Various armor levels for the sides - RE: Well, too interesting to drop all of the posts in this thread...

Then again this means you stick to "modern" ideas and not futuristic
ones.
 
For instance, if the trend of top-firing missiles continues, then top
armor will become a priority.  If mobile mines, or "tunneling" missiles
become prevalent, then bottom armor will become more important.  Bottom
armor will also increase in importance as anti-grav or semi-flying tanks
evolve where the bottom side would become more exposed while flying.
 
If a "hellglobe" fusion encapsulation weapon is deployed where it
attacks the weakest armor on a vehicle, you might see vehicles armored
all around. 
 
The future might also encompass super-ablative armor - it will withstand
anything up to a 1 kilo-ton fusion blast on a direct hit; once.  In
which case you would rotate the vehicle to have a new face towards the
enemy.
 
Or  Self-arranging armor, either nano-tech or "amorphous ceramo-metallic
armor" that flows to the side that requries more armor at the moment. In
which case the values of the armor vary based on the situation.
 
There are also probably a case for specialized vehicles that might have
higher rear or side armor values - such as the WW2 British Archer with a
rear mounted AT gun.  In cases like that it would make sense to armor
the rear, then use shoot and scoot tactics.  Or naval tactics might come
back into vogue and you have multi-turreted super tanks that fire
"broadsides" at the enemy, in which case the sides would be as well or
better armored than the front or rear.
 
--Binhan


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Francis [mailto:tony@brigademodels.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 11:20 AM
To: gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Well, too interesting to drop all of the posts in this
thread...

Yves Lefebvre wrote:

3. Allow for a greater variety of armor levels on



all



sides of vehicles.



Sure, although this slightly complicates angle of

attack since you now

have at least three values (top being only relevant

for top attacking

systems.)



Actually, 6 values:  front, rear, top, bottom, and

sides.



Why not stick with the current idea (vehicle is designed with a single
armour value) but change the way that side and rear armour is derived to
reflect current design trends ? Instead of side armour being (main
armour - 1), just say that vehicles with front armour 4 or 5 have side
armour of 2 and rear of 1, vehicles with front armour of 1-3 have side
and rear of 1. Less flexibility in design admittedly, but then DS2 is a
higher level game - it should be about grand tactics rather than
micro-managing the last cm of beryllium armour. I've only skimmed
through some of the posts on this (came back to 500 e-mails yesterday
morning) but it seems that most gamers would design their vehicles with
high front armour and much weaker sides and rear, so this probably won't
make much difference to most designs.

Just a thought

Tony