[Webmaster's Note: In some cases, prices were not provided for these modifications in the original document. Where they were not given, I have provided prices in brackets, extrapolated from the cost of comparable items in the Waste World rulebook.]

While the "stock" Ikarean battlesuits are certainly formidable, many wealthier Ikareans and specialists (such as scouts) upgrade their battlesuits, adding other useful systems and utilities, as well as improving overall performance.

However, there are several restrictions to this. Firstly, many modifications are costly, and few qualified experts exist outside of Ikarus itself. Secondly, as the basic battlesuits already operate at near peak efficiency their internal power source can only accept a certain amount of additional systems before overloading and shutting down, something which can have obviously disasterous consequences.

Purchasing modifications during character generation is simple: merely pay the listed cost for each additional system.

Purchasing modifications in-game is much more difficult. Assuming a qualified technician with knowledge of Ikarean battlesuits can be found (there are few outside of Ikarus itself), you must be prepared to spend significant sums of time and money.

You must pay the technician 10 credits per skill level per hour of time spent modifying your battlesuit, and each modification takes 1 hour per 100 credits of the modification's cost. The cost for this skilled labour is 15 credits per skill level per hour outside of Ikarus, as such skilled individuals are rare elsewhere. In fact, these rare individuals are primarily found in Janus, working for the Raptor Legion.

Contrary to the notes in the Waste World rulebook, cybernetic systems cannot be added to Ikarean battlesuits. Cybernetics are the domain of Prometheus (and of Janus and the Shogunate, to a lesser extent). The linkages and technology used in cybernetics are subtly different from that used in battlesuits, but the difference is enough that the two are incompatable. Battlesuits are limited to the modifications offered below, all of which are tried and tested, and are designed to integrate flawlessly.

Modifications

Afterburner
For those battlesuit woners enamoured of pure speed, or with the need for quick getaways, the afterburner is an exhilarating and dangerous modification.

Override circuts are fitted to the battlesuit's gravatic vector drive enabling it to exceed safety parameters, and a backpack ramjet is fitted to the back of the battlesuit. When engaged the ramje explodes into life with a roar hurtling the battlesuit forward at 1,000 kph! Manouvering is difficult at such a velocity, and Aerobatic rolls suffer a -6 penalty. Inaddition the ramjet howls like a banshee, making stealth or surprise impossible, and its fiery red flame is easily spotted by heat-detection devices. However, these flaws are far from being the main concern as afterburners are extremely prone to overheating and exploding. Each turn after the first the user must roll a d20, and has a cumulative +1 chance of the afterburner turning into a fireball.

For example: Malchek has engaged his afterburner for 1 turn already, so on the second turn he rolls a d20. If he rolls a "1" the afterburner explodes. He keeps the power going for a third turn and rolls again; this time if he rolls a "1" or "2" the afterburner explodes. If he kept the afterburner going for a fourth turn, it would explode on a "1", "2", or "3", and so on.

When the afterburner does fireball, it inflicts d20 damage over a 4-meter radius, including the battlesuit and wearer. OD: 1, Cost: [1.5 M]

Alpha Wave Visor
This visor system enables the wearer to see through walls, rock, and other obstacles not more than 50 centimeters thick, and has an effective range of 100 meters. Lead and force fields bar the sue of this visor. OD: 1, Cost: [1 M]

Aural Filters
These padded sound-absorbent cups are coupled with sensitivity circuts and wired into the battlesuit's helmet. They automatically compensate for damaging or shocking sounds (rendering the wearer immune to attacks based on sound, such as the Roar special power or the sonic cannon used by Gryphon warriors). It also allows the wearer to selectively filter out and isolate wavelengths of sound, enabling them to concentrate on specific sounds. This means the wearer could easily listen to a normal human conversation even if artillery blasts were drowning it out. OD: 1, Cost: [500]

Aural Receptors
Small sound enhancement plates and circuts are fitted inside the battlesuit's helmet, increasing both the range and acuity of the wearer's hearing. Add +2 to any hearing perception rolls, and the character may also hear sounds that normal humans cannot, and can even listen in on sounds as low as a whisper up to 100 meters away. If the battlesuit does not include Aural Filters as well, the wearer suffers a -2 when resisting special attacks based on sound (such as the Roar special power, or the sonic cannon used by the Gryphon warriors). OD: 1, Cost: [500]

Auto-Injector
This small auto-needle and drug dispenser is fitted inside the neck guard of the battlesuit. When activated via palm controls, it injects a dose of any desired drug into the wearer's bloodstream. The system can hold up to 3 doses of any drugs the user desires, although these have to be purchased seperately. Needless to say, this modification has been the subject of many assassination attempts (in which the drugs are replaced by lethal poisons), so wise Ikareans always check them before use. OD: 1, Cost: [100]

