Got back on and found that the Prawn worked fine again! Not sure how that happened, and after heading to base and back I found that the QEP had re-opened its force fields (probably just had to re-render it. Also, your suggestion wouldn't have worked…
However now my Prawn suit is no longer under the effect of water physics when I go back into the ocean and all the tablet-keyed shields have been reset (not an issue, just gotta go back to base). Is there any way to fix the Prawn or just make a new …
To fix the water I had opened up the debug panel and toggled the two water-related options (saw it in a post about that issue) and my character was able to swim when I exited the Prawn. I'll try clearing the cache and let you know what happens.