Re: Armor

On 4 Nov 1996, Brian Bell wrote:

> Thanks everyone for your great responses!
> 
> Here was my thinking:
>   Level 1 screens on a cruiser size ship saves the ship between 15-25
damage
> points in the typical games I have run.
>   Level 2 screens on a cruiser saves the ship between 20-35 damage
points.
>   Level 3 screens on a cruiser saves between 25-45 points of damage.
>   Escorts have lower averages and capitals higher.
>   This averages to between 5 & 6 points per ton. Cost average is
between 0.4-1.0
> cost per point. 

Hmm? Let's see - the average damage from 1 die against an unshielded
target 
is 2/3; vs level-1 shields it is 1/2, vs level-2 shields it is 1/3 and
vs 
level-3 shiels it is 1/6.

An unshielded light cruiser (mass 22, 11 dp) takes on average 16.5
_dice_ 
to destroy, provided it is not fired upon by other weapons than beams. 
With level-1 shields, it needs 22 dice (ie, 3.7 dp saved by the
shields), 
with level-2 shields it needs 33 dice (11 dp saved) and with level-3 
shields it needs on average 66 dice to die (ie, 33 dp saved)... IF no 
shields are destroyed by treshold checks. 

The chance for all three shield generators of a level-3 ship to survive
the first treshold check intact is only about 58%, and the probability
that they all survive the second check too is only 17% - which, of
course,
means that the 33 dp saved for the light cruiser in the example above is

rather improbable.

Of course the CL is a rather stupid example since I wouldn't put level-3
screens on it, but still... I think you overrate level-1 screens by 
lots, and level-3 would probably be in the lower part of your interval
in my 
experience.

Does someone have time to work out the correct average effect of shields

on a ship which only gets fired upon by beams, taking treshold checks 
into account? I'd like to do it, but it'll have to wait 'til some time 
next year...

Oerjan Ohlson

"Father, what is wrong?"
"My shoes are too tight. But it does not matter, because
 I have forgotten how to dance."
- Londo Mollari