Table of Contents:
Who Wears Armor?                    Post #1
Races, Talents, and Feats           Post #2
Armors                              Post #3
Modifying your Armor                Post #4

There's basically three ways to wear armor in Star Wars Saga.

Dabblers get a proficiency feat from their class but don't plan on making armor a major part of their character.  They buy a cheap suit of light armor at first level to get a better reflex defense, and once their level exceeds that defense they sell the armor and forget they ever wore it.  This guide is not really for them although taking a look at which armors are good and cheap will help them out.

Gadgeteers have only armored defense.  They usually wear a “utility” suit of armor such as a thinsuit that has a very small armor bonus, and probably use their character level instead.  Their main use for the armor is it's special abilities.  I find that most people who plan to go this way graduate to the next level:

Armor-Beasts have armored defense and improved armored defense.  They're in it for the maximum reflex save and ability to survive damage via an improved damage threshold, although they don't shy away from gadgets when available.  Why do Gadgeteers become Armor-Beasts?  Because the suits that are good for “Utility” functions with lots of gadgets, such as the Krail Armor or the awesome Katarn Commando Armor, also tend to have a lot of reflex and fort save bonus as well and it's only one more talent to get the full package along with all the gadgets.

Blue:  This is a good option.  It will serve you well in almost any group.
Black:  This option is weaker.  It may be a good option only in a certain situation, or it may just be overpriced compared to a blue option.  Black options aren't bad, they're just situational or not for everybody.
red: These are options so bad they make the black options look appealing.  Or they're just things that irritate me personally but I try not to inflict my seething mental issues on my readers more often than I have to.  Speaking of which have I mentioned how much I hate militant vegetarians today?
Aqua:  Superpowered.  Aqua options are to blue what blue options are to black.  These options are either things I feel every build devoted to X should always take (such as the Use the Force skill for Jedi or Starship Tactics for a pilot), or possibly are outright broken (Such as the Neo-Crusader Armor).  The broken options are so superior the GM may well ban them entirely, so I don't actually recommend the broken ones.  Use at your own risk.

Why armor?

Common wisdom in this game is that armor is a low-level option.  Since you get a healthy bonus to your defenses with level, armor becomes weak and useless at high levels.  Common Wisdom is completely wrong.   Consider some math:

At first level you have perhaps an 16 (18 possibly) in dex and at most a +2 class bonus to reflex defense.  A good unarmored character would thus have:
10 + 3 attribute + 2 class +1 level or 16 reflex defense.  Assuming a clone of your character tries to shoot you, your evil twin would hit you on a roll of 13 or more, 40% of the time.

Let's assume you only have light armor proficiency and grab a suit of stormtrooper armor.  That nets you:

10 + 3 attribute +2 class + 6 armor or 21 reflex defense.
Your evil twin will be able to hit you only on a roll of 18 or more, 15% of the time.  The armored character is extremely hard compared to the unarmored one, the unarmored version will take, on average, two and a half times more damage.  This is well worth sinking a feat into.

But at level 20, your defenses are relatively insane.  Your class bonus is probably +4 now from a prestige class, your attributes may be higher, and your level adds a humongous bonus.  You'd get:
10 + 3 attribute + 4 class + 20 level = 37.
Meanwhile because only a few dedicated soldiers will have a full BAB, ability to hit has withered (and those soldiers will lose out on defense to a degree).  Assuming you've managed to keep a BAB of +17, with a full +20 to hit with dex, your clone will only nail you only 20% of the time.  Is armor worth it at that point?

The armor-beast will have taken armored defense and improved armor defense.  You'll also have picked up the best armor in the game (Probably improved Katarn Armor) by level 20.  Your reflex defense will look like:
10 + 3 attribute + 4 class + 20 level + 4 (½ armor) = 41.
Your clone can only hit you on a natural 20, 5% of the time.  Epic.

But that's only a 15% difference, isn't it worse?  No, dummy, take more  math classes.  Five percent is only 1/4th as much as 20%, your unarmored twin is taking four times more damage than you in battle.  Armor actually gets better with levels, not worse.  Is this worthwhile?  Your HP are effectively each worth 2.5-4 of a normal character's HP.  Imagine a class that grants 3d10+3x your con bonus HP per level, along with just as many per-level benefits as any other class.  Think that's maybe just a bit good if you're tanking?  Would you blow three feats and two talents to be able to enter that prestige class?  Of course!

Now, feats like point-blank shot and aim actions and such can muddy the waters but these calculations give you the gist of my point, and there are equally good tricks to boosting your AC even more if you need it, such as dodge and improved defense and tech specialist armor mods.   Granted, once the natural 20 starts becoming the main way to nail you, there's no reason to keep improving your armor anymore, but you usually have to be an armor-beast to get to that point and bosses will tend to have good attack bonuses.

Note that Katarn armor has a max dex of +1 which makes my calculations look odd.  That's because there's several ways to get your max dex up on a suit so it's not as big a problem as it looks like and by level 20 you will almost certainly have your suit modified like that.  I'll discuss that later in how to modify your suit for the job at hand.

Even more valuable, our armor-beast in the Katarn suit has a sweet +4 equipment bonus to his fort defense (Note: stacks with level, doesn't replace it because it's not an armor bonus), lowlight vision, a +2 bonus to perception checks, bacta injectors that will heal them in a pinch, plus immunity to vacuum and airborne poisons (wanna kill a whole squad of unarmored fools fast?  Open the airlock.), and a switch-vibroblade if anybody's dumb enough to get that close to the armor-plated battle monster.  And that's before you start modifying the armor to be more awesome.

