Re: Thoughts on FB .....was Re: Bogey Classes FB

Samuel Penn <sam@bifrost.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>10% of armour on  the same ship only gives you +10 DPs. Shields would
>seem to be 3x as effective. Now I know shields don't protect against
>everything (I presume armour does), but unless I've overlooked
>something, my gut reaction is that armour isn't good enough.

I think that this brings armor about where it should be, NOT because of
its
effectiveness in the above situation...

>I couldn't see any real difference between 'hull' and 'armour'. Both
>take one mass and give one damage point. The only difference is that
>use of armour delays threshold rolls.

Ah, here's the rub. Delaying a threshold roll can be gold. While I was
experimenting with my disruptor rules (in a nutshell they damage
collumns
from left to right instead of rows from top to bottom), I found that
delaying those threshold rolls, particularly on larger ships, keeps them
combat effective for a much longer period of time.

For example, assume that a ship has been damaged past its first
threshold
roll - it looses 1/6th of its weaponry and other systems.

Take another ship which has taken the same amount of damage, but due to
armor it has not passed the first threshold.

As the ships go toe to toe at closer range, who's going to inflict more
damage, thus causing additional threshold rolls. Add to that the
possibility that there may be impaired mobility as well... You can't hit
what you can't get into arc.

Schoon