Editing TNE:GreatExpedition (section)

=== House Designs ===

'''A.R.E.S. exploratory equipment.'''

* Military Integrated Sensor Suite.
Yes, this has another name, but the scouts found a targeting system called 'MISS' so amusing the name has stuck. It's real acronym is the Integrated Personal Sensing Array.
As only TL13 worlds seem to be able to do personal holographic Heads Up Displays in Trav, this rather impressive vision system is an add-on for any ARES helmet. 
It is an integrated sensor suite with a bulky fold-down see-through goggle set. It incorporates the TL10 compact sensor suite, and is integrated with the full personal sensing system; PRIS, seismic, sonar and radio detector. The varying sensors engaged are overlaid through the goggles, and the image can be fed through the comm command link and recorded. Weapons hooked into the MISS project virtual lines across the vision gear denoting where the projectile would pass, but are only visible to the wearer and those connected to the comm link. Essentially, this is a 'laptop in your helmet' with sensors, comms and sights as some of the peripherals.

* Tactical Armoured Hazardous Environment Suit
A non-military soft suit that is well armoured for its category and mounting SquidSkin™ programmable camouflage suite. This isn't 'predator camouflage', but rather a pre-programmed library of camouflages as well as a standard 'uniform colours' to denote duty section when on-planet, a standard 'High Visibility Colour' loaded in from a library and up to ten camouflage patterns chosen by the wearer. It takes about thirty seconds for the whole suit to change colour.
The 'helmet' array is a soft helmet similar to that worn by present day astro/cosmonauts, but leaving only the face open and extending to the collar where it mates with the rest of the suit. The breathing apparatus is a gas-mask-like arrangement usually carried in a pouch on the right thigh. 
The suit is hardened by the Tactical Armour Package; a set of rigid plates that attach to the webbing system integral to the suit. These plates include a head plate similar to the present day CVC; an articulated cuirass and shoulder guards, as well as shin and forearm guards that include knee and elbow pads. Because this set is bulky when carried, requires the removal of nearly all the equipment carried in the webbing including side arm holsters etc, it is rarely - if ever - donned in combat. To completely harden the TAHES takes ten minutes, five minutes (and a task) if 'buddy armouring'.

*15mm Low Velocity Sidearm.
More than just a pistol!
Tthis 20-bore shotgun pistol uses low velocity rounds of varying loads and is useful in shipboard combat. The weapon loads a 10 round magazine forward of the trigger guard. As there is a plethora of rounds available for the pistol, an ammunition loading system/holster is available that is configurable via the operators HUD. This loads the 10 shot magazine via menus on the HUD. This system is not universally respected by scouts, who see it as something to go wrong when a simple selection of quickly changed magazines can be carried instead.

*15mm Pistol/RAM Launcher
As ARES personnel rarely if ever use rifled weapons (their version of the CMWS; the Modular Automatic Rifle System, is usually only used on-planet and rarely if ever shipboard, leading to ARES personnel carrying shotguns nearly universally) a RAM grenade system has been developed for this sidearm. The RAM grenade is packaged in a reusable/discardable tube in which the pistol system attaches to the underneath, the telescoping tube extended, and a gas shoot-through uptake inserting onto the pistol muzzle brake. The gas system uses the pistol gas release as a primary booster to fire the main charge in the tube, this is an armbrust-style piston-capture recoilless system that ejects plastic ribbons out the rear of the tube and projects the RAM munition at the target. If the RAM grenade does not strike anything before 100m has passed the RAM rocket fires, boosting the grenade out to 500m where the self destruct fuze will initialise. Thus the weapon has the signature of a pistol if the target is under 100m, and if the target is further away the main signature of the weapon is activated 100m from the firer. RAM One-Shots are capable of being repackaged, but are cheap enough discard. The weapon is configured for over the shoulder firing and collapsed is 200mm long, and uses the handgun's sighting package.

*CR Universal Sighting Module.
A simple attachable system the size of a matchbox that fits on any standard CR weapon rail. It uses integral batteries with a use-life of six months.

The USM contains the following sub assemblies;
*= IR/Ruby laser spot
*= Virtual HUD designator spot
*= Grenade HUD sight
*= IR/Visible LED tactical spotlight
*= HUD Ammo counter uplink
*= HUD Weapon status (temperature/barrel life/carbon accumulation) sensor uplink

Usually this system is mounted under the barrel of the weapon in question. CR-issued sighting systems (electronic or telescopic) interface with the USM to uplink to the HUD. Not all CR weapons have the complete functionality of the USM.