So now that I've convinced you that armor is awesome, let's get into the meat of the guide.
This message was last updated by the GM at 17:11, Fri 04 Oct 2013.

Soldier : You gotta have at least 3 levels of soldier if you're going to be an armor-beast, enough to get armored defense and improved armored defense.  Otherwise around level 5-10 your armor starts reducing your reflex defense instead of helping and you die horribly.  The other armored talents are only okay, although juggernaut's useful if you want really heavy armor and want to run too, for instance an Armor-Beast wookie who wants to chop enemies to bits and needs armor to keep her alive while crossing the distance to engage in melee.
Although it's not specifically an Armor talent, you also probably want Harm's Way.  Now as written, Harm's Way causes you to suffer damage, which is no good; but the Errata specifies that you merely force the attack to target you, meaning your massive armored defenses will protect you from the attacks and you can force the enemy to waste action on said useless attacks.  This is fairly critical to being a tank, as savvy enemies may well ignore the untouchable armor-beast in order to target the squishy noble instead.  With Harm's Way they don't have any choice but to focus on the untouchable armor-beast and waste their turns hoping they roll a natural 20.  This makes tanking an option to protect the entire party instead of just yourself, though even without it you can at least stand in front of the noble and give him cover with your armor-plated body.

Scout : Evasion synergizes very well with armor.  The biggest threats to an Armor-Beast are splash weapons that still hurt you even on a miss.   With evasion you reduce/eliminate damage from splash weapons using your reflex defense, and with armor boosting said defense that practically becomes immunity to splash weapons and you can casually stroll through carpet bombings while trying to decide whether to have baby-back ribs or chicken for supper.  It's pretty much a dip class for an armor-beast, though.

Noble: Only to get Wealth, which gives you fat stacks of cash to buy armor with.  The talents to get restricted goods cheaper and easier might help but really you don't want too much noble to weigh you down with it's poor HP/BAB, and if another player's willing to play the noble and foot the bill for your stuff you shouldn't take any noble levels.

Bounty Hunter: Only tangentially related to armor, even though most of the famous armor-wearers in Star Wars are bounty hunters.  The Signature Item talent gives you a +2 morale bonus on all opposed skill checks whenever you're wearing your famous armor. . . and can be taken multiple times and it stacks with itself.  The most notable skills that are always opposed are Use The Force and Stealth, so this can be useful for Jedi or sneaky types, but really Jedi benefit the most from it as it's easy to boost stealth.

Officer: No real armor-boosting talents but an interesting Synergy between Harm's Way and Command Cover.  Command Cover boosts your reflex defense when adjacent to allies, which you want to be because you're using Harm's Way to protect them, making it a win-win situation.  The Shift Defense talent might be useful in niche situations, since you have a high reflex defense you can lower it to protect your will or fort, but overall since armors can also boost your fort and will saves, and Jedi, the main enemy to protect your will save against, can target any save, it's not a good tradeoff.

Elite Trooper: The Elite Trooper doesn't really give you any nifty armor benefits, but does grant you DR.  The problem is, if you're already never getting hit, DR is of limited utility.  It's a full BAB class that requires armor proficiency to get in, so a lot of Armor-Beasts go this way since you already have the pre-reqs and there's not much that's any better for an armor-wearer.

Imperial Knight (Legacy Era Handbook): The Imperial Knight is an armor-using Jedi Prestige Class who gets to channel the force through their armor to get some pretty nifty DR (Using Venom armor, 20DR with no weakness, 24DR if you use Superior Tech).  Oh, and they get to take both armored defense and improved armored defense as a single talent, because Force-Users are twinks.  Of course then you work for the Empire and are in the Legacy Era so it's not appropriate for a lot of games, but hands down this is the best prestige class for armor if you can get it.  They also have the extremely stupidly written “Cortosis Defense” talent which totally sounds like something an armor-wearer would want to have.  It gives you a bonus on unarmed attacks because the writers apparently weren't clear on what “defense” means.

Race doesn't have a huge effect on wearing armor.  There's only a handful that matter at all so it's better to choose race to fit the rest of your concept.  But of races that do matter:

Droid: Droids can get built-in armor plating of an exceptional quality, far cheaper than buying a suit of armor.  They also can get built-in shield generators that make the best stuff available for armored humanoids look like trash.  Droids are pretty much king at tanking.  Note that droid armor doesn't give you a fort save bonus, but this doesn't matter because you can no-sell almost everything that requires a fort-save anyway, you're not exactly going to be hurt by tear gas.  If you can't go Imperial Knight, it's hard to go wrong with a droid.

Trandoshan : Trandoshans actually make half-decent tanks.  They take a penalty to dexterity but get it back in natural armor (stacks with worn armor) so that washes out.  However, armor usually has a maximum dexterity bonus, so for some builds this is a net positive, you already max out your dex and get a natural armor bennie.  Since they have a strength bonus you'll usually want to go melee for your weapon, and the strength helps them carry heavier armors without penalty (though even that's pretty so-so, as making your armor lighter is cheap).

Human : Armor proficiency takes feats, humans get feats.  However since it's fairly easy to get armor proficiency out of class bonus feats, it's better to use the human feat for something else.  Still, more feats is always better and it lets you wear armor and do something else cool too.  They're ideal for Imperial Knights as you can use the bonus feat to get more force powers while using class feats to get your armor bonus.

Verpine : Verpine are a nice, albeit unusual, option.  The bugs have a natural armor bonus without the Trandoshan's penalty to dex (but not the str bonus either).  Their bonuses to mechanics make them good at modifying their own armor, a nice choice if you're going tech specialist.  Even more valuable, you have an excellent justification for taking the Verpine template for your armor, and the Verpine template rocks.

