Hi,
i'm a first time poster but long time lurker on this Board. As a physicist, i encountered and approached the same problem in a more mathematical way:
To calculate the armor point cost in dtons for any ships volume, i use:
Cost[dtons]=Volume[dtons] * ShapeConstant * VolumeFactor * TechFactor,
where the ShapeConstant times the VolumeFactor is the ratio of the surface to the volume of the ship. The Volume Factor is always Volume^(-1/3), and the ShapeConstant depends on the - you guessed it - shape ( 3 for a sphere, 6 for a cube, 9 for a cigar etc ... ).
I've chosen the TechFactor to be (1/TL), to represent the different types of armor. Perhaps (0.5/TL) would be better.
Lets Look at some examples:
Code:
Volume ShapeCons VolFactor TechFact Cost Example
[dtons] [dtons] Armor
10 3 0.464 0.1 1.4 3.6
100 3 0.215 0.1 6.5 7.7
1000 3 0.100 0.1 30.0 16.7
10000 3 0.046 0.1 139.2 35.9
100000 3 0.022 0.1 646.3 77.4
1000000 3 0.010 0.1 3000.0 166.7
10000000 3 0.005 0.1 13924.8 359.1
The last column shows the final armor of a ship which uses 50% of the volume for armor.
Also, we get a strong dependence of shape, which excludes distributed or streamlined hulls from beeing well armored. Sadly, nobody would want use small fighters in this scenario. The advantage of larger ships is obvious.
It is a little more complicated to calculate, but as everyone uses spreadsheets, thats a mood point. Also, it would need much bigger damage values for nukes and big guns to penetrate armor of larger ships - which would be more realistic anyways.
Opinions?
P.S: I'm no native speaker, please excuse the errors in spelling. I'm doing my best.