Punctured Spacesuits

[Garash]

And I don't mean the song! What if spacesuits ruptured after taking damage.
In addition to being realistic, it's also a neat balancing tool, from less sturdy to the most you could have light space suits / emergency suits / EVA suits / Indus.
Maybe it'd be a durability system like the one for nadir's acid, or mabye it's a binary ruptured/intact state. They could be repaired with nanolooms or a similar item.
Shouts to glowbold for the original idea while thinking of ways to balance Light space suits.

[colossusqw]

I'd love to see space suits that can be affected by things such as shrapnel, bullets, weapons that cause cut or pierce, and whatnot. A thing that would be very much interesting would also be making them leak your oxygen out, as opposed to not being useful as suits once pierced. But i also barely even feel the need to wear them since pressure doesn't really play a role in the game right now, so a simple oxy mask is all you need 99% of the time.

[Frank_Stein]

Yee. Clothing being damaged is something I can see having a role in forensics as well. Maybe leaving behind torn shreds of fabric a detective can match to a ripped uniform.

[trollbreeder]

This will have a major impact on nukies - the syndies already have an advantage by destroying the area and making it airless, as they have armor AND spaceproof, and crew only has armor OR spaceproof. Especially on Nadir where the aqua tenebrae deals much more damage than space or water could ever do. One is forced to decide between dying from the surroundings, or dying from being shot. Even on Oshan where the water is basically harmless, there's a choice in preparation - do I protect myself from bullets and move faster but risk freezing, or do I take the slower and less defensive spacesuit to mitigate the constant threat of space? Not really so when they can just be turned off in the first skirmish. Thus armor prevails, and trumps all. 
Suddenly your carefully considered protection against it is pulled out from under you as if you never had it, spitefully getting you killed by the game seconds after you take an operative down. Not something people want to manage when the crew is whittled down and it should just be about fighting the bad guys and destroying that bomb before the last second.

I think it's more enjoyable to die from being shot - from being directly outplayed by living thinking people, rather than the cold hard uncaring fact that the room itself is the danger, and it suuuucks to have your smartly chosen preparation in face of that danger being taken away right at first contact. 

But if we give nukie suits the same puncturing mechanic, then slashy melee (like improvised machetes and the knightsword) and kinetics (like zips and yellowhanded nukie guns) will disadvantage them harder, and FOREVER, as they are a small persistent team holed up in one place compared to the hundred different worldwide lemmings that are the crew. So if some crew knows about puncturing, and crafts weapons, and clicks the scary red people on disarm intent, then the nukies that got hit will have to deal with the constant cold/acid wearing them down (spacecold is still long-term lethal despite how weak it seems!) or get a new suit from the station/corpses (which takes time, exposes them to even more crew, and gives no armor). Then in crit they drop even more kinetics for crew to use, keeping that punctured snowball going.
Those punctured nukies are basically on a viral timer to their inevitable demise. Not something they want to manage when the team is whittled down and it should just be about fighting the staffies and protecting that bomb until the last second.

(But what about breaking in safely, keeping the plant spot structurally intact thus preventing that space damage? Literally impossible due to the carnage - please see various ingame screenshots of plant spot rooms to see what i mean)

[KikiMofo]

Getting shot by bullets and lasers should definitely fuck up your suit. Though the problem is it would make space combat into just whoever gets the first shot is going to win because the one getting shot is going to be freezing and slow PLUS the slowdown from the damage. Armored spacesuits and syndie suits should be a lot more resistant to getting punctured though because they are made for combat.