Armor Proficiency (Core)
Comes in three flavors, you must have this if you're going to wear armor.  Soldiers get the first two as bonus feats so that's the fastest path to turning yourself into a tank.

Grand Army of the Republic Training (Clone Wars 31)
This oft-overlooked gem causes your armor's fort bonus to also apply to your will defense.  If you happen to be in, say, Katarn armor that means you've got a nifty +4 will defense bonus, very nice if those rotten Jedi keep trying to mind control you.

Tech Specialist
Good for you, better if you have buddy with it though.  Lets you add a special bonus to your armor.

Superior Tech
An even better version of tech specialist, doesn't show up until level 9 so it's relatively rare that you see it.

Signature Device
This is only available if you're already a tech specialist yourself.  You designate one device (your armor, obviously) as your signature device and can thenceforth take 10 on all mechanics checks with said device, as well as give it two tech specialist bonuses that can alternate.
I don't really much care for this feat, myself.  Compared to the versatility of Tech Specialist and Superior Tech, it's weak and not worth a feat since it only ever applies to one device.  If the two improvements could apply at the same time, it might be more worthwhile but it's a bit brain-breaking if you have, say, an upgrade slot as one of your improvements and your armor spontaneously quits having a secret compartment built into it whenever you improve it's reflex defense bonus.

Heavy Weapon Proficiency (Core)
Say what now?  No really, good for armor-beasts.  Heavy Weapons do a lot of damage and there's certain tricks with armor that can make them do a lot more damage, faster.  See below.

Dual Weapon Tree (Core)
Combined with the above, this is how you can do more damage, faster.  Certain armors lets you mount one big weapon on your armor and hold another in both hands so you can dual wield heavy repeating blasters or assorted gigantic cannons for outstanding area damage.  Make sure you bring a lot of power packs 'cause you'll be burning through them like crazy.

Well duh, obviously you want a sweet suit of armor if you're reading this.  And Wizards has come through for you by making four or five sweet suits of armor mixed in with a thousand piece-of-crap armors that are useless.  Fortunately I've got your back and have dug through all the armors so I can tell you what to take and what to avoid.
I'm going to ignore the obvious trash armors, like stuff that gives you a mere +2 to reflex defense and no other benefits.  You should realize that's not worth wearing already.

Mandalorian Neo-Crusader Armor (KOTOR 202)
Reflex Bonus: Varies
Fort Bonus:  Varies
Max Dex: Varies
Extras: +++++++++++
Price: None
The best armor ever, there's actually several different types.  Move along, you're not allowed to have it.  It has no price and was written up before they made the armor modification rules, so Neo-Crusader armor is stupidly customizable with about five times more upgrade slots than anything else in the game.  If you get some you're going to break the game with it without even trying.  Amusingly it turns Mandalorians from total badasses into Piñatas: everybody wants to hunt them down and nick their armor.

Beskar'Gam (Scum 48)
Reflex Bonus: Varies
Fort Bonus:  Varies
Max Dex: Varies
Extras: +
Price: Varies
The replacement Mandalorian armor, made for players unlike Neo-Crusader armor.  Beskar'Gam lets you apply DR to lightsaber attacks and comes with two upgrade slots as well as a bonus on intimidation.  In general, Beskar'Gam armor gives a point or two better armor/fort bonuses than any other armor in their weight class.  If you happen to be Mandalorian, the armor costs 30,000 credits less at which point it's vastly cheaper than any other armor in it's own weight class as well.  Bottom line: If you're Mando you want this armor.  If not, you can't afford it and should buy a cheaper alternative.

Energy Shields (KOTOR 72)
Reflex Bonus: Varies
Fort Bonus:  Varies
Max Dex: Varies
Extras: +
Price: None
Energy shields give you SR up to 30, very nice, once per encounter that can't be restored like a ship's shield.  Each shield has 5 charges and it's not clear if they can ever be recharged, if your GM says no they're still worth pulling out for boss fights but not for anything else.  If they can be recharged you should always have the best shield you can afford.
Note that even though an energy shield can only be used once per encounter, there's no particular reason you can't at least have one on each arm, maybe even a couple in your belt pouch for a very long boss-fight.

Light armor has no penalty to anything so it's a good choice if you need to move, such as if you're playing a Trandoshan Tank and want to get close enough to hit somebody with your sword.  Generally just not as good an armor bonus as medium armor, though.

Thinsuit (Clone 64)
Reflex Bonus: -
Fort Bonus:  -
Max Dex: -
Extras: ++
Price: 900
The thinsuits an interesting edge case.  It provides vacuum seals a +5 to fort defense vs. high or low temperatures, and it can explicitly be worn underneath any other armor, so if you happen to want, which you do because the thinsuit does little else by itself.  It's basically an extra free slot for the bargain price of less than a thousand credits.

Marine Armor (War 43)
Reflex Bonus: +5
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 5,500
Marine armor is superb for a light-fighter who doesn't know where the campaign is actually going to go, or if you just know your GM likes planet-hopping and odd environments.  It's got decent stats at a low low price and comes with both an aquatic kit and a vacuum kit, which means there's jack-all places you can't go once this suit's on your body.  For a straight-up tank who won't be playing in the water, it's stats aren't as good as some other choices and I have to drop it a grade.  It's cheap enough to be a good choice at very low levels but you'll want something better as you get more money.

