After a suit has been worn for a length of time equal to its normal use period (stated in the suit's description: 8 hours for a standard P-Suit or Hostile Environment Suit, or as listed in The 'Suit Shop description), at least an hour's worth of maintenance must be performed on it (refilling air tanks, replacing batteries, rechargiing powercells, checking for leaks, testing the electronics, etc.), or it risks a chance of failure, the next time it is used. The chance depends upon the type of suit and how long maintenance is overdue:
To properly perform suit maintenance: Routine. (Uncertain). Vacc Suit + EDU. Absolute (1 hour/use period). Referee: Success means that the suit will function normally, the next time it is used. Failure is treated the same as a lack of maintenance.
Maintenance may also be performed, faster, by those skilled in Life Support:
To properly perform suit maintenance: Routine. (Uncertain). Environmental Engineering + EDU. Absolute (30 minutes/use period). Referee: Success means that the suit will function normally, the next time it is used. Failure is treated the same as a lack of maintenance.
To avoid a suit failure after maintenance has been skipped: Easy. (Unskilled & Unknown). -Modifier/hour of maintenance missed. Referee: This chance is rolled once for each cumulative maintenance period missed, after each failure to perform maintenance. If the task fails, roll 1D10 on the table, below, to determine the system affected. The Modifier is determined by the type of suit: -2 for normal P-Suits/Hostile Environment Suits, -1 for all those in The 'Suit Shop. The malfunction may be applied at any point during the next use period of the suit.
| 1D10 | Suit Malfunction |
|---|---|
| 1 | Air Malfunction: The user is no longer receiving fresh air, and has 2D10 minutes of reserve left. |
| 2 | CO2 Buildup: Unless the CWS is out, the user will be warned. Panting is followed by unconsciousness in 4D10 + END minutes, with death by asphyxiation in another 4D10 + END minutes. |
| 3 | Slow Leak: A small, hard to locate hole in the suit lets air escape (unless external pressure is greater, in which case something's getting in). |
| 4 | Thermal Malfunction: Internal suit temperature begins to rise/fall towards the outside temperature. |
| 5 | Power Malfunction: All suit power may go dead, or just a light, fan, etc. It may go slowly, or just die. Systems mentioned below will not be affected, unless all power is out. |
| 6 | Electronics Malfunction: Suit-powered tools, sensors, and other non-communications gear (in that order) cease functioning. |
| 7 | Communications Malfunction: Radio won't transmit, receive, or goes out all together. If the suit has a back-up, it works (unless this result is rolled twice). |
| 8 | Humidity Buildup: Condensation builds up, fogging the visor and lowering visibility, making the wearer uncomfortable, and perhaps interfering with the electronics. |
| 9 | Minor System Malfunction: Something goes wrong with a minor system not covered elsewhere on this table. A computer glitch, burnt-out bulb, drinking water valve clogs, or some other minor irritant that is not life-threatening. |
| 10 | Personal Problems: A hygiene problem too personal to mention has just developed. Not life-threatening, but not something you'd want your comrades noticing... |
Malfunctions in a system missing from the suit (such as an Electronics Malfunction in a basic P-Suit) are treated as no effect. It is up to the Referee to determine exactly which system(s) are affected, whether or not suit maintenance can be done while in the suit, whether malfunctions can be fixed from inside, etc.
Below are some tasks that might be useful during "suited" adventures:
To locate a Slow Leak: Difficult. (Unskilled). Vacc Suit + Eyesight Modifier (-1 if the leak is in the rear; +2 if in the front or side). Instant. Referee: Slow Leaks are hard to spot, because they are very small holes, often in seams. They must be spotted, before they can be patched. Eyesight Modifiers are: -1 for Poor Eyesight, Average +0, Excellent +1, Exceptional +2.
To seal a hole with an emergency patch: Routine. (Unskilled). Vacc Suit + DEX. 1 second. Referee: +2 if the hole is in the suit's front or side; -1 if in the rear. A patch will seal a hole of 10 cm or less. Larger holes require more than one patch. A hole may also be sealed with a green or stronger stik-kit, which is 20 cm across. Emergency Patches are self-adhesive 10 cm circles of spacesuit material costing Lv 25 each (Lv 50 for Hostile Environment Suit Emergency Patches).
To maintain life in an airless suit: Routine. (Unskilled). END. Instant. Referee: (10 - hole diameter in cm) minutes will pass before a full suit is emptied of air, and the first roll is required (48 second's-worth of air will escape out of a 1 cm hole per second). Thereafter, roll this task each 30-second combat round. The first failure results in unconsciousness, the second in death.
"Mad Maxine" has been tooling around the Pirate's ship (having already blasted them all) in her Standard P-Suit for the last eight hours. As her tanks are going dry, she locates another oxygen bottle and connects it, but doesn't have time for maintenance. The GM secretly rolls the Unknown Task for her, getting a 9. Even with the -2 Modifier, the 7 is enough to succeed. Maxine continues exploring the damaged pirate vessel for the next eight hours, with no problems.
At the end of that time, the GM secretly rolls for her, again, this time with a -4 Modifier. Another roll of 9 (-4 = 5) is still enough to succeed, but a second roll (two maintenance periods missed) results in a 1. A roll of 1D10 on the table above yields a 10; Personal Problem. Rolling 1D8 to see which hour into the eight it takes effect, the GM gets a 7, and applies the problem near the end of Maxine's second eight-hour stint in her suit... Yuck! Maxine decides it's time she has to get into a new one. She manages to find a suit that looks good, and a place to change that isn't hard vacuum.
Unfortunately, the pirates weren't any better about performing suit maintenance than Maxine... The GM determines that the P-Suit she selects has missed 3 maintenance periods, for a -6 modifier. Rolling a 1, the suit will suffer a malfunction in the next use period (eight hours). Rolling 1D10 on the table above, he gets a 3; Slow Leak. A second roll of 2 (-6) also fails, and a roll of 2 yields a Power Malfunction. The third roll is also a 2, and a roll of 1D10 on the table yields a 2 again, another Power Malfunction. While the GM could just tell Maxine the suit's batteries are dead, he decides to roll 1D8 for each malfunction, to see when they occur. Two eights and a five, he determines, mean that the slow leak and power shut-down will occur in the last hour of Maxine's use period, but that power will begin "browning out" during the fifth hour! Let's hope Maxine is someplace besides the leaky pirate ship, by then!