't really work given the level of stagnation in the SW galaxy - nothing has changed to make powered armour a viable proposal.

As for 'droids can fulfil scenarios where powered armour might be used', perhaps, and yet this is clearly not the case in-universe. There are a massive amount of instances, on-screen and off, where Imperial troops are deployed into scenarios where either droids or powered armour units would be more effective.

Hazard troopers and space troopers are both very rarely seen, and again, if these are examples of Imperial powered armour, why is it not deployed in situations where it would clearly be beneficial? Cost? Not a problem. Manufacturing difficulties? They built death stars, again, not a problem. Technology? The tech already exists, it just isn't implemented.

Consider the battlefield effectiveness of the clone armies. Now consider their capabilities if each individual trooper was wearing powered and shielded armour.

The SW galaxy has the technology, why has it not been used?

[Terralthra]

Well, as far as shielding goes, we don't see many personal ground combat weapons that aren't energy based. Conversely, we don't see ANY ray-shields not based on either a stationary emitter or an emitter that is not in contact with the ground. Droideka shields came up after they stopped moving, and I don't remember if they moved with the shields up. The Gungan theatre shield was stationary. Hoth and other planetary shields likewise. There may simply be something about the physics of ray-shielding that makes personal troopers being equipped with them non-viable.

Likewise, non-powered armor is effective against slugthrowers, leaving only energy weapons as dangerous. It has some effectiveness against blasters (Rogue Squadron novels) but it's probably a matter of the fact that if you're going to put enough armor on something that it can shrug off blaster bolts, your 'power armor' turns into an AT-PT. And those didn't really have combat effectiveness, because in most places you could use an AT-PT, you could use a Chariot style LAV and have better mobility, or an AT-ST/AT-AT and have better firepower.

It's hard to imagine where power-armor fits in between those.

[starfury]

Boy do I feel silly, I'd completely forgotten about Dark Troopers. Anyway, to be more specific, could standard infantry be outfitted with powered armor, not just the elite forces mentioned above? Those examples are used in highly specialized situations, and their suits are bulky, but the gruntwork is done by soldiers in unpowered armor. Have there been any examples of more lightweight powersuits that can be fitted on your average foot soldier?

The results of all this dissussion Essantially seems to be that having the Empire/Republic having Mass produced Armies of Spartan-II's equivalents rather redundant, as they can as you stated achieve similar quality at lower cost with High-end Battle Droids, and I think also as you guys stated the much higher powered weapons meant that anything close to that level of Protection is already close to a AT-ST or a AT-PT, again making it redundant.

I think all that combined to make the use of power armor so rare in Star Wars, compared to similar Sci-fi Universes like Halo or Warhammer 40K, which used them considerablely more , their personal weapons seems relatively weak by comparsion and as a result made the use of full-Power armor far more useful.

[Stark]

What I had in mind was more on the line of Starcraft or Metroid, where every human infantry unit we see wears such a suit. Though as MoO pointed out, such a role would be better filled by droids to begin with.

Yeah, the GalFed soldiers armour is really awesome too. Wait, it sucks and they suck and they get butchered by shit that Samus just laughs at. Not something very impressive: saying 'needs power armour' when stormie armour is probably almost as good as GalFed armour is just playing the name game.

[NecronLord]

I think all that combined to make the use of power armor so rare in Star Wars, compared to similar Sci-fi Universes like Halo or Warhammer 40K, which used them considerablely more , their personal weapons seems relatively weak by comparsion and as a result made the use of full-Power armor far more useful.

In some respects, 40K has more devastating personal weapons than Star Wars can dream of. Multi-gigajoule handheld guns spring to mind. However, it has a far more... feudalistic approach to justify its space-knights, who are really, no more common than spacetroopers anyway.

[Connor MacLeod]

WEG had a shitload of "power armour" designs in various sourcebooks and supplements for game character sto buy, and it varied depending on what kind of equipment you had in it.

