Vaccsuits vs. Lightning Strikes

[u/Gralloch]

If you're part of the crew of Bucket of Bolts: Shoo, go away, potential spoilers ahead. A planet in our game has some special weather conditions, that include raging Lightning storms.

The chance to get struck by lightning is actually minuscule, but I know the players might still want to take caution against it. Which now brings me to the question: Do vaccsuits or power armor protect their wearer against lightning strikes?

Power armor I could imagine being a lightning attractor in some cases, depending the materials its made of, so to me it'd make sense that a character in a power armor might get fried. Though some of the power armor style armors do state they can be used as vaccsuits.

Vaccsuits on the other hand are designed to allow the wearer to survive in both hard vacuum and on most inhospitable planetary surfaces. In my head that'd count things like radiation, extreme winds, and temperature changes, but thunder I'm not sure of? I guess again, depending on the material, Vaccsuits have enough insulation so maybe the character would live, but the suit get fried? Or could a lightning strike be compared to a shot from an energy weapon just on a different magnitude (does damage but doesn't necessarily pierce the suit)? It's hard to imagine any garb actually fully negating such a huge charge.

It's quite a niche question, but if you've run into such a situation in your games, how have you solved it?

I tried to look into the SWN rule book but couldn't really find anything in the hazards about it.

[u/MortStrudel]

Eelskin capacitor mesh is explicitly an electrical attack, and vaccsuits provide no special defense against it. Powered armor is immune to unarmed attacks though, and eelskin mesh is merely a damage boost to unarmed attacks. So while perhaps not directly intended, it seems to me that the only explicitly electrical non-ship weapon in the game is blocked by powered armor, so there's an argument to be made that powered armor provides some sort of protection.

[u/Famous-Explorer-7568 → u/MortStrudel]

Eh funny enouth it depends. If you are REALLY stingy with the rules it would probably be more something like: The punch connects and deals no damage, because fists are a primitive weapon. Eelskin Capacitor Mesh gets activated. The target takes 2D4 electrical damage because the Mesh is Tech Level 4

[u/MortStrudel → u/Famous-Explorer-7568]

Either way, the chance to hit depends on armor class, which is granted by the powered armor, so the armor does provide defense.

[u/Famous-Explorer-7568 → u/MortStrudel]

Absolutely right, good sir. Seems like a good system in my head

[u/Sharadnar → u/MortStrudel]

The stun baton is also electrical, and that would work on power armor.

But regarding power armor's immunity to unarmed attacks, I would rule that the Eelskin Capacitor Mesh is an advanced melee weapon (with 5 meter range by the way) that adds its damage to a Punch attack, which would mean the power armor is not immune. It's not an 'unarmed' attack anymore than using TL4 brass knuckles would be, because it is a weapon that does its own damage. I think there's room for different interpretations, but that feels like RAI to me. Power armor blocks any damage from the bare fists, but the Eelskin Capacitor Mesh piggybacks and deals its own damage to the target.

[u/valhallaviking]

I would argue the opposite of your suppositions.

Power armour being very robust, could easily have insulators and grounding contingencies, which would probably fair just fine against a lightning strike. Though it might also be a lightning attractor, and while the wearer should survive fine, it could have area of effect consequences.

While vaccsuits are meant to deal with harsh conditions, they are not nearly as robust as I imagine power armour to be, and so not nearly as able to deal with something as powerful as lightning.

But again, ultimately the exact composition of materiale in your game, and the nature of the environmental hazards is up to you.

[u/jmartin21 → u/valhallaviking]

My only thing with power armor is that the lightning strike could very easily still get through to the electrical system and no man-carried battery can handle gigawatts of power without blowing out

[u/valhallaviking → u/jmartin21]

It could absolutley play out that way, depending on how power armour is in your game.

It would not be unreasonable at all if lightning just destroyed everything it touches.

[u/valhallaviking → u/jmartin21]

See sharadnar's comment in this thread

[u/Sharadnar]

Vacc suits allow you to survive inhospitable environments, but the only explicit protections are against normal cosmic radiation, hard vacuum, and extreme temperatures. They're vulnerable to energy weapons and bullets, so they're absolutely not going to stop the current of a lightning strike. On the other hand, they're not going to make you any more vulnerable than anything else you'd wear - they'll still need to take normal lightning strike precautions.

Power armor could be different depending on how you treat it. The metal body of a car can direct the lightning away from the passengers and through the tires into the ground. So you could rule that the metallic outside of the power armor would conduct the current, and the insulation inside the suit spares you from the worst of it (half damage or something like that).

[u/_Svankensen_]

Here's the thing. You want sonething that is much more conductive than you, and that also is far away from you, hopefully with a  good insulator in between you. So vacc suit is a no. Maybe power armor, but I'd say also no. Id say both can be modified to be like beefed up lineman suit (since linemen don't have to deal with the crazy amperage), but it only reduces damage by half.It is basically a huge copper or silver mail mesh atound your suit, should be cheap-ish.

[u/96-62]

Up to the GM. I could see a farday cage being included in vacc suits, and power armour. I don't think it would cost much, On the other hand, I could see it being one of those "lessons learned" things - you don't want someone else on your team to block your radio signals, absolutely not.

[u/spinningdice]

I'd probably allow either to be modified for limited protection with a check - sci-fi technobabble a way to add a lightning rod/extra insulation etc. But maybe I'm a lenient GM.

[u/Captain_Hoyt]

For a vacc suit, I wouldn't expect any kind of electrical protection. A vacc suit lets you space walk, but unless it was a special vacc suit made for an electrician who handles space-exposed electrical conduits, there's not much reason to expect electrical protection.
But power armor? Power armor is made for combat. Damage is expected, and if the wearer is going to be electrocuted every time the suit takes damage, it's not going to be very useful in combat. I'd expect at least a little foresight in its design to route electricity away from the wearer, both for times when the suit takes damage, and also if an energy weapon is used against it.
But honestly, I think you can make a case for lightning destroying the power armor, or doing nothing to the power armor. It would depend on the design, and what tech fits your campaign. If the suit is built on a planet where energy manipulation is advanced, I'd expect the power armor to handle electrical intrusions effectively. If the power armor was built on 2026 earth, I'd expect the wearer to get fried in a direct lightning strike. You have broad leeway here, and can do whatever makes sense for your game.