A new approach to the eternal spaceship armour problem

[Vortex]

Most solutions proposed to this problem involve armour degradation. After reading a bit in Ships of the Galaxy, I think that can be a big problem.

When a ship's armour reaches 0, it blows up. That means ships with a lot of structural spaces but not much armour loose a lot of strength with an armour degradation system. The explorer ship is a good example. I don’t have the exact numbers with me but it has armour around 20 or 30 and over 100 structural spaces. Armour degradation will probably reduce the armour to 0 long before half the structural spaces are gone.

I think the key is finding a way to destroy structural spaces without needing to reduce armour. Here is a suggestion of a way of doing that:

-Hits that overcome armour work exactly as described in the books.

-Hits that don’t overcome the armour require a stress check from the target.
-This stress check gets a bonus equal to the difference between the total offence and the armour.
-If the check fails, the ship has a single structural space destroyed.

That way, even a single fighter can deal some damage to a capital ship. Sure it won't completely take out the engines by itself but a few "Target Their Weapons" can seriously hamper a ship.

I know that big ships often have bad stress DCs. But the bonus from armour vs offence is meant to balance that out. A ship may have a stress DC of 15 but if its armour is 12 points over the offence, the DC is actually 3.

The bonus also avoids making fighter dramatically more powerful when they are not in a wing like most armour degradation systems. Fighters can attack separately and have a chance to destroy more than one space but the stress checks are going to be much easier. If they want a better chance to damage the ship, they can form a wing to make the stress check harder to succeed.

I think it could work pretty well without being heavy on rules. What do you think?

 

[Valarian]

When a ship's armour reaches 0, it blows up.

Where's this? The way I've read starship combat, it's when all structural spaces have been depleted that the ship blows up. The armour is there to soak damage.

 

[Shadow Queen]

When a ship's armour reaches 0, it blows up.

Where's this? The way I've read starship combat, it's when all structural spaces have been depleted that the ship blows up. The armour is there to soak damage.

Im with Valarian here. When a roll goes over the Armour you roll on the structure location and apply damage untill that area is no longer. if the roll depleats the area and have extra damage points you roll once more on the structure locator and repeat.

 

[Valarian]

When a roll goes over the Armour you roll on the structure location and apply damage untill that area is no longer. if the roll depleats the area and have extra damage points you roll once more on the structure locator and repeat.

Again, this is the way I read it ... you roll once on the table and deplete the structural spaces in that area - then cascade additional damage down the table rather than re-rolling.

 

[Vortex]

I don't have my books with me so what I say may not be completely accurate.

You are right about how to apply damage that overcomes armor. And about the ship blowing up when there are nom more structural spaces.

But even in the official rules, armor can go down. Usually, it's because of beam weapons. But I think damage is applied to armor if there is damage left when you get all the way down the table. (not sure about that though)

I'm pretty sure a ship is destroyed if the armor reaches 0. The armor is not just hull plating, it's also the ship's structure. I'll have to check my books and get back to you. Unless someone has his books close by and can tell us.

 

[Vortex]

Indeed, after going through parts of the book yesterday, I can't find anything about armor reduced to 0 blowing up the ship. I guess I misread something the first time.

Still, I prefer systems that somehow allow dealing some structural damage despite high armor. I find most armor degradation systems degrade armor too quickly in some cases.