I had a thought about how the various armour and hull values are (or are not) currently presented in A Call to Arms: Star Fleet; though before I go on, I should note that I'm still waiting for my FLGS to get the rulebook in, so I should apologise in advance for any errors found therein.
In the SFU, (normal) armour is an ablative system, a leftover (in most cases) from the days prior to the development of shields; it's no coincidence that older hulls like the Federation CL and Romulan War Eagle are noted to be armorclads. (In those particular cases, the "armour" is not a separate "belt" which could be taken off; it's part of a system integrated into the ships' hulls that they can't get around.) While you can, in principle, repair destroyed boxes of armour in SFB or FC, in practice it's a poor choice to spend one's all-too-rare damage control points on; not least since the systems in the actual ship are often cheaper to repair, to say nothing of how much more efficient it is to repair one's shields instead. So, armour is really a one-off ablative system; once it's gone, it's gone (for the remainder of the scenario, at any rate).
Also, from what I gather, some of the hull counts used to generate certain ship's hull values are not quite in step with how the ships should be; something which will no doubt be looked at in the course of generating the incoming errata file.
However, if the way in which hull values are to be generated is being adjusted, might it be an idea to take a fresh look at how armour is treated here?
I'll go with an example which has been contested many times already; the Federation Light Cruiser. (For those not familiar with FC, feel free to ignore the Fleet Scale version; only the Squadron Scale Ship Card on the second page is the "real" one.)
At present, it's been argued that the ship should be represented one of two ways; to either ignore the current Armoured trait and simply beef up its hull score, or to lower its hull and have it be Armoured. However, with the way the current Armoured trait works, the ship is said to have too powerful a set of defences in the game system; which in itself is not quite how it should be. (Yes, the armour is nice; but it's only supposed to be good the first time.)
However, what if, instead of a generic Armoured trait, the ship was instead given a specific armour number; akin to the Shield number it already has? The Armour number would be directly based on the (six) armour boxes shown on the Ship Card; the trait could work by having any hits which penetrate the shields reduce this value first, before scoring damage on the hull. However, unlike shields, the armour value would not be repairable; it would be a one-time deal.
Then, when drawing up an errata file to work out the ship's proper hull value, you would simply ignore the six armour boxes (since they would be factored into the ablative Armour trait) and use the balance of boxes on the Ship Card as a basis of establishing how durable the actual ship itself would be.
That way, you could do something similar for other armorclads; let there be a numbered trait for their ablative armour, and use the hull score to show the actual bulk of the ship itself.
This might be a more representative way of featuring armour; you have a certain at-start value, it gets used up as your shields start to buckle, and once it's gone, it's gone.
Or am I completely off-base here?
In the SFU, (normal) armour is an ablative system, a leftover (in most cases) from the days prior to the development of shields; it's no coincidence that older hulls like the Federation CL and Romulan War Eagle are noted to be armorclads. (In those particular cases, the "armour" is not a separate "belt" which could be taken off; it's part of a system integrated into the ships' hulls that they can't get around.) While you can, in principle, repair destroyed boxes of armour in SFB or FC, in practice it's a poor choice to spend one's all-too-rare damage control points on; not least since the systems in the actual ship are often cheaper to repair, to say nothing of how much more efficient it is to repair one's shields instead. So, armour is really a one-off ablative system; once it's gone, it's gone (for the remainder of the scenario, at any rate).
Also, from what I gather, some of the hull counts used to generate certain ship's hull values are not quite in step with how the ships should be; something which will no doubt be looked at in the course of generating the incoming errata file.
However, if the way in which hull values are to be generated is being adjusted, might it be an idea to take a fresh look at how armour is treated here?
I'll go with an example which has been contested many times already; the Federation Light Cruiser. (For those not familiar with FC, feel free to ignore the Fleet Scale version; only the Squadron Scale Ship Card on the second page is the "real" one.)
At present, it's been argued that the ship should be represented one of two ways; to either ignore the current Armoured trait and simply beef up its hull score, or to lower its hull and have it be Armoured. However, with the way the current Armoured trait works, the ship is said to have too powerful a set of defences in the game system; which in itself is not quite how it should be. (Yes, the armour is nice; but it's only supposed to be good the first time.)
However, what if, instead of a generic Armoured trait, the ship was instead given a specific armour number; akin to the Shield number it already has? The Armour number would be directly based on the (six) armour boxes shown on the Ship Card; the trait could work by having any hits which penetrate the shields reduce this value first, before scoring damage on the hull. However, unlike shields, the armour value would not be repairable; it would be a one-time deal.
Then, when drawing up an errata file to work out the ship's proper hull value, you would simply ignore the six armour boxes (since they would be factored into the ablative Armour trait) and use the balance of boxes on the Ship Card as a basis of establishing how durable the actual ship itself would be.
That way, you could do something similar for other armorclads; let there be a numbered trait for their ablative armour, and use the hull score to show the actual bulk of the ship itself.
This might be a more representative way of featuring armour; you have a certain at-start value, it gets used up as your shields start to buckle, and once it's gone, it's gone.
Or am I completely off-base here?
