Re: New Armor

Phillip E. Pournelle wrote:
> 
> Has Anyone given any thought to my idea to enable ships to buy armor
by the
> box?	Basically you buy damage boxes and place them in their rows so
that no
> row is greater than the one below it.
> 
> Structural Armor:
>	  Mass:   1
>	  Cost:   2
>	  Place an additional damage box in the rows.  No row can have
more
> damage boxes than the one below it.  These boxes increase the amount
of
> damage that a ship can take overall and may increase the amount of
damage
> absorbed before a threshold check is conducted.
> 
>	  I'd apreciate your thoughts,
>		  Phil P.

Phil,

I like this a lot better than the current armor rules. No special
immunities given, but used judiciously, could add a great deal of
survivability to ships.

The main problem with the armor as given in the MT book, as I understand
it, is it gives the effect of screens, but without the threshold checks.
(I don't have the book in front of me, so forgive my spotty memory).
Perhaps allowing the Kr'Vak to get a special type of armor(different
from this type to make them different from Human forces) that halves
railgun hits(makes sense they'd have some defense from their own
weapons) but does nothing for screens. This would, it seems to me, make
more sense with the background. Essentially, the Kr'Vak, not having
fought humans, only have defenses against their own type of weapons, and
not weapons they haven't faced before. After all, that's what's happened
to the humans in this background.

Gary A. Ballard
gdaddy@misnet.com