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So i'm flicking through the Power Armour through the Ages notes, and under the entry for Mark V, it notes that one of the reasons for the studded look was that it was a "extra skin plate" being slapped on top of... other plates. Taking into account the previous sentence which states "when inferior materials were used due to lack of the proper supplies", what would happen, or is there a precedent, for non-inferior materials being used? ie, what would happen if 'good quality' materials was used instead.


A distinguishing feature of the Mark 5 armour were the heavily studded armour plates. This was an attempt to reinforce the Mark 4 pattern plates when inferior materials were used due to lack of the proper supplies.An extra skin plate was fitted around the armour using molecular bonding studs. The extra weight was considerable, especially if a further chest plate had been added, leading to increased pressure for energy from the power pack. As a result the wearer either had to turn up the power output and suffer intolerable heat build-up, or leave the power supply as it was and accept reduced power levels. - WD#129, Sept 1990



It also featured additional armour panels on the shoulder pads and greaves, which were held on by molecular bonding studs. The additional weight was considerable, making the suit cumbersome and prone to overheating. - Power Armour through the Ages, 27 Oct 2016

As Mk5 evolved, two district types came to be known.

The first is Production Mk5 which is the Heresy-Pattern armour with the semi-Mk7 look with all the studs. This was what happened when large scale PA production was done on worlds with lower resources or on the front lines where quantity was needed over quality. If 100 Astartes needed armour it was easier to produce Mk5 than say Mk4 with its superior movement ability or Mk6 with its enhanced sensor capacity.

Non-Production Mk5 is essentially multiple mixes of armour being worn that has been scavenged across the many battlefields of the Heresy. This was more often found among Shattered Legion or Blackshield forces where supply chains were nonexistent.

If good material was to be had in enough supply then Mk5 simply wasn't produced. It's a product of desperation.

In theory? One could craft a suit of MkV from regular, if not outright superior materials.

End of the day? It’s “just” armour, so no different to making medieval style plate armour out of modern materials.

Then, I’d argue it would, being pretty much a one off, be headed into the realms of Artificer armour, as the extra stuff is just providing more protection atop standard materials (so say, where regular MkV used steel and here you used Marvel Adamantium, the Adamanantium is going to offer vastly superior protection)

The only reason to include the studs was to bind poor quality materials together. Gert has described it really, but below is my version that I think picks up a couple of other details.

The Compilation description of Mk 5 notes that surviving instances of the armour tended to be broken up for spares rather than being retained, as per older variants, or continuing to be constructed, as per Mks 6 and 7.

Mk 6 originally needed the studs for one shoulder pad only again due to materials shortage, but then it became an icon of the heroic victory against Chaos in the Heresy. The stud aesthetic was therefore retained as new suits were produced with better materials to celebrate the victory.

By contrast, the Mk 5 suit was viewed more negatively as it represented the deep despair section of the conflict. As it wasn't really needed any more and was inferior to both the older marks and the newer marks, it was no longer produced and therefore there was never a need to produce new Mk5 suits from superior materials.

I was thinking more a scenario where say..... Power Armour Factory #2342341234 only had legal access to the blueprints for Production MkV for whatever reason (maybe their application to get access to the blueprints for MkVI or MkVII was denied/lost/etc). And because this factory only got access to MkV, instead of using low-quality materials to churn out as many low-end suits as possible.... they decided to use high-quality materials to produce lower numbers of ... presumably not-awful Production MkV?

If they aren't getting permission to use better blueprints, are they going to be able to get their hands on better materials?

I mean there are only 2 options. Either the studs are retained because that's what the fabricators are set up to do, or the studs are dropped as surplus to requirements. However the latter would be a change to the design and therefore tech heresy by definition.