Sorry about double-posting, but this would be confusing otherwise.
So, I started working on the armour concepts. I haven't coded anything yet, and honestly I think it would be best to leave it to you, Human Ktulu, since you already started doing this. I focused on what to do with the armours we have.
First, we have the beginning armours: Uniform, Combat and Dragonskin; in other words, light, medium and heavy. These gave me a headache, since they should be either useless or overpowered. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Earth armours - plasmas mostly ignore them anyway; but apparently you want them and people certainly like having tactical options, so I did my best to make them usable and balanced. I talked with Dioxine, and here's what we decided:
No armour: no changes. Vanilla items should stay as they were, because the game was balanced with them in mind.
Combat armour: armour values 28/12/16/12; it is the most generous we can give without becoming unrealistic, based on what these armours can do in real life. Also none of the damage reduction % nonsense, except for armour piercing attacks, because that's what they were made to do. And a little acid bonus. Also -5 to TUs, Stamina and Reactions (that last one because of the helmet). Weight 8.
Dragonskin: 35/16/30/12. Similar profile, Melee damage bonus since it's metal (it won't do anything against Reapers anyway
), bigger Stamina penalty, weight 12.
Yes, I know these armours aren't so good. Still, this is the best the 1999 technology can realistically offer. They would be much more useful if we fought enemies with human weapons (because again, that's what they were made for), but they still offer some marginally better protection than the uniform for the cost of mobility and reactions. I suggest giving them reasonably low prices.
Then we have the second tier of armours: Alien Alloys. We have the Personal Armour and let's not change it if we don't have to. Then there's my Jump Armour, which is generally a Personal Armour with smaller armour values, so there's not much to talk about either.
And finally there's the Psionic Armour which... well, I don't really know what to do with. I don't want it to simply be a Personal Armour with better Psi Strength, because that's kinda dull, and also why not a Psionic Armour based on a Power Suit or a Dragonskin as well? I would like to see something more imaginative, but I haven't found anything yet. Or we can just scrap that idea and make a "Carapace Armour" - a heavy armour made of Alien Alloys, with some penalties but better protection than the Personal Armour (something like a better Dragonskin).
Finally, the best armours. We have the Power Suit and the Flying Suit, which I don't really want to modify for the same reasons. But since we already have 3 early armours and 3 medium armours, why not make 3 armours here too? I dream of a Terminator Armour - an Elerium-powered, ultra-heavy monster with some big-ass weapons that normal suits can't even lift.
Anything else? Well, I'm loosely thinking about a separate branch of armours caused "synthmuscle armours", which don't offer as good protection as normal armours (thinner, lighter plating), but give some good stat bonuses (because you have some excessive strength left). It's just an idea though.
Naturally, all new armours (psionic armour or its equivalent, as well as the "terminator") would require new sprites, which is a pain, but maybe we can steal and alter some of Dioxine's designs.
It'll still be a lot of work though.
I'm attaching an .xls file with all this information. It consists of two spreadsheets: one (Normal) is with the armours as they are now, the other (Proposed) contains new values I came up with. Please have a look at it.
