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What powers the NEMA Fire & Rescue Enhanced Body Armor? It is a powered exoskeleton but it doesn't have any power source listed. It can't be nuclear because the price is only listed as 250 000 credits and a nuclear power source would cost in the millions. The light laser tool has its own e-clip.

Perhaps it has a battery like the very similar Northern Gun Gladius NG-EX10 from Rifts Mercenaries? It can last for 96 hours of continuous use and only takes 2 hours to recharge from a generator.

I'm wiht you on that one. Batteries seems most likely.

Yeah either that or e-clips.

I assume battery. I would go with 48 hour charge and 4 hours to charge up. Also, the MDC is just crazy on that armor...UNLESS there was some justification for firefighters needing to shrug off tank rounds? That I haven't understood.

Ever have a building fall on your head? Or drop threw 4 flights of floors???

TagsPB wrote:Ever have a building fall on your head? Or drop threw 4 flights of floors???

Not to mention the thought that if its MDC buildings burning....well that fire has to be an MD fire to burn an MDC material......So its kind of like the special suits they use for things like jet fuel fires....hotter fire needs better suit....

Spinachcat wrote:I assume battery. I would go with 48 hour charge and 4 hours to charge up.

You'd think that NEMA tech would be better than or equal to Northern Gun though?

Honestly, you can ask this question about all body armor... I mean, how is it that all those systems built into the armors are powered? HUD, radios, temperature control... I've always just assumed it was a small nuclear power source. The Gladius suit in Rifts: Mercenaries is listed as a cross between body armor and power armor and then comments that a nuclear power source is the most expensive component of any suit. The Chipwell Challenger suit on page 144 of Rifts: Mercenaries is also noted as having batteries instead of a nuclear plant.

Since the NEMA FR-EX doesn't list batteries, I'd say it has a nuclear plant and treat it like the Coalition CA-6EX from page 102 of the Rifts: Coalition War Campaign book and like the Triax T-11 enhanced armor from page 35 of Rifts: Triax 1 (World Book 5).

NEMA was during the Golden Age and represented the peak of technology.
Everyone was genetically altered. Everyone was cybernetically enhanced,
and everything down to their ATVs were nuclear powered.

If you compare all of the power armor and robots to the FR-EX 220 suit.
It is easy, almost obvious, to assume it has the exact same power source.
Which means it would be good for 20 years.

I concur my group always treated it as nuclear powered. You don't want to run out of power after two days when people are trying to dig you out of a collapse situation

TagsPB wrote:Ever have a building fall on your head? Or drop threw 4 flights of floors???

Um.... actually, yes. Not fun.
I gotta go with mini-nuke for the suit.

Could be a micro nuke ... These suits will get regular maintenance and over hauls so it wouldn't need a 5 year power source......more likely 2 years max

Glistam wrote:Honestly, you can ask this question about all body armor... I mean, how is it that all those systems built into the armors are powered? HUD, radios, temperature control... .

never thought too much of it really, but if there was no power source, maybe an ultra sensitive thermal/electric system so it could be powered by the body heat of the wearer?

All BA needs a power source, or the HUD etc wouldn't work. I put the firefighting armor in the same category as the German, Japanese, and Russian exoskeleton armors, which means it is powered by the same magic as regular EBA. Body movement/body heat of the wearer? Maybe a cheap tiny battery that lasts years (think CPU clock batteries as modern example)?