Maintenance
Despite the many innovations and clever workarounds tribal engineers have worked into armor designs, they cannot escape the need for maintenance. However, many armor systems are modular enough to encourage easy replacement. Entek repari baths make much basic maintenance relatively painless. However, entek only deals with physical aspects such as microservo arrays, armor plating, seals, and gross component integrity. Checking operational efficiency of complex subsystems such as sensors, the command circuit, the DNI, onboard computers, and shield aura gestalt-overlaps requires a human technician. In addition, field repairs from entek repair kits do not return damaged components to a pristine condition. The reparis frequently leave stress fractures and may have reduced the strength or integrity of other components from which the material was drawn for repairs. Moreover, inevitable armor variants mean the reparis may not be programmed with the specifics of a particular armor, and so the repairs may leave the armor prone to breakdown or malfunction if follow-up maintenance is not performed. Finally, although the armors are designed internally with null-friction materials at joints and moving parts, some lubricants are necessary. Reparis are known for poor repair of such junctures.

Rule-of-thumb optimal maintenance requires one man-hour of troubleshooting and service per three hours of operation in the field under combat conditions or in unusually taxing environments. While this time seems unusually low by Imperial standards, one must remember that tribal systems are far less complex than standard Imperial military equipment, though I understand our saar-marines now use armors that incorporate simpler tribal design principles.

A typical service (absent major battlefield re-repair) can be accomplished by a single person. For the exterior, the first step for a warrior or technician is to spray the armor's exterior with a cleaning solution and wipe it clean. The cleaner, the better, I am told. Even though the peren-diamond varnish prevents most grime from adhering to the armor's surface, dust and other material can accumulate in the joints and over the optiks. (This is not unusual, as Imperial equipment still has trouble in the dust pockets of Old Mars.) The next step requires application of an oily silver paste that contains metal and carbon molecules that provide repair material for the entek. In the final step, a typical repair pack is used to apply the entek. For interior components, a maintenance computer is patched into the command circuit and DNI for diagnostic purposes. Any damaged or fatigued components are repaired or replaced. The cross-layered opticrys components of armor optiks frequently require replacement, since realigning the thin sheets of molecular crystal is a time-consuming process. Replacement is typically easy for "generic" components, such as shields, microfusion cells, and sensor nodes, which are common to perhaps ninety percent of all tribal armors. Optiks and DNI components usually require replacement. Occasionally, a technician may not trust the entek to do the work. In these cases, microscopic goggles, a laser welder, and an autosleeve are used. Such special repairs are quite time-consuming.

DNI interface replacement is a complex process requiring a period of "retuning" a warrior's neural signature. Typically, the DNI "node" is easily removed and replaced in a new armor, an approach warriors invariably prefer to breaking in a new node. Older interfaces often retain remnants of previous signatures, dissonant elements that can interfere with armor operation. Of course, myths have sprung up around the ludicrous idea that the DNI interface imprints some of its owner's personality, or even the owner's soul. A story in the Diamond Sword Kohan Scrolls tells of a newblood who inherited the armor of his uncle, a martial arts master versed in the Kamisori school of Venusian Zen. The newblood used the armor in a training match shortly after he received it. The style he used was far more advanced than his level of study, and he executed with a grace and speed that overwhelmed his teacher as completely as if his uncle still wore the armor. The newblood claimed later that he felt another presence with him, guiding each motion. As a consequence of stories like these, sworders value old interfaces and do not erase those used by masters and exceptional warriors.

Microservos can present problems when severe damage interferes with repari penetration or slags enough material together to confuse the entek. A microservo consists of a conductive metadura-coil fused around a flexor filament chain made of exo-crys. The exo-crys expands on application of an electrical charge, which is applied through the surrounding metadura coil. They contract when the charge is removed. The microservo cables network effectively mimics the human body's range of motion, though as armor weight class increases, range of motion and flexibility drops. A Myrmidon cannot match the moves of a Peltast, though I am assured it is not nearly as restrictive as its bulk suggests.

Battle damage often requires replacement of an exterior component or armor plate, particularly if the damage melted through several layers. Such damage often blends the armor's material and confuses the reparis, which may not "understand" how to recognize a muddled fusion of AKS and metaplas.

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