Exosuit

An exosuit is an all-purpose, full-body garment which provides substantial or total protection from hazardous environmental conditions. An exosuit protects its wearer from all kinds of dangers, including extreme temperatures and pressures, radiation, chemical and biological hazards, impacts, strong inertial forces, and exposure to the vacuum of space.
Exosuits for most sophonts have three basic parts: the body suit, the helmet, and the regulator pack. The body suit encompasses most of the person within, providing a safe pressure, comfortable temperature, and overall protection in a form that poses as little impediment to the user's range of motion as possible. The helmet provides similar protection to the user's head, and additionally supplies air, water, and a computing interface directed either by facial gesture or by chip link. The regulator pack contains the filtration and recycling systems for air, water, and heat, and are often customized with additional functionality depending on the user.

Archive Data

Item type

Armor

Manufacturer

various

Base price range

12000 to 24000 ℂ
(many are much more expensive)

Dimensions

tailored to user

Mass range

25 to 75 kg

Body Suit

Most of the user's body is contained within the body suit portion of the exosuit. These are usually split into a few separate pieces that are connected after the user puts them on. These components, including the helmet, are held together by various mechanisms: most exosuits use double zippers with expanding polymer sealant strips, though high-end models often employ molecular bonding for a guaranteed seal. Exosuits typically do not contain air apart from the helmet; pressure on the body is provided by the compressive fabric and force distribution layers. The total thickness of an exosuit varies: some are only half a centimeter thick, while suits rated for vacuum and extremely high pressure are regularly over a centimeter thick. Body suits vary in composition between manufacturers, but generally have a few key similarities:

• A thin outer layer of flame-resistant material, usually meta-aramid nylon
• A thin layer of selenomelanin-treated aramid for radiation resistance
• A layer of powered carbon nanotube weave treated with a shear-thickening fluid and gold microparticulate for impact force distribution and external pressure resistance
• A layer of elastic material, typically a liquid crystal polymer, for omnidirectional compression in low external pressure
• A thin layer of nickel-titanium mesh for compression regulation along joints
• A capillary coolant system of some kind, typically water in millimeter-width silicone tubing mesh
• An inner, ultra-thin “smart” layer of silicon semiconducting polymer and gel-based lithium-ion textile battery for monitoring vital signs and adjusting suit conditions; usually managed through the interface in the helmet

Species Variation

The different species of spacefaring sophont have vastly different anatomies, and therefore style their exosuits to their respective body types.
A human exosuit consists of a rigid helmet and regulator pack connected to a fully flexible body suit. The same is true of shyxaure and rimor exosuits, although their suits have more sleeves for their additional limbs and tails.
Skae exosuits are slightly different, having a mostly cloth-based helmet with rigid hose connection ports around the spiracles and a rigid visor over the eyes. This is because skae skulls are exoskeletal and can easily withstand the pressure differences with minimal discomfort, in addition to the fact that a flexible head covering is much easier for skae to don and doff than a single-piece rigid helmet.
Ziirb exosuits, by contrast, have a rigid casing for the central body and flexible sleeves for the radial limbs, and their regulator packs sit directly below the body opposite the eyebulb. However, most ziirb institutions vastly prefer to use remote-controlled or fully autonomous robot units to perform EVAs and other such tasks, thus ziirb exosuits are rather rare.

Helmet

While body suits are flexible and skin-tight, helmets tend to be rigid and rather bulky, with space for air to circulate around the face and ample padding to cushion the head against impacts and other inertial forces. They are typically constructed from titanium, carbonan, and a thin outer skin of melanated aramid; transparent sections are almost always aluminum oxynitrile with a gold micro-shutter system. Much like the head of a sophont tends to be the seat of their consciousness, the helmet of an exosuit is effectively the "brain" of the entire suit. Helmets usually contain the exosuit's master computer system, which has a broad suite of functions including:

• Interfaces for the computer systems in the suit and regulator pack
• Short-range radio communication
• Sensors (including electromagnetic, sonic, and chemical)
• Onboard sensory and situational analysis systems
• Integration with the helmet's external lights and speakers

Regulator Pack

The regulator pack (also called a "reg" or just a "pack" for short) is a set of equipment that is vital to the functioning of the exosuit but cannot be distributed in the body suit or built into the helmet. Packs tend to mass about ten kilograms depending on the contents, and are usually separate from the suit but occasionally may be integrated. The various functions of a regulator pack include:

• Primary heat regulation and coolant circulation; in vacuum-rated suits this takes the form of heat sinks and/or radiators
• Air filtration, recycling, and reserves
• Water filtration, recycling, and reserves
• Bodily waste recycling
• Auxiliary power system
• High-power communication system
• Maneuvering thrusters
• Storage

Additional Features

Powered Exoskeletons

Some suits are also outfitted with powered exoskeleton technology. These are mechanical systems, usually artificial hydraulic musculature and rigid actuators, which greatly enhance the physical capabilities of the wearer. Exoskeleton rigs take quite a bit more energy and expertise to operate than a standard exosuit, and see the most use from industrial technicians, search-and-rescue operators, and explorers.

Maneuvering Thrusters

Exosuits that are expected to see use in low-gravity to microgravity environments usually incorporate a maneuvering system of some kind. Most often this takes the form of cold compressed gas thrusters built into the regulator pack, but some high-end exosuits integrate miniature ion thrusters throughout the suit for extremely fine-tuned maneuverability in microgravity.