BigDogsRunning
Banded Mongoose
There seems to be a disconnect between armor values for different sizes of ships.
You can have a TL15 fighter with 15 armor, and a TL15 capital ship with 15 armor, both are at the limit, and both provide exactly the same protection, and that seems ridiculous.
A Capital ship, or a Mega-Freighter, should have much thicker hull material, just by virtue of requiring greater structural strength. Would small-arms penetrate the hull of a modern SuperTanker? I don't know, but I suspect not. I also suspect that the builders of the SuperTanker don't consider their ship "armored". It just has a thick enough hull for proper structural strength.
A 100,000 ton warship, should, by virtue of the stresses applied to its hull during maneuvering, have a thick enough hull that small turreted lasers wouldn't be able to penetrate it without extended exposure, even assuming it wasn't heavily "armored". If it was, would anyone think twice at a description of a 700m ship having 150cm of armor? 150cm, 200cm of armor? Would turreted weapons reasonably be able to penetrate a meter of bonded superdense? 50cm? 30cm?
Sure, the larger vessel has many more structural points to play with, but shouldn't some level of common sense be applied on whether internal damage even comes into play?
I'm not sure what sort of resolution would best resolve this, but the current system doesn't pass the common sense test.
1. An armor factor multiplier at different sizes will simply introduce specific sweet spots for ship tonnage.
2. Increasing armor limits for larger ships will start an arms race to see who can build the largest ships.
3. armor factor multipliers for different hull types/shapes will mitigate some of the differences between designs, but doesn't address the scale difference.
4. We already have an adjustment between personal/vehicular/ship scales for armor effect, and weapon damage. At first glance this seems ok, but it seems to have the same holes as #1 above. It also doesn't make accomodations for larger, heavier, vehicles, like tanks, or craft that straddle categories, like interface fighters. If they are high tech, are they small-craft and use the ship system, or are they merely vehicles?
I don't know how much discussion this has had in the past, but it seems like a useful one.
You can have a TL15 fighter with 15 armor, and a TL15 capital ship with 15 armor, both are at the limit, and both provide exactly the same protection, and that seems ridiculous.
A Capital ship, or a Mega-Freighter, should have much thicker hull material, just by virtue of requiring greater structural strength. Would small-arms penetrate the hull of a modern SuperTanker? I don't know, but I suspect not. I also suspect that the builders of the SuperTanker don't consider their ship "armored". It just has a thick enough hull for proper structural strength.
A 100,000 ton warship, should, by virtue of the stresses applied to its hull during maneuvering, have a thick enough hull that small turreted lasers wouldn't be able to penetrate it without extended exposure, even assuming it wasn't heavily "armored". If it was, would anyone think twice at a description of a 700m ship having 150cm of armor? 150cm, 200cm of armor? Would turreted weapons reasonably be able to penetrate a meter of bonded superdense? 50cm? 30cm?
Sure, the larger vessel has many more structural points to play with, but shouldn't some level of common sense be applied on whether internal damage even comes into play?
I'm not sure what sort of resolution would best resolve this, but the current system doesn't pass the common sense test.
1. An armor factor multiplier at different sizes will simply introduce specific sweet spots for ship tonnage.
2. Increasing armor limits for larger ships will start an arms race to see who can build the largest ships.
3. armor factor multipliers for different hull types/shapes will mitigate some of the differences between designs, but doesn't address the scale difference.
4. We already have an adjustment between personal/vehicular/ship scales for armor effect, and weapon damage. At first glance this seems ok, but it seems to have the same holes as #1 above. It also doesn't make accomodations for larger, heavier, vehicles, like tanks, or craft that straddle categories, like interface fighters. If they are high tech, are they small-craft and use the ship system, or are they merely vehicles?
I don't know how much discussion this has had in the past, but it seems like a useful one.