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Now I now that the Imperium has lost a lot of info about high tech stuff but why do space marines have to have all these fancy (heavy?) things on their armor. Can't they buff them a bit to look like this. I think it would look better like this and a bit of décor.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/134/7/6/space_marine_by_fonteart-d659qdy.jpg
http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2013/163/0/3/moar_space_marines__by_fonteart-d68sby0.jpg
Wires, tubes and weird energy pulses are also cool. Like this
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/BL/blog/2011/11/bolter.jpg
http://www.jonsullivanart.com/2011%20ARTWORK/WRATH%20IRON/WRATH(IRON)%20(19)%20copy.jpg
What do you think?

How do you get the image to display?

 Cursed Founding wrote:


How do you get the image to display?

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 Cursed Founding wrote:
Now I now that the Imperium has lost a lot of info about high tech stuff but why do space marines have to have all these fancy (heavy?) things on their armor. Can't they buff them a bit to look like this. I think it would look better like this and a bit of décor.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/134/7/6/space_marine_by_fonteart-d659qdy.jpg
http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2013/163/0/3/moar_space_marines__by_fonteart-d68sby0.jpg
Wires, tubes and weird energy pulses are also cool. Like this
http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/BL/blog/2011/11/bolter.jpg
http://www.jonsullivanart.com/2011%20ARTWORK/WRATH%20IRON/WRATH(IRON)%20(19)%20copy.jpg
What do you think?

How do you get the image to display?

It is already that advanced. If they leaked out all the tubes, energy coils, etc out of the armor, that would be a design flaw. The whole point of power armor is that everything is incased in an ablative layer of ceramite and durasteel or whatever the hell the alien alloy of the week is called now.

Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

To be fair, both of the last two images, which are official art, are Iron Hands, who are certainly known for their additions to their armor, both for what they see as improvements and to better integrate with any additional cybernetics they have.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

What's even worse are those weird marks/patterns of lightning claws, power fists, thunder hammers, etc with exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

Speed of production and conservation of materials because you need to produce like thirty million suits yesterday.

I like this:

Looks functional and with less weak points with all the fussy bits.
This would be the "near-future":

Where it looks like the emphasis is strength than protection.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

What's even worse are those weird marks/patterns of lightning claws, power fists, thunder hammers, etc with exposed cabling.

Rule of cool

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

What's even worse are those weird marks/patterns of lightning claws, power fists, thunder hammers, etc with exposed cabling.

Rule of cool

Its because those weapons need to be hooked up the Marine's power source to function, otherwise they'll just be normal weapons. Because they are not inbuilt to the armour they need external cables in the same way a vacuum cleaners needs a power cable.

Honestly, a few exposed cables isn't that bad. Cabling isn't flimsy stuff, so unless it gets directly hit its not going to suffer too bad.

But covering it with armor is certainly better than leaving it exposed, but leaving it exposed isn't a hideous weakness.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Honestly, a few exposed cables isn't that bad. Cabling isn't flimsy stuff, so unless it gets directly hit its not going to suffer too bad.

But covering it with armor is certainly better than leaving it exposed, but leaving it exposed isn't a hideous weakness.

Agreed. Also bear in mijd the logistics of it. Covering all the cabling with armour might make the armour too heavy and the power source too strained and force heat or strain (like the Mk V armour with its additional armour plates bolted on). Or if they put it inside the armour you now have less armour between the gun and you.

At the same time, the armor is probably easier to protect from hostile environments than the cabling is.

Cabling is fairly easy to protect, you just stick it in a kevlar-nylon tube. It's now insulated, cut-resistant and air-tight. If you want to go cheap, you use nickel-chromium tubing around plastic insulation. It also gives you that cool, metal-cable look that seems popular in 40K.

Kevlar is not acid resistant, and it doesn't seem to give it much protection against other things such as radiation while fighting in the vacuum of space.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

I think it was because they needed something to cool the cables. I guess liquid coolant is for losers.

