Gem Armor is the most advanced armour in Equivalent Exchange, however, in terms of defense it falls behind the Quantum Armor due to the fact that it cannot absorb the damage from a nuke at point blank range, allows the player to take fall damage (if sprinting), and is weak to explosions in general. However, the Gem Armor offers many more offensive abilites and offers flight, negating the need for a jetpack or a ring taking up space in the player's hotbar. It is made by combining different Power Items with Red Matter Armour. Perhaps the most notable of these is a full Klein Star Omega, which is required by every recipe and totally consumed in the process. While wearing the set, you do not lose health when your hunger bar runs out, although you do still get the visual effect of losing health.
While Quantum Armor is certainly better at defense, Gem Armor is often considered better because of the plethora of abilites that it offers, along with its extremely high level of defence. This makes it arguably just as good as Quantum armor, and some players prefer it because of these abilites.
Gem Armor yields a 90% damage reduction and technically gives the player 1000 hearts. With a Red Katar, it takes 86 hits to kill somebody with a full set of this armour. When tested in-game with both people wielding fully charged Red Katars and opposite people wearing Quantum and Gem Armor, took about 7 minutes of non-stop hits to eventually kill the person with Gem Armor and an Active Nano Saber 100 hits, though it is heavily not advised, as a Nano Saber will deplete before reaching 100 hits (without a lappack), and is much more effective against Nano Suit users than non-Nano Suit users, but with a Red Katar, it is the best melee weapon to defeat a person with this armour. However, using the "R" key ability of the Red Katar, one can do half-of-a heart of damage to someone in Red Matter or Gem Armor.
This armour's only proper weakness is explosions. Hyperkinetic Lens makes sense to be their worst nightmare if an opponent wields it, but if the user of the armour is flying, it is reasonably ineffective to an extent, depending on how far the user is from the ground, leaving the Red Katar as the most effective. The Archangel's Smite does absolutely no damage against players wearing gem armor. You do not have to be wearing the full set to use the offensive or movement abilites (Tested in SMP).
Your air meter will still deplete, but it will not dip below one bubble no matter how long you stay underwater.
Offensive: (press "R") shoot lightning at whatever the crosshair is on. There does not need to be a direct line of sight to the sky. The effect won't work if you are holding another item from Equivalent exchange. To strike a mob, you must look at the ground or a wall near it and not the mob itself. Note: Charged Creepers CAN still kill you at point blank, so be careful.
You must ready your offensive abilites by pressing "V". This won't work while holding an item from Equivalent exchange. When done successfully, the message "Abyss Helmet Offensive Active" will appear. Be careful walking around with your offensive abilites enabled, as it is extremely easy to destroy a portion of your house if you accidentally click the wrong button. Passive abilities are always on, so you can always breathe underwater with this helmet equipped.
Offensive: Create an explosion around you with "C"
You must ready your offensive abilities by pressing "V". Pressing "C" at any time after this when the armor is equipped will cause an explosion roughly equivalent to a Nova Catalyst. Just like with the EE explosives, all affected blocks appear right over the player in a black ball. Passive abilities are always on, meaning the fire and lava invulnerability is active all the time.
It is notable that the explosion somehow circumvents admin area protection. In other words, protected areas are still fully destructible by the explosive effect.
Protective: Increases free falling speed when holding Shift.
Offensive: Slow and repel approaching mobs within a 5 block radius while holding Shift
You must ready your offensive abilities by pressing "V", and "Gravity Greaves Offensive Active" means you can begin using the abilities. Passive abilities are always active.
Note: For some people having problems with crafting the Gravity Greaves, make sure to toggle your Gem of Eternal Density off (G). Its color should go from Blue to Black.
Also Note that in the current version of Tekkit, pressing SHIFT will NOT increase falling speed unless the Armor Offensive Powers are on (V).
Passive: Immunity to fall damage while not sprinting.
Movement: Quickly ascend by holding Jump, fall more slowly, always sprint while on the ground, travel faster while in the air (and not using other flying items).
You must ready your offensive abilities by pressing "V", and, when "Hurricane Boots Offensive Active" appears, can begin to use the abilities. Pressing "G" readies the movement abilities and allows you to begin to start using them. Passive abilities are always active.
The hurricane boots allow you to travel significantly faster both horizontally and vertically than flying items such as Swiftwolf's Rending Gale and the Ring of Arcana, but the rings offer creative mode-style flying that makes it much easier to build with them than if the player uses the boots.
NOTE: Some or all movement abilities may not function correctly in Survival Multiplayer. They also may not work if you are running the development build in survival singleplayer.
Invulnerability to fire and lava (Infernal Armour)
Immunity to fall damage while not sprinting (Hurricane Boots)
Offensive:
Shoot lightning at whatever the crosshair is on (press "R"). There does not need to be a direct line of sight to the sky. The effect won't work if you are holding an item from Equivalent exchange. To strike a mob, you must look at the ground or a wall near it and not the mob itself. Note: Charged Creepers can still kill you at point blank, so be careful.
Create an explosion around you (press "C")
Slow and repel approaching mobs within a 5 block radius while holding Shift
Protective:
Increase free falling speed when holding Shift
Movement:
Quickly ascend by holding Jump, fall more slowly, always sprint while on the ground, travel faster while in the air (and not using other flying items)
Gravity Greaves are invisible when you wear them, in all texture packs. This is visual only and all abilities still function normally. When you remove the Infernal Armor then you can see that the Gravity Greaves appear as "sleeveless"Infernal Armor.
Edit
Added by MisterGryphon
It was probably because it might have been protected, or a forcefield.
Gem Armor is from the Equivalent Exchange 2 mod. Tekkit Lite uses Equivalent Exchange 3 and Gem Armor is not in EE3.
