Powerups - Same look different function

I have been thinking a bit about how to handle the graphical aspects of armor and weapons and how they will interact with the game.  As I was explaining the game to someone and I told them that the "Aliens" have encased the players in suits that keep them from all harm, then I was trying to explain things like armor and weapons they pointed out that a graphical armor would be pointless since they are already encased in an all harm reducing suit.  Also there was the issue of the armor only covering certain areas, like would it protect the torso if you have the standard shoulder pad type armor.  This also led to me thinking about this from the perspective of an experiment, where much of what is going on has to be simulated to be like war, but not actually be like war.  Anyway the short story is that I am rethinking how these will happen in the game.  Rather than have a brand new graphic for weapons and armor I will make them more like the slot system in FFVII.  this will mean that the powerups for weapons and armor will be represented by little globes which when they are "equipped" they will do things like make the player's suit glow brighter or make the weapon fire differently.  This will mean that the "Aliens" will be able to introduce and temporarily disable all kind of things without necessarily changing anything in the reality of the simulation.

So what this means is that every player comes equipped with the suit, a distance weapon, and a melee weapon that then can change depending on what class they are.  The powerups are then applied to these already existing items to simulate a weapon change or increased armor.  They will still have to be "hacked" in order to be compatible with a given faction, and certain power ups will require the correct class to use them.  They can still take up the pack space as I talked about in armor a while ago.

Anyway a quick update about school.  I am very busy doing the projects for my classes, though I am still learning a lot of valuable information.  I won't be able to work on this project extensively in the near future, though I have a good idea of what I need to do to get started now.

Armor

Ok I've had this idea going around my brain for a while now.  It has somewhat been established that there will be several levels of metals, most likely 9 at least.  So there will three kinds of metal, and low-high grades of each type.  Because I don't want armor to add more than 100 additional hit points at any given time, I'm thinking that armor made of low grade of anything will add 50, average grade will add 75, and high grade will add 100.  The differences in the metal types will determine how much pack space is used in order to equip said armor. To help clarify this I have made a diagram which is shown above.  This means that the easier to get iron will still be useful, especially to someone who isn't going on a gathering mission and will most likely end their mission in being frozen.  It also will mean that the scout class will not be able to wear iron armor at any time, which is one of the weaknesses of the scout class(that and they are just weak).