They have armore like the ones you shared. The Errant armor for example.

I love the MKIV myself.

 Melissia wrote:
Kevlar is not acid resistant, and it doesn't seem to give it much protection against other things such as radiation while fighting in the vacuum of space.

Neither is ceramite, really, it just takes awhile to eat through it...

... but acid-resistant nylons (being plastic) *are* a thing, which is why you interweave it with kevlar. Now you have flexible, acid-and-cut-resistant (not to mention heat/cold resistant) insulation for your wiring. Want to make it radiation resistant? Wrap it in activated charcoal insulation, then wrap it in your kev-nylon. You could even get it in multiple colors, if you wanted, so you could have danger-striping cables, solid-color cables (Chapter/Legion colors, of course), patterns, images, heraldry... you could go nuts with that.

There's also the fact that, while space *can* be very radioactive, the Marine is not going to spend enough time in it for the radiation to really cause a significant problem for his electronics. Space is a lot of alpha, beta and gamma waves... rarely do you see EMP-style pulses that are what really fry the electronics.

If there *are* such things in the AO, then your PA is the least of your concerns, because the ship you just got sucked out of (blown out of, jumped out of, whatever) is probably *also* suffering from some EMP shock problems... like the lights just went out, the engine went cold and the life-support system has failed.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

What's even worse are those weird marks/patterns of lightning claws, power fists, thunder hammers, etc with exposed cabling.

Rule of cool

Its because those weapons need to be hooked up the Marine's power source to function, otherwise they'll just be normal weapons. Because they are not inbuilt to the armour they need external cables in the same way a vacuum cleaners needs a power cable.

...Except there's patterns of lightning claws, power fists, and thunder hammers without a bunch of hanging wires, either they're pinned to the power armor itself or they lack them entirely. So they're clearly not necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Honestly, a few exposed cables isn't that bad. Cabling isn't flimsy stuff, so unless it gets directly hit its not going to suffer too bad.

But covering it with armor is certainly better than leaving it exposed, but leaving it exposed isn't a hideous weakness.

Agreed. Also bear in mijd the logistics of it. Covering all the cabling with armour might make the armour too heavy and the power source too strained and force heat or strain (like the Mk V armour with its additional armour plates bolted on). Or if they put it inside the armour you now have less armour between the gun and you.

Considering space marines can fling around lightning claws without power armor just fine, lift fallen trees, etc, and that power armor is powered, there's no reason why weight would be a concern. The only problem is if the power from the backpack is lost, but you're screwed anyway, as cabling or not the weapon would have no power.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

What's even worse are those weird marks/patterns of lightning claws, power fists, thunder hammers, etc with exposed cabling.

Rule of cool

Its because those weapons need to be hooked up the Marine's power source to function, otherwise they'll just be normal weapons. Because they are not inbuilt to the armour they need external cables in the same way a vacuum cleaners needs a power cable.

...Except there's patterns of lightning claws, power fists, and thunder hammers without a bunch of hanging wires, either they're pinned to the power armor itself or they lack them entirely. So they're clearly not necessary.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Honestly, a few exposed cables isn't that bad. Cabling isn't flimsy stuff, so unless it gets directly hit its not going to suffer too bad.

But covering it with armor is certainly better than leaving it exposed, but leaving it exposed isn't a hideous weakness.

Agreed. Also bear in mijd the logistics of it. Covering all the cabling with armour might make the armour too heavy and the power source too strained and force heat or strain (like the Mk V armour with its additional armour plates bolted on). Or if they put it inside the armour you now have less armour between the gun and you.

Considering space marines can fling around lightning claws without power armor just fine, lift fallen trees, etc, and that power armor is powered, there's no reason why weight would be a concern. The only problem is if the power from the backpack is lost, but you're screwed anyway, as cabling or not the weapon would have no power.

Can you provide examples of those patterns because I can't recall any off the top pf my head? Terminator Armour doesn't count because in those instances they are inbuilt.

