Starship Armor

[Dirk Desiato]

Hello! I am new here but not to Traveller.

I'm loving the new book but one thing bothers me. It seems easy to make a ship with lots of armor that can ignore many weapons. I do not like the idea of a 400dT ship that can shrug off nukes.
I have an Q&D idea to "fix" this: Every 6 rolled on a damage die removes 1 point of armor. Armor removed by damage table rolls stays the same. This allows ships with lots of armor to take a bunch of hits, but they can only take so much until their armor becomes molten slag. This also fighters a potential danger instead of being impotent.

So, what do you think?

 

[simonh]

Excellent catch. I was vaguely aware of the issue, but hand't got round to investigating it yet. This is a very elegant fix.

Simon Hibbs

 

[SSWarlock]

This is a very elegant fix.

Yes, it is.

Particularly when one can modify the armor slagging to occur on a 5 or 6 if the hit is from an explosive/radiation effect like a meson gun or PAWS (particle accelerator weapon system). Or even on a 4-6 if the hit is from an extreme-tech disintegrator weapon, making MongTrav backwards compatible with MegaTraveller.

And, of course, the players would have the fun and games associated with getting the armor fixed at a Class A/B starport and paying for it.

 

[tneva82]

Yeah I like it as well. I think I'll borrow it as well ;-) Plus the idea of certain weapons doing more likely armour degration(now to wait 'till high guard to see what's there).

 

[simonh]

Particularly when one can modify the armor slagging to occur on a 5 or 6 if the hit is from an explosive/radiation effect like a meson gun or PAWS (particle accelerator weapon system). Or even on a 4-6 if the hit is from an extreme-tech disintegrator weapon, making MongTrav backwards compatible with MegaTraveller.

Cool, but we need to be careful of making the already better weapons even more super-better.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Myrm]

Make all weapons a 6 to take out armour. Then it gives a reason for those fighter with triple pulse laser fixed mounts to go in on a Capital ship - to strip the armour for their own Cap ships weapons and save the alpha strike from the main force for actually taking out the enemy.

 

[Dirk Desiato]

Make all weapons a 6 to take out armour. Then it gives a reason for those fighter with triple pulse laser fixed mounts to go in on a Capital ship - to strip the armour for their own Cap ships weapons and save the alpha strike from the main force for actually taking out the enemy.

It's this kind of space combat action that puts a silly grin on my face.
"Blue Squadron, take them down a notch or two. Cruiser 'Pounderizer', warm up the fusion bays and go in for the kill!" :twisted:

 

[Myrm]

Hey, in SFB I play Hydran...thats exactly how my ships run

 

[Golan2072]

An alternative would be to declare any attack roll with an effect of 6 or more to be a critical hit and halve armor for it (or, instead, double damage).

 

[Supergamera]

An alternative would be to declare any attack roll with an effect of 6 or more to be a critical hit and halve armor for it (or, instead, double damage).

You could also have rules for coordinated and battery fire, to allow concentrated attacks to penetrate the armor.

 

[Ommadawn]

These are all good suggestions! I'm really hoping to see something official that deals with this in High Guard when it comes out.

 

[apoc527]

Just browsing ancient threads and came across this. Now that HG has been out for a while, and there have not been any official "fixes" (if this is still even considered a problem), what do you all think of the suggestions in this this thread?

To recap:

1. On each '6' rolled for damage, subtract one point of armor. (Variation--only against that particular attack).

2. On each "critical hit" (Effect 6+), halve armor.

Other possibilities:

3. On each Effect 6+ hit, permanently reduce armor by 1.

4. For every 10 points of cumulative damage that does not cause damage, reduce armor by 1 (requires more bookkeeping).

----

Thoughts? (More thread necromancy, I know...)

 

[SSWarlock]

I've tested the options and found I like #3 the best. It dovetails nicely with the damage chart's reduction of Armour as a damage result and makes highly skilled characters of great value since higher skills can result in higher Effects.

And making characters more important to an adventure is always a good think, IMO.

Just keep in mind that once the target runs out of Armour, any Armour hit becomes a Hull hit instead.