Comm Jammer This small bulbous device (about the size of a ping-pong ball) is wired into the battlesuit's Comm-net relay, and enables the user to intercept and jam the communications on any wavelength he can pick up, providing he is within 500 meters of the signal source. This system is used by many scouts just before an invasion, preventing their targets from calling in backup. OD: 1, Cost: [500]

Cosmetic Changes
Various cosmetic changes can be used to customise a battlesuit, ranging from simple but ornate laser engraving (Cost: 100) to resculpting of the armor panels (Cost: 300+). Even more ostentatious modifications include the inlay of unusual or precious metals (Cost: 100 for brass or coper, 250 for silver, 500 for gold), or even ornamentation using semi-precious stones (Cost: 500+).

Energy Scan Visor
This visor system enables the wearer to see patterns and wave fronts of psychic energy, making it obvious to the wearer when psi powers are being used close by. In addition, invisible demons can be seen due to their powerful and unique energy signatures, even if they are currently in possession of a host body. OD: 1, Cost: [500]

Enhanced Exoskeleton
The battlesuit's stock ST +1 exoskeleton can be replaced with a more powerful version that possesses a greater ST. The enhanced ST does increase the damage the battlesuit does with close-combat strikes, including with the wingblades.
Enhanced Exoskeleton I: ST: +2, OD: 3, Cost: [2 M]
Enhanced Exoskeleton II: ST: +3, OD: 5, Cost: [5 M]

Enhanced Gravatic Vector Drive
The standard gravatic vector drive installed in all stock battlesuits is designed to give optimal performance while maintaining a reasonable drakonium consumption. The enhanced drive, on the other hand, is designed purely for performance with no real consideration being given to drakonium consumption. Obviously, this modification is favoured primarily by those wealthier Ikaeans for whom fueling costs are not a concern.

Replacing the stock drive with an enhanced version increases the Top Speed of the battlesuit to 500 kph for Light suits, 420 kph for Medium suits, and 330 kph for Heavy suits. Unfortunately it also eats away at the battlesuit's fuel, reducing the continuous operation period of the armor to only 2 weeks. OD: 0, Cost: [1.5 M]

Hunting Visor
A sophisticated circut system and HUD (Heads Up Display) unit is integrated into the battlesuit's helmet that calculates and displays the optimum angle of attack to help maximise the damage from a swoop attack. Use of this system increases swoop attack damage by +2. OD: 1, Cost: [250]

Jagged Wingblades
The edges of the battlesuit's wingblades are given serrated edges, much like those on a steak knife. This viscious modification inflicts terrible cuts that are difficult to heal (halve the effects of natural healing and medical treatment). OD: 0, Cost: [500]

MirrorChrome Coating
Armor can be coated with MirrorChrome and polished to a brilliant sheen, giving the armor a supurbly reflective chrome mirror finish. Besides its obvious cosmetic appeal, MirrorChrome is also immensely effective protection against laser weapons. Armor coated with MirrorChrome has an AR of 12 vs. laser weapons and other attacks that rely exclusively on light energy. OD: 0, Cost: 1M

Note: MirrorChrome has only been perfected in Ikarus and Prometheus, but can be applied to any hard, smooth surface. Unfortunatly, it is extremely expensive to produce. The above cost represents how much it costs to cover a single human-sized individual's armor. Attempting to cover vehicles and other large objects would obviously multiply that cost many times over, depending on the size of the vehicle in question.

Missile Scrambler
This small bulbous device (about the size of a ping-pong ball) is wired into the battlesuit's environmental system. When the battlesuit registers an incoming rocket or missile this device activates, sending out pulsed scrambling waves that interfere with the rocket's or missile's guidance systems, causing it to suffer a -6 penalty on its strike roll. OD: 1, Cost: [2 M]

Night-Ops Sensors
Light-enhancement and thermal imaging displays are built into the battlesuit's visor, allowing the wearer to see in all but complete darkness (providing there is some source of light, however small; starlight and even distant metroplex lights would work fine). In complete darkness the wearer can switch to thermal mode, and thereby see the heat patterns of all objects around her (although detail is lost). In either case, all penalties for operating in darkness, dim light or obscurement (such as smoke) are reduced to -1.

