Klaus Kipling
Mongoose
Basically, crystaliron is the best armour! Bonded superdense might take up half the space, but will weigh 20% more. As armour takes up little space anyway, but masses a lot, the space saved will be taken up with the extra powerplant and fuel needed to compensate for it.
The proof.... (please attack my figures, but I think they're right)
For argument's sake, let's assume a 10 cubic metre vehicle, with 30 points of armour added (the built-in armour from the chassis amounts to a couple of extra points, so let's disregard it for now)
Now, obviously superdense armour should be denser than crystaliron! But it should also mean that you require less weight of it to get an equal armour rating to that of crystaliron.
There is an easy fix. Uprate the superdense and bonded rating, and also reduce the mass/m3 of bonded armour.
Superdense remains 9000kg per metre cubed, but bonded superdense needs to be reduced from 12000kg to 10000kg per metre cubed, otherwise there is no benefit other than an extra glove compartment.
Of course, changing the values will frell up the vehicles in Supplement 6 (or at least, make them different to 'fixed' designs), but again, it can be fixed without messing about too much. Armour values should probably not change at all - they need to be balanced against the weapons they're meant to face. The extra volume acquired can be added to fuel or ammo - there will be a negligible amount even in a 40m3 MBT type AFV. Reducing the mass will change the power to weight ratio, and therefore the speed. As the only vehicles effected are likely to be hight tech grav vehicles, a bit of extra speed will probably not do any harm.
Speculating on what the armour values the vehicles in S:6 will have, I expect them to match the damage/penetration of the weapon they are designed to face.
To take a modern MBT of TL7, which are designed generally to face themselves, and currently (even tho in CSC it is TL8, they are armed with a 120mm gun.
This is 10d6 SAP, which means it disregards the first 20 points of armour.10d6 gives a mean score of 39. Therefore, if an M1 Abrams is to have armour that is optimally 'proof' against it's own weapon (by which I mean, that a hit has a 50% chance of doing no damage at all), then it requires an armour rating of 60.
So...
So a tl7 MBT should have an AT of 60, at tl12, AT80, and at TL14, AT112.
That hyper-velocity gun will shoot through anything, it seems. Which leads me to the next point.
We need a new mechanic for character and vehicle weapons attacking spacecraft. The current one from Mercenary was already complicated, but now it just doesn't work, as it does not account for armour penetration.
It might be simpler to just give certain big juicy weapons a starship damage rating. The Hyper-Velocity should maybe get 3d6, while the Fusion Z 2d6, while a pair of Plasma A's get 1d6. Or something like that.
Anyhow....
The proof.... (please attack my figures, but I think they're right)
For argument's sake, let's assume a 10 cubic metre vehicle, with 30 points of armour added (the built-in armour from the chassis amounts to a couple of extra points, so let's disregard it for now)
Code:
Type Rating m3 for AT30 Mass Armour+Chassis Rating
Crystaliron 12/1% 0.25m3 1875kg 36
Superdense 14/1% 0.214m3 1928kg 37
Bonded Superdense 16/1% 0.1875m3 2250kg 38Now, obviously superdense armour should be denser than crystaliron! But it should also mean that you require less weight of it to get an equal armour rating to that of crystaliron.
There is an easy fix. Uprate the superdense and bonded rating, and also reduce the mass/m3 of bonded armour.
Code:
Type Rating m3 for AT30 Mass Armour+Chassis Rating
Crystaliron 12/1% 0.25m3 1875kg 36
Superdense 16/1% 0.1875m3 1687.5kg 37
Bonded Superdense 20/1% 0.15m3 1500kg 38Of course, changing the values will frell up the vehicles in Supplement 6 (or at least, make them different to 'fixed' designs), but again, it can be fixed without messing about too much. Armour values should probably not change at all - they need to be balanced against the weapons they're meant to face. The extra volume acquired can be added to fuel or ammo - there will be a negligible amount even in a 40m3 MBT type AFV. Reducing the mass will change the power to weight ratio, and therefore the speed. As the only vehicles effected are likely to be hight tech grav vehicles, a bit of extra speed will probably not do any harm.
Speculating on what the armour values the vehicles in S:6 will have, I expect them to match the damage/penetration of the weapon they are designed to face.
To take a modern MBT of TL7, which are designed generally to face themselves, and currently (even tho in CSC it is TL8, they are armed with a 120mm gun.
This is 10d6 SAP, which means it disregards the first 20 points of armour.10d6 gives a mean score of 39. Therefore, if an M1 Abrams is to have armour that is optimally 'proof' against it's own weapon (by which I mean, that a hit has a 50% chance of doing no damage at all), then it requires an armour rating of 60.
So...
Code:
120mm gun 10d6 SAP 39/-20 AT60
35mm Rail Gun 12d6 SAP 47/-24 AT72
12mm Light Gauss 10d6 Mega 39/-40 AT80
15mm Hyper-Velocity 18d6 Ultimate 71/-90 AT160!!!
Plasma A 14d6 55 AT56
Fusion Z 28d6 111 AT112So a tl7 MBT should have an AT of 60, at tl12, AT80, and at TL14, AT112.
That hyper-velocity gun will shoot through anything, it seems. Which leads me to the next point.
We need a new mechanic for character and vehicle weapons attacking spacecraft. The current one from Mercenary was already complicated, but now it just doesn't work, as it does not account for armour penetration.
It might be simpler to just give certain big juicy weapons a starship damage rating. The Hyper-Velocity should maybe get 3d6, while the Fusion Z 2d6, while a pair of Plasma A's get 1d6. Or something like that.
Anyhow....
