I want there to not just be armor but to have an exo-suit, with micro assist electro-gel motors and built in emergency environmental seals. But yeah where would I put all that?
Sounds like what you need are palm cards! Yup. Palm cards, long names, lots of colours, and room on the back to draw the thing.
If you have one of those pens with four colours, you could even match the core structure, benefits, detriments and weirdness to black, blue, red and green in turn.
If something gets changed or damaged in the field, scribble it out! Yes. In pen. If you get it fixed up in a dedicated facility, redraw the whole thing (because you won't be in combat).
Yes, this goes against the whole "everything on one page" but excessively complicated gadgets goes with the territory, and I feel like that shouldn't be crippled by lack of page space, or take up valuable retail. Palm cards! Do it.
/digression/
Ship sizes are determined by how much room it takes to draw them i.e. A4, A5, A6, with more blank page space increasing the relative speed.
/digression/