Weight is an issue because the servo-muscle stuff is only calibrated to llift a certain weight when walking and doing general stuff. If you put on extra weight you'll need to use more power constantly which will cause the power source to strain and overheated. Just as the MkV Heresy armour did.
Imagine you have a truck and are driving 100 miles. You'll ude less fuel and get there fast in an empty truck than one that is carrying large cargo.

1- Daemonically altered, invalid.
2- Terminator, inbuilt weapons, invalid as I mentioned in my last post
4: That's a power axe, it has its own field generator power source in the head, same as other power weapons. We're discussing LC, PF and TH.

3: Fair enough.

I genuinely couldn't recall any instances of Specialist Weapons having no cables.

Coteaz has a thunder hammer without a cable on it as well. But in that case and the one above, aren't these high level characters who could likely have higher tech weapons?

Most power fists do show a cable running into the armor somewhere.

Cables are not themselves an issue. Like I said way above, we have clear signs that as time passed, they started covering the cables up. The most recent power armor, the MKVIII I think, Errant armor, has sheaths for all torso cables.

Conversely, my favorite full suit, the MKIV has exposed cables on the chest arms and legs.

But with the armor being hyper durable and requiring anti-vehicle weapons to penetrate, I don't think cabling is a serious issue.

 PhillyT wrote:
Coteaz has a thunder hammer without a cable on it as well. But in that case and the one above, aren't these high level characters who could likely have higher tech weapons?

Most power fists do show a cable running into the armor somewhere.

Cables are not themselves an issue. Like I said way above, we have clear signs that as time passed, they started covering the cables up. The most recent power armor, the MKVIII I think, Errant armor, has sheaths for all torso cables.

Conversely, my favorite full suit, the MKIV has exposed cables on the chest arms and legs.

But with the armor being hyper durable and requiring anti-vehicle weapons to penetrate, I don't think cabling is a serious issue.

Well just on the point of Coteaz, he wields a Nemesis Daemon Hammer which is different to a Thunder Hammer.

Good point. Still "powered" though, in addition to being charged with psyker energy. Probably a good example of Grey Knights and the Inquisition having access to better tech.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

what if it makes servicing and maintaining the armor simpler. When you have a whole legion in constant war taking a dozen planets each month perhaps after providing primary protection the next most important thing is servicing and repairing it.

the cable connecting it to armor might not even be the power source, it might just be a fancy way to tie the sword to your armor so you can't drop it

BrianDavion wrote:
the cable connecting it to armor might not even be the power source, it might just be a fancy way to tie the sword to your armor so you can't drop it

It might provide cooling rather than power.

If the cooling gets cut the weapon would still function, but perhaps not for long. Not something critical to the fight but rather for making sure it is ready for the next fight.

 Exergy wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Yeah, my biggest problem with the Heresy marks is that they all have way too much exposed cabling.

What's the point of advanced armor plating if you put the gubbins that make it function outside the armor?

what if it makes servicing and maintaining the armor simpler. When you have a whole legion in constant war taking a dozen planets each month perhaps after providing primary protection the next most important thing is servicing and repairing it.

Not really a good explanation. There's no reason the cabling couldn't be underneath the plating with easily removed paneling to expose it. After all, the suits are modular, and would have to be put on (and taken off) in parts.

There's no benefit to ease of maintenance if the method ofeasing maintenance is to put the most easily damaged parts in a place that subjects them to more damage, lol.

The reality is the technology of power armor is conceptually advanced, and executionally outdated. The older marks of armor look like how somebody would have designed power armor if they didn't have the technology to actually build power armor.

It's just more "GW artists don't really know what they're doing and just drawing cool looking stuff" like bolters with misaligned ejection ports or belt feeds.

Exactly. We are talking about artists and game designers, not soldiers and engineers. Within that, we are looking at something designed partly with the rule of cool in mind.

Functionality is secondary. It extends to every other aspect of the game, not just power armor.