Environmental Protection

The galaxy is a vast and wondrous place, with countless dangers and worlds within it, but space is inhospitable and incredibly deadly. Every type of modern armor has built-in environmental protections which, when activated, protect you from the vacuum of space. These protections allow you to survive for a few days if you must make repairs to the hull of a starship, explore an airless alien world, or endure exposure to an environmental breach while trapped inside a space station. Some armors do this through an environmental field (a minor force field specially tuned to protect from a vacuum that doesn't reduce damage from attacks), while others can be closed with helmets and airtight seals. While using your armor's environmental protections, your armor can protect you from the dangerous environmental effects of a vacuum and can facilitate self-contained breathing. This allows you to survive and breathe while within a thick or thin atmosphere, in a vacuum, or while submerged in liquid (the safety seals and rebreather offer no protection from the effects of damaging liquids, such as acid or lava). Armor protection doesn't protect you from smoke inhalation, inhaled poisons, toxic atmospheres, or corrosive atmospheres.
Armor environmental protections work only while within a thick or thin atmosphere, a vacuum, or non-hazardous liquid. In all other environments, armor is designed to cycle down, refill its air supply, and filter in the surrounding environment by entering low-power mode. This enables the armor to conserve power and air for unexpected emergencies, and to ensure its delicate systems are constantly operating at peak efficiency. To protect yourself from other environmental dangers, such as radiation, you can install armor upgrades into your armor's upgrade slots.
Armor Protections: All armors, except those with the exposed trait, allow you to breathe and survive in a thick or thin atmosphere, a vacuum, or in non-hazardous underwater environments. This does not prevent inhaled toxins or similar effects from entering your armor's systems. Ancestries like kalo that require specific environmental conditions to survive can easily obtain or modify armor to suit these needs. The wearer can activate or deactivate an armor's protections with an Interact action. A suit of armor's environmental protections last for a number of days equal to its item level (minimum 1 day).

Activation and Duration

A suit of armor's environmental protections last for a number of days equal to its item level. Activating or deactivating these environmental protections takes a single Interact action if you're wearing the armor. Activating the environmental protections on a suit of armor worn by a willing creature takes 2 actions and has the manipulate trait. Thanks to built-in safeguards and security protocols, you can't turn off the environmental protections built into the armor of an unwilling creature.
The duration of armor's environmental protections is utilized in 1-day increments. Recharging this duration requires access to a functioning starship or an environment recharging station (publicly available in most technologically advanced or technologically average settlements) and takes 10 minutes. Most of the recharging stations that replenish devices, such as batteries, also recharge armor's environmental protections, and using them to recharge suits is typically free of charge. Other functions of the armor that do not have a duration still work normally.