Armored Bulkheads protecting M-drives

[Jak Nazryth]

On page 41 of High Guard... "Armored bulkheads protect any internal components to which they are added..."
I have used armored bulkheads to protect the engineering compartments of most of my robust/fighting ship designs, and have always included the maneuver drives. But I recently realized that since maneuver drives are located on the "External Damage" column on the location table on page 151-core rules, are ALL maneuver drives considered "outside" the ship? I realize that at the very least the thruster plates are located on the exterior, but 95% in not more of the M-drive is inside the ship.
So, can you technically protect the M-drives with armored bulk-heads to negate the first hit on the M-drive?
I say yes, but since my redesign of the 800ton merc cruiser is currently calling for armored bulkheads, it would be good to get a consensus, or at least an official ruling from the Mongoose team.

 

[far-trader]

Interesting question.

My first reaction was yes it could work, envisioning something like a drive shroud or tunnel making the thruster less accessible from all but a tight straight shot... like shooting womp rats in my T16 back home *

But then I wondered, should that move the thruster hit to the internal damage table? Perhaps?

* what the womp rats were doing IN my T16 that required shooting them you don't want to know

 

[Jak Nazryth]

I think the number of womp rats in your T16 is directly proportional to the number of empty beer cans in your T16. 8)

 

[far-trader]

I'd never noticed the correlation before but now that you mention it...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Where did you find a T-16 from anyway :lol:

I have always looked at it that the Exhaust vents, field generators, Drive plates etc are on the outside of the hull because the thrust they produce by whatever means needs to be outside and not within the Hull. Other Sci Fi games have drives that can happily sit in the middle of the hull and need no outside component but for Traveller I have always put something outside.

The bulk of you Drives, the Gravatic generator, power plant, ION inducer or whatever can happily sit inside the hull deep within bulkheads and armour but those emitters need to be outside.

For this reason I generally say that no matter how much external damage a ship has taken repairing its Manoeuvre drive is doable since the actual Drives are internal. The external plates, vents, exhausts etc can be beaten back into shape and gaffer taped to get them working. Its the Internal hit that blows up the engine room that leaves you crippled and with days of work to get to limping.

 

[locarno24]

have you seen the new BT-16?
Comes with it's own dedicated womp rat compartment.

That just goes to show, doesn't it?
Just went and looked at the deadtree version of High Guard. Whenever I'm doing a ship design I'm usually using the SRD - because it's a soft copy and I'm usually doing the design on excel - never seen the 'internal components' bit of it in the book, just skim-read past it assuming it says the same thing!

95% is inside the ship, but remember that armoured bulkheads stop the first hit - they're not like armour - they're a one-use ablative thing, and so if you're outside the hull, I'd guess it's fair that you can't use them.

 

[DickTurpin]

Looking at the ship designs included in High Guard, every single one that uses bulkheads includes the M-Drive tonnage in the calculation for the bulkhead tonnage. I would take that to mean that M-Drives can indeed be protected by a bulkhead.

 

[Jeraa]

Looking at the ship designs included in High Guard, every single one that uses bulkheads includes the M-Drive tonnage in the calculation for the bulkhead tonnage. I would take that to mean that M-Drives can indeed be protected by a bulkhead.

Or it could be an error. The books are full of those. The example ships with armored bulkheads also have them for turrets, which are external components. If you look at page 68, it lists what components are internal and external. Page 151 of the core rulebook also has a chart. Both list maneuver drives as an external component.

The rules already divide all components into internal and external, and armored bulkheads would (or should) use those categories to determine what is and is not capable of having them.