Drivesuit

Ranger armour. 
(Email thread, "Fic/Chapter: Routine")
==Layer Cake==
The Jaeger pilot layer-cake goes like this:
:Ranger --> Underwear --> (Relay Gel) --> Circuitry Suit --> "Wetsuit" --> Armor pieces
That is a description so accurate and unexpected it's beautiful.
===Underwear===
What about circuitry suit underwear? I'm thinking briefs might be okay, judging by the concept art (not a whole lot of wires over the pelvic and derriere area) but maybe those are only the visible wires and the whole thing's transmitting. 
Yeah, there wouldn't be as much need for connections in those areas, but there are still some fairly important muscles around the hip we want to make connections with.. A Speedo-type thing would probably be snug enough for support and small enough to stay out of the way of important connections.
I would assume female pilots would have to have some sort of minimal bra on under the circuitry suit as well, just for comfort's sake.
What do you think of a binder-esque thing that redistributes/flattens the tissue?
I think something binder-esque would be the way to go. Now, I can’t remember Mako’s armor, but Kaidanovskaya's /definitely had ... female proportions on the chest piece. Whether that’s indicative of normal PPDC armoring practice or just what the terrifying lady who wears bright red lipstick into battle wants, I’m not sure.
===Relay Gel===
The relay gel would go between skin and circuitry suit to make the connection stronger. Like the goo medical folks put under electrodes to make sure the signals don't get screwed up.
Gel: If the Becket sequence is typical, it looks like the gel goes in last, after they're helmeted, actually. Which implies the underarmor gets soaked with the stuff unless the wrists and ankles seal /really well. I'm inclined to think the wrists and ankles seal really well, the gel is injected through the heavy collar ring we see on the Beckets /before the underarmor goes on, and the movements of the rest of the armoring sequence help spread it evenly over the pilot's body.
===Circuitry Suit===
I would guess those have to be changed out fairly regularly because all the flexing and bending must be hell on all the embedded wires. 
Transmitter: I'm under the impression the circuitry suit is a biofeedback device, sensing how the pilot is moving and providing sensory information on what's happening to the Jaeger. The harnesses and various armatures are for gross movements, the circuitry suit for finer ones. All the signals are passed from the suits to the Jaeger via the backbone piece (except for the Mark Is that still have the pauldron connections), which is why we see it treated with such special care in the armoring sequence.
==="Wetsuit"===
Thinking it's probably made of something like kevlar that's basically flexible armor mixed with something fire-resistant and an insulating fiber, too.
===Armour===
Watching the sequence of the Beckets armoring (), it looks like the back, top of shoulder, and chest pieces are held on by gravity and latch together into a single piece. The side, abdomen, and groin pieces all seem to interlock with single upper piece. I'm guessing the upper leg armor attaches to the big, round connection points on the hip of the circuitry suit and through interlocking pieces all the way down to the boot. The forearm pieces clearly lock onto the gloves. The only pieces I don't understand are the upper arm and pauldron which just seem to float there. Maybe there are flexible connections between these pieces and the top-of-shoulder and forearm pieces? Or maybe they're part of a kevlar sleeve that stretches between the glove and the over-the-shoulder piece. Looking at the pictures of the /Striker armor, the arrangement is about the same. The major difference between the two sets seems to be that /Striker's helmets have only half-visors, which makes me question whether they have an isolated oxygen supply.
How many pieces of the armor need to be replaced probably depends on how badly a Ranger’s been bashed around and damaged panels. If the folks in R&D have come up with stronger, lighter panels more would be replaced to take advantage of that, I'm sure. 
===Gloves===
Underarmour gloves are opera-style--one can free their hand without taking off the whole glove. 
The idea of opera-style underarmor gloves is a good one. That would allow the hands to be made of a thinner, more flexible material than the stuff over the more-likely-to-kill-you-if-broken-or-sliced parts.
I'm glad you think so! Solves the ring problem just like that. I can't find a picture of opera gloves with buttons/the wearer's hand out of the glove but if you get the idea I don't have to! It's not a button, obviously. 
Yay! for solving problems. I do get the idea. I betcha the closure is something like velcro. Anything else I can think of would concentrate force on too small an area or not be flexible enough. And velcro gets used on plenty of body armor items nowadays.
==Novelization==
The drivesuit was a finicky and multi-layered piece of equipment. The first layer, the circuity suit, was like a wetsuit threaded with a mesh of synaptic processors. The pattern of processor relays looked like circuitry on the outside of the suit, gleaming gold against its smooth black polymer material. These artificial synapses transmitted commands to the Jaeger’s motor systems as fast as the pilot’s brain could generate them, with lag times close to zero. The synaptic processor array also transmitted pain signals to the pilots when their Jaeger was damaged. This had proven to be the best way to minimize reaction times, and Raleigh knew from experience that when you felt a kaiju’s teeth bite into your arm, you moved faster than if you were just watching everything on a screen.
The second layer was a sealed polycarbonate shell with full life support and magnetic interfaces at spine, feet, and all major limb joints. It relayed neural signals both incoming and outgoing. This armored outer layer included a Drift recorder that automatically preserved sensory impressions. It was white and shiny and also bulletproof—though they hadn’t yet seen a kaiju that shot bullets.
The outer armored layer of the drivesuit also kept pilots locked into the Conn-Pod’s Pilot Motion Rig, a command platform with geared locks for the Rangers’ boots, cabled extensors that attached to each suit gauntlet, and a full-spectrum neural transference plate, called the feedback cradle, that locked from the Motion Rig to the spine of each Ranger’s suit. At the front of the motion rig stood a command console, but most of a Ranger’s commands were issued either by voice or through interaction with the holographic heads-up display projected into the space in front of the pilots’ faces. Raleigh and Yancy were already wearing the close-fitting cranial sleeves Rangers called “thinking caps,” which put their brain functions directly into the loop when they synced everything together for the Drift.
Once they were suited up, with a plasma display outside the suiting area tracking Knifehead’s progress in real time, Yancy and Raleigh stepped into the Conn-Pod. The tech crew followed them, affixing the feedback cradle to the backs of their suits and cabling them into the interface drivers that transmitted their nerve impulses into Gipsy Danger itself.
[...]
They stood on adjacent platforms, arms and legs spread. Control assemblies extended from the floor of the Conn-Pod, cybernetically mated with each suit, and spawned the holographic HUD above the command console.
The tech crew checked each link to make sure it was solid and then they withdrew, the door sliding shut behind them.
Raleigh and Yancy ran their pre-deployment suit checks and pre-Drift link analysis. Everything looked right. (Chapter 1, ep 15)
==Resources==
* Alexander McQueen 1999-2000
* Drivesuits for Typhoon and Chuck Hansen
** Helmets for Raleigh Becket and Mako Mori
** Raleigh's boots, Yancy Becket's breastplate
* Drivesuit tech
Category:Main Pages
Category:Drivesuits
Category:Meta Pages
Category:Pages with galleries