Re: [FT] Armour (long)(was Re:Armor)

Hello There,

Well, all this talk about permanent armour has gotten me thinking...

All this is a bit rule-of-thumb, so take with pinch of NaCl :-)

most of the quoted MASS values seem a little low (IMHO) like 1-3% per
level of armour, compared with screens, that take up 5% per level, and
protect against less.

So, ok, first we define how armour works, keeping it simple, lets use
the screen mechanic:

So, armour works vs beams, stingers, pulsars, and plasma bolts as the
equivalent level in screens.

If protects against Pulse Torpedoes, Missiles, Lance Pods and Torpedo
fighter attacks in the same way that screens protect against plasma -
Level 1 Armour negates damage rolls of 6, Level 2 negates damage rolls
of 5 & 6 (see FB2 p36).
Note that only the _damage_ roll for pulse torps is affected.

Submunitions Packs and Scatterguns are affected in the same way as beam
battery attacks. All fighter attacks, including KV fighters (except
Torpedo fighters) are also affected in the same way as beams.

Kinetic Guns are affected as follows: Firstly, any rolls of 6 (if
against Level 1 Armour) or 5 and 6 (if against Level 2 Armour) on the
damage doubling dice roll is negated. Secondly, the K-Gun rolls to
double damage as if it were one class less.
Thus a K-3 normally does 6 damage on a roll of 1-3, and 3 damage on a
roll of 4-6. Against Level 1 Armour it would do 6 damage on a roll of
1-2, 3 damage on a roll of 3-5, and no damage on a roll of 6.

Multiple Kinetic Penetrator packs simply have the damage per hit reduced
by the Armour Level. The 'beam' dice rolled to see how many hit is
unaffected.

Leech Pods do only 1 damage point on the first turn vs. Level 1 armour,
and 1 damage point on the first 2 turns vs. Level 2 armour, they then do
2 points per turn as normal.

Needle Beams are unaffected by armour - they fire through the chinks.

PDS in anti-ship mode is unaffected - the damage is too piddling anyway!

The armour system is represented by symbols on the SSD, 1 per level, my
recommendation is a simple 'heraldic shield' symbol. Armour takes
threshold checks as for any other system (PSB - failing a threshold
means
that significant armour has been blown away) - I am open to suggestions
as to if it can be repaired...

Cost, well, beam-class weapons are common, but there are quite a few
weapon out there that are not affected by screens, at a wild guess, I'd
say that there are 3 times as many weapons that would be blocked by
armour as there would be blocked by screens.

So, with this in mind, Level 1 armour uses 20% of the ships total MASS,
Level 2 uses 40%, the COST is 2x the MASS used (like ablative armour).

Ok, this is a bit steep (but then this stuff will potentially block a
small nuke!), how to make it cheaper?

1) Say it cannot be repaired - should be worth, oh, say a 5% reduction
(to 15% per level).

2) Put the symbols adjacent to the 1st (and 2nd if Level 2) damage
tracks - like power generator systems for SV - when 1st threshold is
reached, loose 1 level of armour, when 2nd threshold is reached, lose
2nd level. Again, cannot be repaired - I think this could cut the cost
to 5% or 10% per level.

3) Reduce what it protects against - an idea I like is to say that it
doesn't work against beams, stingers, and pulsars (for whatever reason
you want - say radiation effects), so it becomes complementary with
screens.

4) Increase the COST/MASS ratio.

If you want armour on specific arcs (and I don't), try this:
Armour on 1 arc uses half the mass value given above.
Armour for each additional arc adds 1/4 times the cost of 1 arc.
If you want different levels on different arcs, buy the level 2 arcs
first, then buy the Level 1 arcs at the cost of additional arcs of level
1. (use whatever PSB for the mass differential you like)
As a thought, dis-allow any armour on the aft arc (again, insert PSB you
like).

Sorry it a bit long winded, Oerjan, over to you :-)

Charles.