Camo-Scout Armor (War 43)
Reflex Bonus: +6
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 6,000
Slightly better defense than Marine armor, this stuff's an equal to stormtrooper armor at a lower price, and with more goodies.  It comes with a nifty +5 bonus to stealth.  So why is it rated so poorly?  Because two pages down you can find a poncho that costs almost nothing and provides the same +5 bonus to stealth (doesn't stack) and can be worn over any old suit of armor, making Camo Scout's camo redundant.  Still beats out Stormtrooper armor simply because it has the same bonuses for a lower price, and who knows, you might want to wear a different cloak and still get the stealth bonus, like an all-weather cloak in the cold.

Dark Armor, Light (Jedi 61)
Reflex Bonus: +4
Fort Bonus:  +3
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 10,000
Expensive, weak reflex save.  It does get a free bonus from the Sith Alchemy armor mods (Not available anywhere but on dark armor), but these bennies are kind of weak, either turn off lightsabers that hit you or +2 to certain use the force checks.  Nothing to get excited about, although since the turn off lightsabers option shuts a lightsaber down for a full 2 minutes, that is something to get excited about if you hunt down enemy jedi.  12 rounds of losing their lightsaber will ruin any Jedi's day.  But this is still a pass-me-by, get the vastly superior medium dark armor instead.

Stormtrooper Armor (Core 132)
Reflex Bonus: +6
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 8,000
Stormtrooper armor is overpriced for what you get.  It's very decent armor with a good set of bonuses and a helmet package, but you can do better for far fewer credits.

Seatrooper Armor (Rebellion 126)
Reflex Bonus: +4
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +2
Extras: +
Price: 6,750
Weak.  If you want to play in the water buy Marine Armor, Seatrooper armor is inferior in every way and it's water-seal fails if you go deeper than 660 feet, unlike Marine Armor that's good to any depth, and adding the cherry on it's sundae of suck, it costs more than Marine Armor.  Avoid this.

Jedi Battle Armor (Jedi 62)
Reflex Bonus: +3
Fort Bonus:  +3
Max Dex: +4
Extras:
Price: 4000
Well it has a decent fort bonus, but the reflex bonus is too weak to make this desirable, and it has no special abilities and no extra upgrade slots.

Shadowsuit  (Scum 49)
Reflex Bonus: +1
Fort Bonus:  +1
Max Dex: +5
Extras: -
Price: 600
Ha ha!  This suit is a joke.  Pitiful armor bonus, it's draw is supposed to be it's nifty +5 bonus to stealth, which as you'll notice in the entry for Camo-Scout Armor, is easily replaced by a dirt-cheap poncho.  Even worse, it's stealth bonus only applies when you've already got concealment specifically from shadows.  So it's stupidly situational and should never be worn by anybody except Militant Vegetarians.


Krail 210 Personal Armor (Scum 49)
Reflex Bonus: +7
Fort Bonus:  +1
Max Dex: +3
Extras: ++
Price: 16,300
Very nice mid-grade armor that's good enough to be handy even at level 20.  The Krail is a little bit pricey but not bank-breaking, and it has a lot of integrated options like a built in jetpack, cable dispenser, vacuum seal, and 2 upgrade slots.  Overall an excellent choice at mid-levels that won't serve you wrong even at high levels, though if you can get a Katarn Commando Armor instead you should absolutely go for it.

GTU AV-1S Scout Armor (Scum 48)
Reflex Bonus: +7
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 15,000
Slightly cheaper than Krail armor, slightly better fort bonus, not as many cool things built in.  Has a stealth jetpack like it's big brother that's a bit slower than normal jetpacks.  Two upgrade slots.  Not bad, not quite as good as Krail due to having fewer goodies.

Imperial Knight Armor (Legacy 83)
Reflex Bonus: +8
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 7,000
Very inexpensive with a better reflex bonus than almost any other medium armor, and an obvious choice if you get a chance to play an Imperial Knight.  This armor's extras are pretty good, it lets you apply any personal DR to lightsaber attacks.  Since Imperial Knights can get a lot of DR from one of their talents this is helpful against enemy Jedi.

Knighthunter Armor (Legacy 83)
Reflex Bonus: +7
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +++
Price: 6,000
Far superior to Imperial Knight Armor.  You lose a little bit of armor bonus but it's special ability is pretty good; a +5 will defense bonus vs. hostile Force Powers.  This is almost an Aqua power but, well, with the Grand Army of the Republic Training you're already applying your armor's fort defense to all will saves, not just against the force, and properly chosen armor is giving you +4 to will defense all the time so this benefit becomes tiny and situational for the most effective armor builds.
It's an excellent choice if you can't stretch your feats enough to get Grand Army of the Republic Training or simply can't justify the feat.

Dark Armor, Medium (Jedi 61)
Reflex Bonus: +7
Fort Bonus:  +4
Max Dex: +2
Extras: +
Price: 15,000
Far superior to it's lighter incarnation, Dark Armor still gets a weaksauce sith alchemy bonus, (again, turn off lightsabers, far more valuable than +2 to a certain type of UTF check) but now it's base stats are as good, perhaps superior, to other medium armors and it's price isn't outrageous anymore.  Solid if you have a good reason why you're wearing Sith Armor.

Jedi Battle Armor, Medium (Jedi 62)
Reflex Bonus: +5
Fort Bonus:  +5
Max Dex: +3
Extras:
Price: 6,000
Very inexpensive for it's abilities and the best fort bonus in it's weight class, better than even most heavy armors.  Combine it with Grand Army of the Republic training and your will save will be unbeatable.  The reflex bonus is still, strictly speaking, not good enough to compare favorably with armors like the Krail and it has no special abilities, but the other save bonuses are very nice.

