From:	abortion_engine abortion_engine@*******.com
Subject:	summer running
Date:	Tue, 14 Sep 1999 18:30:51 -0400

> --- Strago <strago@***.com> wrote:
> > Here's a question: what do runners wear during the
> > summer? Ordinarily, I'd
> > just say "what they wear during the winter", but I
> > think that the armor
> > jackets would get kinda warm, because an armor
> > jacket is kinda like a
> > winter coat with armor plates and a kevlar weave,
> > right? And a winter coat
> > is HOT if you wear it during the summer. Any
> > thoughts?
> >
Obviously, as people have said, ballistic vests--not to mention LONG COATS
for god's sake--are very warm. But most of the research and advancement
currently being made in the vest department is exactly on that. I mean, L.A.
beat cops have to wear the stuff, right? [Well, not beat cops, but still.] A
lot of development has gone into the undershirt, rather than the vest, since
the vest's integrity is so much more important than you undershirt. The
Ultra Cool Shirt [nice name, that] is one of the better ones, in my opinion,
but it runs somewhere in the vicinity of US$50. There are a few others,
mostly using DuPont's CoolMax. Now, with the overall increase in the
efficiency of machines in Shadowrun, not as much effort would go in to
heat-dispersal materials research, but many of those machines are smaller,
or higher-output, so I suppose it evens out.

In the vests catagory, recently Safariland has released its much-anticipated
Zero-G vest, which, in my opinion, is the best vest on the market, in terms
of comfort and protection. [No +1 target numbers because the armpit is too
tight! No -1 ballistic rating because the waistline's pulled out! And most
importantly, no points of stun damage from heat exhaustion! Yah! Huzzah!]

So, yes, it's hot. But even today, it's getting a lot better. Have your
players do some research into finding the best vest in SR. [They're not all
created equal.] They buy a cheap vest on the street, maybe it doesn't
protect as well as the guy says, or maybe it's a lot hotter than normal. Or
maybe the crap won't fit no matter how much you tug or adjust it. Boom:
realism.

[No, I can't think of much you'd do about the plates, though. Maybe
fractal-pattern heat sink type plates, made of a stronger metal so that you
can punch heat-dispersal holes in it...]