Power Suit Mechanics

The Power Suit is the technology that Samus Aran utilizes to accomplish the various tactical feats that she is faced with throughout her career, usually in the forms of missions assigned by the Galactic Federation, or bounties requested by private interests. Designed by the Chozo, it grants Samus an enormous amount of power. Using this technology, she has become one of, if not the most famous bounty hunter in the known universe. Here, some basic functions of the Power Suit will be outlined.

General
The basic Power Suit provides Samus with the basic Power Beam through her Arm Cannon for offensive capabilities, life support to enable her to survive in situations with no breathable air, enhanced mobility to compliment her acrobatic skills, and protective shielding from her surroundings. Designed by the Chozo, it incorporates the most cutting-edge of this race's technology. The suit is modular in nature, allowing for modifications and enhancements when special upgrades are received. But the suit isn't limited to only Chozo upgrades; upgrades from different cultures have been incorporated, such as the Luminoth, and even the Space Pirates, but upgrades born from largely different technologies don't always integrate as smoothly as more compatible technologies tend to.

The Arm Cannon
The Arm Cannon is Samus's main offensive tool. It provides her with offensive capabilities for hostile situations, and like the Power Suit, is highly modular. Mainly, it utilizes various Beam Weapon & Missile Launcher technologies. These weapons are all contained within the device, and can be switched between should the need device. =Beam Weapons= The Arm Cannon (Most notably in the Prime series,) can change configurations to accomodate different weapon technologies. With the Charge Beam upgrade, a concentrated burst of a beam weapon will build outside of the Arm Cannon barrel. When launched, it causes a much higher amount of damage. The three rings just behind the forward barrel of the Arm Cannon seem to act as a shock absorber for this upgrade & the missile launcher.

=Missile Launcher= The Arm Cannon has the capability of launching ballistic projectiles known as Missiles. The forward barrel seperates & expands into four seperate pieces, to allow room for the missiles launched. As storing 250 bulky material missiles in the insides of the Power Suit seems a little impractical, these missiles might be stored as an energy, and materialized into missiles when needed. But some other completely different storage system may be utilized.

The Morph Ball
The Morph Ball is one of the Power Suit's most prominent features. It allows Samus to transform her surrounding body armor into the shape of a metal sphere, allowing for movement into much smaller spaces. According to a scan in Metroid Prime, the Morph Ball is nearly 1 meter in diameter.

This metal sphere has several offensive upgrades, such as Bombs and Power Bombs. These are used primarily for clearing environmental obstacles, but are occasionally used for combative applications.

The Morph Ball also has several advanced movement systems. With the Spider Ball upgrade, Samus can now scale vertical walls, and (In the Prime series) use specialized Spider Ball Tracks. In both cases, the Spider Ball is used for access to areas otherwise unreachable. With the Spring Ball upgrade, you no longer needed to rely on Bomb Jumping to scale ledges only accessible by the Morph Ball. It gives the Morph Ball the ability to jump. With the Boost Ball upgrade, the Morph Ball now gains the ability to move in charged bursts of speed. Just think of it as a Morph Ball Speed Booster. When charged, the Boost Ball can scale large heights with the help of a Half-pipe, and can also be used for charging mechanical devices using the Spinner mechanism.

The Morph Ball seems to be the key for activating certain Chozo Statues, as observed in Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, and Metroid Zero Mission. If you curl into the Morph Ball to be held by these statues, it will cause an event to happen nearby inside the chamber. This can range from opening a new area, to recharging your energy, or to even the statue getting up and taking you to somewhere else!

Movement
The Power Suit has several advanced movement systems. The most basic of these is Samus's aided jumping capabilities, since without any help, lugging around over 200 pounds of metal would be a diffiult task. The Power Suit's jumping capabilities receive an enhancement in the form of the High Jump Boots. In most cases, this upgrade nearly doubles the jumping height of the Power Suit. But in special cases such as the Space Jump Boots, the upgrade is simply just a second jump. In both of these cases, the extra jump height is provided by the boosters mounted on the Power Suit's back.

The Space Jump, not to be confused with the Space Jump Boots, allows for continual somersault jumps into the air, ultimately leaving no area unable to be explored. The boosters mountd on the Power Suit's back are now working overtime, as Samus somersaults so quickly with this upgrade that her very appearance is blurred. Samus can scale any height with this upgrade.

The Speed Booster enables the Power Suit to run at supersonic speeds. Running at supersonic speeds is lethal to most targets, making this a very deadly movement system. If you charge the energy from running at such speeds, you can perform a Shinespark, a special ability that launches you off of the ground like a speeding bullet. The Speed booster is mainly used for clearing environmental obstacles, such as bulldozing through destructable walls, or for jumping extremely wide gorges.



The Speed Booster is not the only lethal movement system available for the Power Suit. The Screw Attack adds a deadly electrical charge to somersault jumps, destroying nearly any target on contact. Working in tandem with the Space Jump, this is a very useful tool when faced with large swarms of small creatures. It can also chew through certain types of wall surfaces, allowing for access to areas otherwise inaccessible. In the Prime series, special Wall Jump Surfaces were used to vertically climb large shafts or structures. What creates the electrical aura around the Power Suit isn't completely clear, but it may be a safe bet to say that either the armor itself radiates the energy, or the running lights (On her thighs, legs, and hand) emit it.

Body Armor
The Power Suit's armor plating is a very complicated tesselation of different pieces. The external armor is suspended onto an underlayer that is very flexible, allowing Samus no restriction to movement. One particular example: Many fans of the Metroid series think that the large shoulder pads of the Varia Suit restrict Samus's arm movements, but in fact the under armor twists & contorts to allow Samus to aim at 90 degree angles, & the shoulder pads have the ability to spin forward & backward to allow Samus to aim upwards. Examining the image in detail at the right will reveal this to you, if you doubt this statement.

It is a common misconception that the armor on the Power Suit is to be removed as any regular body armor (i.e., piece-by-piece). But it is actually removed all at once using a dematerialization mechanism. Of course, it can still be manually removed to some extent, as seen in the opening events of Metroid Fusion, but the entire suit including the organic components cannot be removed without Samus's conscious cooperation.



It may not be able to be removed without Samus's cooperation, but that doesn't also apply to the suit being modified. The PED Suit was grafted onto Samus's existing Varia Suit by GF scientists and engineers during the events of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, in order to take advantage of Samus's recently obtained self-generating Phazon supply within her body. This shows that the suit can be modified or removed to some extent, but as long as it doesn't involve the organic components bonded to Samus's central nervous system.