Battle Armor (Core 132)
Reflex Bonus: +8
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +2
Extras:
Price: 7,000
The Battle Armor is medium armor with no frills, just a straight up excellent bonus to reflex and some good Fort bonus as well, all for less than a suit of Stormtrooper armor.  Nice for the medium-armor wearer on a budget if you're primarily interested in save boosts.  The Stalker armor beats it for special features due to having more upgrade slots.

Stalker Armor  (War 43)
Reflex Bonus: +7
Fort Bonus:  -
Max Dex: +3
Extras:
Price: 7,500
Meh, I say.  Stalker armor gives you decent bonuses at a low price and it has three upgrade slots, making it highly customizable.  But it doesn't give you any other bonuses and comes with no extras to draw the attention.  You'll get more mileage out of Battle Armor for strict attribute boosts unless you've got a specialized build in mind to use all the upgrades, and even then there's better options that have that many slots.  Still beats a Corellian Powersuit.

Corellian Powersuit (Core 133)
Reflex Bonus: +7
Fort Bonus:  -
Max Dex: +3
Extras:
Price: 10,000
It's just not good enough to compete with later armors.  The Corellian Powersuit gets two upgrade slots, because even though it was written long before the power armor rules, said rules say any armor with “Power” in the name or text blurb gets two slots.  It's only benefit is a +2 bonus to str checks to lift stuff, and you can buy much better stuff for the price that has that.

Katarn Class Commando Armor (War 43)
Reflex Bonus: 9
Fort Bonus:  +4
Max Dex: +1
Extras: +++
Price: 30,0000
Katarn armor is very nice, possibly only eclipsed by the Venom Assault Armor for defense, but better than the Venom for customization.  Very technically it is medium armor, but you only get it's helmet package bonus if you have heavy armor proficiency, and once you've got said proficiency you're going to strip it (making it heavy armor) for an additional mod point anyways, so it's almost invariably found on heavy-armor PCs.  Very hard to buy legally (according to the fluff, it's rately at merely “Military” in the stat block like most armor) so you need to have a noble pal with the talent for buying illegal goods to get it properly.
So what's great?  Great attributes, great features.  It's got a ton of beneficial devices built in that you simply can't get anywhere else because they're unique, like Bacta injectors that will auto-heal you (with a sweet +10 equipment bonus) in a pinch.  On top of that, it has three upgrade slots, making it the most customizable armor in the game.  The only sour note on the Katarn package is the price tag, it's too expensive to get at low levels, more than some entire starships, so you simply won't be able to get it until your party has quite a bit of petty cash available.

Venom Assault Armor (Legacy 140)
Reflex Bonus: +10
Fort Bonus:  +4
Max Dex: +1
Extras: +++
Price: 17,000
Venom Assault Armor rocks for survival in hostile conditions.  It has even better armor value than the Katarn armor, an excellent fort bonus, and since it's described as power armor in the text it gets 2 upgrade slots.  It's jets let you move in zero G normally and it gives you a str bonus, not a bonus just to lifting and carrying, you get an honest-to-god straight up +2 str for everything, great for melee builds.  But the real beauty of Venom Assault armor is it's text blurb, where it states that the armor will keep you alive for 24 hours in vacuum or other hostile conditions.  Stuck in the desert of Tatooine?  Venom armor keeps you cool.  Bottom of the ocean?  Venom Armor has your back.  Frozen solid on Hoth?  Not for 24 hours you're not.  Arguably it's vague enough to apply even in absurdly hostile conditions like being submerged in lava or walking in a radiation bath from a neutron star.  All that and it's a fairly inexpensive suit.  Shame it's only available in the Legacy Era.

Matrix Armor (KOTOR 71)
Reflex Bonus: +9
Fort Bonus:  +3
Max Dex: +1
Extras: ++
Price: 9000
This stuff's awesome.  Matrix Armor is the cheapest suit of +9 armor available in the game.  And okay, it doesn't have the long list of excellent features found on the Katarn or Venom armors and only one upgrade slot, it's very strictly protective armor that won't serve you as a James Bond style gadget holder.  But it has the unique ability to grant you DR30 against any one attack, once per encounter.  Now usually I abhor once-per-encounter powers, I like to pull my powers out more often than that.  But a well-built armor-beast will only be hit on a natural 20, which means. . . you'll very rarely get hit more than once per encounter, and this armor will negate that one hit. If Venom armor is the King of hostile environment endurance, Matrix Armor is the Queen of battlefield survival.

Heavy Battle Armor (Core 132)
Reflex Bonus: +10
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +2
Extras:
Price: 15,000
It's. . . dull.  Like the other core battle armor, this has good stats and no frills.  It's the cheapest suit of +10 armor in the game.  But why take this when you could buy the Venom armor for only 2,000 credits more, or the Matrix Armor for 6,000 credits less?

GTU-AV-1C Combat Armor  (Scum 48)
Reflex Bonus: +9
Fort Bonus:  +4
Max Dex: +1
Extras: +
Price: 25,000
Mechanically this matches Katarn armor in base stats, nice defense bonuses, expensive price.  But it's extras are nothing to write home about, a stealth jetpack and two upgrade slots instead of three (and since you can strip it to heavy, the Katarn really has four).  The text box suggests it's easier to find than Katarn armor but both are marked “Military” as their restriction level so they are treated the same under the rules.  It's not so much that it's lousy armor, it's just deeply inferior to Katarn armor for almost the same price.  I suppose the stealth jetpack might be useful for an infiltrator type.

