I've read on this forum that you can wear armor and a shield generator at once and that got me thinking about maxing out defense to see if it could be viable.Heavy Battle Armor +1 defense +2 soakSuperior Quality +1 soak -1 encumbranceGadgeteer +1 soak +1 defense
Jury Rig +1 defensePersonal Deflector Shield +2 defenseTinkerer since it doesn't have any hard pointsSuperior Quality +1 soak -1 encumbranceJury Rig +1 defense
+6 defense +5 soak for only 2 total encumbranceOff the top of my head that's the highest defense I've come up with. Probably won't even matter that much since black die suck.
Defense and soak from armor don't stack that way. You take the best one for each. So you are looking at 3 or 4 tops.