[FT] armour

I've been looking a bit at armour and in ship design it
looks like armour is a wonderful thing.

Average hull mass 90 ship:

First threshold @   7 hits
Second threshold @ 14 hits
Third threshold @  21 hits
Death		@  27 hits

Weak hull mass 90, with 9 armour:

First threshold @  14 hits (same as second on AVE hull)
Second threshold@  19 hits
Third threshold@   23 hits
 Death	       @   27 hits

I could have gone for a fragile hull, however, you need to
cover those penetrating shots with hull otherwise your armour is
pointless.

I'm also rapidly reaching the viewpoint that you should purchase
hull just like any other system.  This does away with min-maxers.
It has been rather hard for me to avoid the breaks since I 
discovered that an (10*X)+1 hull is almost universally better
than a (10*X) or (10*X)+2 hull because of rounding.  If I bought
hull like other systems this affect would go away.  Also, if
armour was 1.5 mass for each this would fix the "other" discovery
of mine.

Roger Books