Dark Armor, Heavy (Jedi 61)
Reflex Bonus: +8
Fort Bonus:  +5
Max Dex: +1
Extras: +
Price: 25,000
For base stats it's nifty fort bonus beats out even Katarn armor, and +8 is just as good as +9 for armored defense purposes since you round down after dividing the bonus in half.  Still gets a weaksauce sith alchemy mod, but otherwise lacks special features so just not as good as the armors above.

Zero-G Stormtrooper Armor  (Rebellion 126)
Reflex Bonus: +9
Fort Bonus:  +3
Max Dex: +0
Extras: ++
Price: 21,000
It's not too brutally expensive for a +9 suit, but it has no dex bonus allowed at all.  It's got a massive amount of weaponry on it and not much else, and you have to make Pilot checks just to move around in it.  What's it good for?  Presumably it can fly around in space since it's described as “a small starfighter” but there's no stats given for it to do so, talk to your GM and if you can agree, it can be a nice suit with space utility in that case.  Otherwise it's pretty blah, go with the Venom armor instead if you can.

Droids get a few specific armors and are pretty much tops at armor wearing.  Here's my top choices for them:

Shields (Core 196)
You want shields if you're trying to tank, the best ones you can afford.

Durasteel Plating, Durasteel Battle Armor, Duranium Battle Armor (Core 196)
Reflex Bonus: +6, +8, or +10
Fort Bonus:  -
Max Dex: +3 (+2 on Duranium Battle Armor)
Extras:
Price: 3,600, 9,600, and 10,000 x cost factor
These three basic core armors each have the best balance of protection and price for their weight class in light, medium, and heavy.  They don't do anything else but they don't need to do anything else for these prices.  If your droid is humanoid I'd still take Matrix armor over Duranium Battle armor but if you're a probe droid or such you can't wear that.

Duravlex Shell (Scavenger 54)
Reflex Bonus: +4
Fort Bonus:  +10 (Heat Only)
Max Dex: +3
Extras: +
Price: 1,000 x cost factor
Not good enough armor to be useful, but outstanding heat resistance at an extremely low price.  I can really only recommend this if you expect to wind up on Tattoine or similar, but for those locations its really nice for gadgeteer types.

Laminarium (Scavenger 54)
Reflex Bonus: +4 or +12
Fort Bonus:  +2
Max Dex: +3 or +2
Extras:
Price: 3,000 or 20,000 x cost factor
Very nice, Laminarium not only carries one of the highest armor bonuses in the game, it's one of the few droid armors that grants a fort save bonus.  This is only so-so since droids rarely need a fort save, but since that also boosts your damage threshold it helps protect you from CTKillers and ion cannons and the like.  There's two levels of Laminarium, and the lighter one doesn't have enough armor bonus to be worth the time.

Crystadurium (Scavenger 54)
Reflex Bonus: +10
Fort Bonus:  +0
Max Dex: +2
Extras: ++
Price: 50,000 x cost factor
Stupid expensive, but it also reduces the effects of incoming blaster fire by 1 point per die.  Overall good for protection but not a lot else and too expensive for what it does.

Modifications

This is the real meat-and-potatoes of the armor-beast.  Not just a high defense, but the ability to be batman and pull some sweet special abilities out of your armor that nobody can mimic.  The key to properly modifying your armor is: Never modify your armor with something you can carry on your belt or in your hand.  You have only a precious few armor slots and they should be used for things that you can't otherwise do, for instance putting a toolkit in your armor, when you can instead carry a toolkit in a utility belt around your waist, is a waste of resources.

Armorplast  (Scum 45)
Doesn't take up one of your precious upgrade slots and it's relatively cheap.  While it “merely” reduces your armor's weight by half, for the heavier suits this is a godsend to avoid suffering from encumbrance penalties if you're not going for high strength.  There's precious little reason not to have this on most heavier armors.

Helmet Package  (Scum 46, Core 134)
Takes up no slots, mildly expensive.  But a bonus on Perception is always welcome and if you're a race without lowlight vision, this is gold.  The internal comlink is not all that good because you can just put a comlink on your belt and pull it out when you need to talk, and can get better comlink options like encryption or long range.

Vacuum Seal  (Scum 47)
Just about essential for all your space-survival needs.  Han Solo might have been able to go out of his ship with just a breath mask but your GM probably won't let you get away with that, you're not Han Solo.  Vacuum is going to show up in just about every space mission so be ready for it.  Note that a lot of the best armors have this already built-in.  Best of all?  Adding it takes no slots.  You can dispense with this if you've got a thinsuit underneath and a breath mask for oxygen.

Holoshroud  (Scum 46)
The sneaky type's best friend, the Holoshroud gives you a sizeable bonus on stealth and deception checks, by making you look like a completely different person.  Only stores one image at a time so it's a good idea to either carry some backups on datacards or have your friendly droid store a few.  Duration is really limited so a good power source is advised.

Cloaked  (Scum 40)
Super cheap, makes your armor not look like armor anymore.  Finally, the justification to dress like Slave Leia you've always dreamed of, while still having all the benefits of Leia's armor suit.  Good for social fu specialists, useless you're a commando on the battlefield.  Note that Cloaked also works on electronic sensors so you can waltz right through TSA-style security while wearing a full suit of combat armor.  Combine this with Secret Compartment, below, and you can go through security with an Ewok hidden in your bronze bikini and nobody will ever know.
Note: your GM is entitled to hit you with a fish if you actually try that instead of making it an amusing theoretical abuse of the rules.