That said, I doubt power armour is more prevalent because, for the most part, power armour is a very limited-use item (as a recent thread in OSF discussed.) For alot of the purposes "power armour" could be put to, a droid (which is just as common) could probably do it just as well if not better. THe Empire fielded some pretty badass droid designs as well, even aside from Darktroopers.

Edit: I see Ossus already addressed the droid point. OH well.

On top of that, you also had stuff like the AT-PT (a SW version of A Sentinel) which, while not "true" power armour, sufficed for the purposes well enough and probably was better overall if you needed some sort of "power armour" type thing.

Moreover, this also depends highly on how you define "power armour" - Stormtrooper and clonetrooper armour, for example, had a fair bit of electronics (sensors, communications) as well as enviromental/life support gear and probably some powered defensive elements (IE heat sinks) that bolstered its capabilities. That could qualify as a kind of "powered armour" after a fashion, even if it didn't grgeatly enhance the wearer's strength or speed or anything.

The only real place actual "power armour" was used (and would be useful) would be out in space or in boarding operations, which was mainly where it was used. And even then, most Spacetrooper armour was more like a combat vehicle than SST-style power armour. And there were the supposed "elite" troops too, but their status is debatable anyhow.

[Connor MacLeod]

In some respects, 40K has more devastating personal weapons than Star Wars can dream of. Multi-gigajoule handheld guns spring to mind. However, it has a far more... feudalistic approach to justify its space-knights, who are really, no more common than spacetroopers anyway.

SW has disruptors (which can cremate a person in a single hit, even with the pistol versions)

They also have those light/medium repeaters and the man portable blaster cannons we have seen in the movies and literature. They also have AMR grade blasters (Power blasters, I believe they're called.)

I shouldn't even have to mention grenade or missile launchers (mini ptoron torpedo launchers..)

They don't have EXACT analogues for every weapon -they have no direct "plasma gun" equivalent, though disruptors would come close, but they have weapons that can generally match the firepower of some of the heavier 40K weapons.

[Connor MacLeod]

Not quite sure what you mean here, Connor, are you talking about the game mechanics of the KOTOR series? They do have some kind of Correilian power armor in the game, as well as some others (though they aren't nearly as big on the holy crap factor as that Matrix armor stuff, the 'oh, we took plates of capship grade hull plating and slapped it onto a body glove' stuff)

My point is is that Wookieepedia is chock full of crap from the video games like KOTOR or KOTOR 2, such as the haibit to include descriptions and pictures of every single piece of weaponry, armour, or gear you could equip. I'm pretty sure they also included evey "force power" in the books too. And need I remind people of "Conan Antonio" Motti?

Basically, I;'m mocking the idea that they dismiss the Darktroopers in certain games as "non canonical" despite the fact their obsessive retconning and need to include the most obscure detail will factor in stupid shit like off-handed jokes and comments by Lucas as "actual canon".

[Sea Skimmer]

I always figured that Star Wars infantry weapons had too much firepower for compact power armor to be effective in conventional fighting, without also mounting a shield generator. The would presumably be too expensive for mass production, and without it, well just look at the way all the droids get shot to pieces in the movies. It’s true the droideka have shields, but they are also compact (so you need a smaller generator), probably aren’t cheap and seem only to be used to protect the most vital areas because of it.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Considering that Carissian's YVH droids are practically the penultimate of infantry sized infantry droids and given their extreme durability since they use some armour similar to Quantum Armour, Star Wars doesn't need power armour. In general, deploying mass legions of these droids, plus larger droids to carry heavier ordinance to deal with the enemy. If firepower is an issue, droids should have no problem carrying either proton torps, or even a lighter version of a Starfighter-grade laser cannon which ought to deal more than enough damage. Just make sure the droids carry sufficient fuel and the required power core. I believe the SD-9/10s and those Basilisks have the relevant firepower.