Note that the light-enhancement system shuts off immediately if subjected to intense light, to avoid blinding the user. The thermal imaging system can be difficult to interpret, especially when faced with large, intense heat sources, as these can often hide the presence of other items nearby them. OD: 1, Cost: [800]

Psiscreen
A powerful G-matrix psiscreen is integrated into the battlesuit's helmet. It makes the wearer totally immune to mind-reading and possession, and adds +4 to any effort the wearer makes to resist a psychic attack. This modification is especially popular among those individuals who must track down renegade demons. OD: 0, Cost: 1M

Secure Comm
A small circut built into the battlesuit's comm-net relay allows secure communication between all battlesuits with this modification. A constantly remodulating encryption/decryption program ensures that their communications cannot be deciphered. OD: 1, Cost: [200]

Streamlining
All the armor panels of the battlesuit are replaced with smoother ones designed to minimise wind resistance, and thereby increase speed. This increases the battlesuit's Top Speed by 10%. OD: 0, Cost: [500]

Superior Alloys
The entire exoskeleton and power systems of a battlesuit can be stripped down to their bare components and replaced with adamantium-laced duralloy, making the armor much tougher without increasing the bulk and weight in the process. Increase the battlesuit's AR by 2. OD: 0, Cost: [3 M]

Targeting HUD
A complex targeting system superimposes targeting crosshairs and a digital readout telling you the speed, vector and velocity of anything you look at onto your visor, taking into acount your own speed and angle of motion. Slightly more sophisticated than standard targeting systems, it gives the user a +1 to hit bonus with any ranged weapon, even if flying at top speed. OD: 1, Cost: 500

Ultrasharp Wingblades
The stock wingblades can be replaced with reinforced adamantium alloy versions, which are then tempered in a nucleonic furnace. This adds an additional +2 damage to wingblade strikes. OD: 0, Cost: [1 M]

Universal Translator
A small, integral version of the standard universal translator (Waste World page 191) is extremely common and has no appreciable energy drain. OD: 0, Cost: 250

Voice Amplifier
Forcefield resonators built into the battlesuit's helmet can greatly amplify the user's voice, allowing him to be heard over the loudest background noise at a distance of up to 500 meters. There is no appreciable drain. OD: 0, Cost: 200

Weapon Implant
While Ikarean warriors tend to avoid carrying anything larger than a pistol while in their battlesuits, it is reasonably common for Eaglewarriors to build firearms directly into their battleuists, giving them easier access to firepower without having to worry incase they drop their pistol or need to reload.

Only energy weapon and other non-recoil, reasonably small ranged weapons are integrated, as recoil weapons interfere with the battlesuit's maneuverability and need specific ammunition, and spent casings can fly up and scratch the armor. Energy weapons, on the other hand, are directly wired into the battlesuit's power source, negating the need to reload them and providing constant ammunition. They also have no recoil, making them much more accurate in flight.

Only the following ranged weapons can be built into Ikarean battlesuits as fixed mounts, and only up to two weapons may be integrated (one on each forearm at the most): Blaster Pistol, Laser Pistol, Miniflamer, Missile Gauntlet. The implanted weapon always counts as a ready weapon as long as the user is awake and aware, and (unlike cybernetic weapon implants) they do not interfer with the use of hte wearer's hands or ability to manipulate objects.

Any integrated weapon counts as a slot of the Weapon Implant skill, and it must be remembered that this skill (like all other DX skills) is limited by the wearer's Ikarean Battlesuit skill. Weapon Implant is an Easy skill to acquire and learn. Slots in Weapon Implant will not allow the character to use such weapons normally if they are not attached to an Ikarean battlesuit.

OD: 1 per Blaster Pistol or Laser Pistol. An integrated blaster or laser never need to be reloaded and will not run out of ammunition. 0 per Miniflamer or Missile Gauntlet; they are not rigged into the battlesuit's power source and do not inflict drain. Integrated miniflamers and missile gauntlets need to be reloaded as normal, and follow the standard combat rules for those weapons.
Cost: 250 plus the cost of the individual weapon.

Wing Extensions
Additional extensors can be added to the battlesuit's wingblades, which reach maximum outstretch in flight and increase the battlesuit's overall maneuverability. This gives a bonus of +1 to allAerobatic rolls (or negates the -1 penalty in the case of Heavy battlesuits). OD: 1, Cost: [300]

Wing Razors Two additional layers of wingblades are built into each arm guard, along with a compressed air firing system. By pointing his arm at a target, the user can fire each of these layers like a hail or razors!

Each arm holds 2 layers, giving the wearer a total capacity of 4 volleys before they need to be replaced. This weapon only has a short range but can prove devastating, especially to unarmored targets. It has the following statistics:

CR	R	D	T
15	-	2M	S

It uses the Ikarean battlesuit skill slot in combat, and any armor with an AR of 5 or more counts double against it. OD: 2, Cost: [500], Replacement Volley Blades: Per Volly

Typical Battlesuit Configurations

Waste World and all related material are copyrights of Manticore Publications.
This article is reproduced here by permission of Manticore Publications and the author.

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