Aquatic Adaptation  (Scum 44)
Gain a swim speed, immunity even to crushing depths, and the ability to take 10 even when threatened while swimming.  This is what I'm talkin' about, you don't get that kind of benefit anywhere but in a suit of armor and it's well worth taking if there's any chance you're headed into the sea.  'Course if your GM gives you certain code words, such as “This campaign is going to take place on Tatooine” you might want to put a little less value on this, contrariwise if the campaign's going to be among the Mon Calamari or Gungans this suddenly becomes absolutely required.

Secret Compartment  (Scum 41)
I'm not sure if this is so much good as “Obviously abusing a stupidly written rule.”  A secret compartment securely hides an item which is one size category smaller than the item with the compartment in it.  So far so good, but they explicitly made armor larger than almost any other piece of gear, so you can take your stormtrooper armor and have a secret compartment big enough to store a blaster cannon in it, or any piece of equipment up to 50 kilograms (So, y'know, every piece of equipment in the book, except an entire bacta tank.)  Or, this is just a thought, a stormtrooper could hide an entire Ewok or Jawa in his secret compartment.  See if this breaks your GM's brain before you count on it.

Internal Generator  (Scum 46)
Yeah baby, the Internal Generator has it's upside and it's downside.  The upside is that it's cheap, it powers all your goodies at all times, and it generates effectively an extra power pack each hour and stores up to 4 of them.  This is a valuable mod to have if you're building my “Dual Wield heavy cannons” concept, as those things devour power packs and the internal generator will help keep you from running out of ammo after two rounds.  The downside is that it makes you easier to spot if your enemies have a sensor pack.
Nominally, this falls under "Stuff you can carry" since you could grab a pair of crossed bandoliers with five dozen power packs on them and carry a power generator and recharger on your back.  But it can transfer power to systems like a holoshroud automatically and save you taking extra actions in some situations so it's ever so slightly better.  If it automatically powered such systems it'd be blue, but as it only generates one energy cell worth of power per hour, it's not quite good enough.

Mesh Underlay  (KOTOR 76)
Somewhat situational, it gives you some extra defense against stun attacks, helpful in shutting down CTKiller builds.  Normally not really worth blowing two slots on, but with a use of Tech Specialist, you can get two upgrade slots on your thinsuit, add mesh underlay, and wear it under your normal armor, granting you a nice benefit at no cost to your normal armor's slots.

Radiation Shielding (Scum 46)
I wouldn't strictly say radiation shielding is bad.  It has the value of being a defense against something that's very hard to pull off in any other way, you can't get a radiation shield poncho, for instance (Anti-Rad Dose helps but it's just not as good).  The thing is, Radiation almost never comes up in Star Wars.  However note that one good modification for a starship is environmental controls, that will allow you to flood sections of the ship with radiation to kill boarding parties.  If you either expect to run into that or have it on your ship, this suddenly skyrockets to Aqua as you can march right into those irradiated compartments and beat down enemies who are already suffering from radiation poisoning.  But if you don't know for a fact that these things are going to come up, the Anti-Rad Dose (War 45) is an extremely cheap alternative that will make you nearly as immune to radiation.  Pop a couple of those in your belt pouch and probably never worry about radiation.

Shields (Scum 46)
Too weak to be worth the time, really.  You can get far superior shields outside of armor.  But ultimately the problem is that SR10 doesn't do all that much, it's going to go down in a couple of hits and you can't use Tech Specialist to up it's power because that can only be done to vehicles.  Too little, too late.  This is primarily valuable if you have a very high reflex defense and low HP, for instance you've had to be your own Noble for wealth to buy your armor.  Then Shields have your back because you're only going to take a hit on a natural 20 and the shield will make sure it doesn't kill you.  If you've got good HP shields decrease dramatically in value.  If you're a droid you can get built-in shields that are far superior.

Shockweb (Scum 46)
Available as a cloak, but the cloak counts as armor, and it's feeble armor you don't want.  Still only black, because how often are grapple monsters going to come after you?

Dual Gear (Scum 41)
Technically it's legal to Dual Gear your armor into something else.  Most of the time this is a waste of resources because you want to be wearing your armor, not taking it off so it can transform into something else.  But there's some edge cases where you can think of a particularly heavy piece of gear that you'd like to carry around but it's too ungainly.  In that case, because armor is very large compared to most gear, Dual Gear can be useful.  For instance I've had fun with a dual-geared suit of armor + Tactical Tractor Beam.  Out of combat, the armor comes off and I use it to build fortifications, then put the armor back on.  Nifty, but still pretty situational and more useful to have a labor droid carry your tactical tractor beam around for you.

Integrated Equipment Scum 46)
Slightly better than carrying your stuff for a couple of specific situations.  Otherwise red.  These situations are, you want to wear a piece of gear that normally won't work with armor, like a cortosis gauntlet or a medical interface/demolitions visor, but don't want to take your armor off.  This is an especially good idea with the demolitions visor because obviously you want to be wearing your armor while you're trying to defuse a mine, just in case you roll a 1.  It's also worthwhile on the Spacetrooper armor, which is so unwieldy that fine coordination, such as using a datapad, is very difficult and the price of failure is your expensive datapad with it's valuable equipment drifting off into space.  Finally you can argue that your integrated equipment is protected by your armor, should your GM be sunder-happy about destroying stuff you have on your belt, so integrate the expensive things.

Weapon Mount (Scum 47)
Weapon Mounts have the unique position of being crap for everybody except a couple of very specific builds, where they're essential.
Under normal circumstances you can carry your gun in your hands and have no reason to decide to waste your armor's precious slots on carrying your gun around for you.  For most builds, this option is red.  However there's a few situations where it's great.
If you are competent at both melee and ranged combat, this option can let you mount a gun on your armor.  You can wield your melee weapon in both hands while switching off and pouring gunfire into the enemy at any time if the situation happens to change, where a normal person will have to waste actions sheathing the sword and then drawing the gun or else only use light, one-handed weapons.
If you are a two-weapons fighter who's also an armor-beast, you can carry a big two-handed gun like a cannon and mount a second cannon on your armor, allowing you to get your two attacks in with weaponry vastly more powerful than mere pistols.  Just imagine the effects of dual Rotary Blaster Cannons, you're spraying down a total of 16 squares for massive damage and can overlap areas if you wish.  You could wipe out an entire squadron of stormtroopers in a single combat round.  Note that the exact text of Dual-Weapon Mastery merely states you have to wield two weapons, not one in each hand.
Finally if you're a stealth/social fu specialist, you can make your armor mounts disguised and smuggle a weapon past searches and checkpoints on your armor.  You'll also need the “Cloaked” modification to your armor so that it doesn't look like armor anymore.  You may only pull it off once a campaign but it's quite satisfying to be taken prisoner, only to reveal that your tuxedo is actually a suit of Katarn armor with a five-foot-long rotary blaster cannon built into your pants.  Or possibly you're just compensating for something, I'm not judging.

Environmental Systems (Scum 45)
Buy yourself an all-weather cloak, or just wear a Thinsuit under your armor.

Ready Harness, and Powered Exoskeleton (Scum)
All these mods give you the ability to carry stuff better.  That's a waste of good armor slots, if you have trouble carrying the load buy a droid to carry your stuff for you, or use the miniaturization mod to make your stuff lighter.

Rangefinder (Scum
Build it into your gun, don't waste an armor slot on it.

Shadowskin
Wear the camo poncho, don't waste an armor slot on it.

Shadowskin, Reflec
Okay, the bonus is finally good enough to eclipse the poncho.  But it's stupidly expensive and the Holoshroud is far superior in ability and a quarter as much.

Jump Servos
You didn't take the skill jump, because that's a useless skill that's a waste of a skill slot.  If you want to move up and around problems, you spend the skill slot on pilot and buy a jetpack.

Templates

These are found in KOTOR starting on page 77.  Templates are supposed to be all rare and special and stuff but most of them are a two-edged sword, any templated item costs more and also has both an advantage and a disadvantage so most of them aren't worth having.  What's useful?  Well. . .

Verpine Manufacture
Cost: 10% or 1000 credits
DR10 vs. Ion damage?  If you a droid, you need this template.  If you're a cyborg, you need this template.  It's downside, a minimum dex of 13 to wear the armor, is extremely reasonable because just about all PCs have at least 13 dex.  Get this if you're remotely vulnerable to ion damage.

Cortosis Weave/Phrik Alloy
Cost: +20%
Makes your equipment's DR work against lightsabers.  Only really useful on Matrix armor so you can get that lovely DR30 against Darth Maul when you really need it.  One of the few templates with no real downside aside from an increased price.

Echani Manufacture
Cost: 10% or 1000 credits
Makes the armor weight half as much, and once per encounter you can move at normal speed, at a cost of 1 point of reflex defense.  So-so, no major downside but the benefits are weak too.  If you need lighter armor, get Armorplast instead.

Massassi Manufacture
Cost: 10% or 1000 credits
Pretty decent stuff.  It's downside is that you have to invest in a certain amount of strength, but it negates one critical hit per encounter. . . and you'll rarely get more than one critical hit per encounter so it's mostly gravy.  Not a bad choice if you're a melee fighter.

Stygian Trisprismatic Polymer
Cost: 20%
Meh, this one's not in KOTOR, it's in the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide on page 126.  It gives you +1 armor bonus and +2 stealth vs. electronics.  The stealth won't stack with other goodies so it's not worth much.  The armor bonus can be useful in certain edge cases, but overall that's probably not worthwhile because you'll still be hit on a natural 20.

Mandalorian Manufacture
Cost: 10% or 1000 credits
Awful, just awful.  Mandalorian gear is “made for customization” so you get a small bonus to mechanics checks to modify your stuff.  But if it gets disabled somehow, all your modifications explode and you have to rebuild it.  So it's apparently made for customization by the Mythbusters.  Since your modifications probably cost more than the base armor you absolutely want to avoid having them all self-destruct because you took a hit from an ion rifle or something.

Tricks using Tech Specialist

As with anything gear-related, the Tech Specialist feat is a boon for armor wearers.  It can raise either the max dex bonus or the armor's reflex/for defense by 1.  Scum and Villainy further expands it by letting you increase the armor's available upgrade slots by 1.
So which to choose?  It's fairly simple, actually.  If your armor has an odd-numbered reflex bonus, increase it to even.  Since you get half your armor's bonus, rounded down, an odd number doesn't count, +7 is the same as +6.  Increasing it to +8 means an extra point of reflex defense.
If the armor already has an even bonus, increasing it more will be wasted.  Instead, increase the armor's available slots.
Only if you have Grand Army of the Republic Training should you spend it on the fort save, as then it applies to both saves and a nice +5 bonus to both is a good thing.

Superior Tech becomes available at level 9, and while some of it's options are simply another +1 bonus, it lets you get +2 to an armor's Reflex Defense.  This is key to getting a +3 reflex bonus on heavy armors like the Katarn, and is effectively worth 4 points of improved reflex defense for a typical PC.