CT Only: HG "fix" for the giant ship fans

[robject]

Interesting idea, or just making it to need less tonnage as the ship is larger (or more of it as it goes smaller)...

I always hated armor 15 fighters against which you had to use your spinals or at least your nukes to damage...

I've figured that armor must displace at least 1 ton per layer, making it more difficult to up-armor small craft.

 

[Amber Chancer]

I'm afraid you're going in the opposite direction as most people, making harder to armor a large ship than a small one.

I agree ... but think about what an armoured spaceship involves, and tell me you don't genuinely believe it WOULD be more difficult to armour a large ship than a small one ...

 

[Amber Chancer]

I've figured that armor must displace at least 1 ton per layer, making it more difficult to up-armor small craft.

That's quite a cute one, too ...

 

[Amber Chancer]

I always hated armor 15 fighters against which you had to use your spinals or at least your nukes to damage...

If you're having to use your spinals or nukes on them, then I fear you're suffering from defective ship design.

With their limited computing capacity you should have little difficulty hitting them with your factor-9 batteries.

Factor-9 anything hitting size-0 fighter with armour 15 = critical hits, even without any rule modifications.

 

[McPerth]

If you're having to use your spinals or nukes on them, then I fear you're suffering from defective ship design.

With their limited computing capacity you should have little difficulty hitting them with your factor-9 batteries.

Factor-9 anything hitting size-0 fighter with armour 15 = critical hits, even without any rule modifications.

Well, maybe not nukes, but you need to use at least you missile bays, as the beams are quite unlikely to hit them unless they have computer advantage (and the fighter may well have the same computer than the big ships), as with agility 6 and being under 100 dtons, they are at -8 to hit, so any factor 9 beam battery hits only on a 12 (assuming the pilot does not have skill 3+), while missiles hit on a roll of 10+ (11+ at short range).

 

[aramis]

I agree ... but think about what an armoured spaceship involves, and tell me you don't genuinely believe it WOULD be more difficult to armour a large ship than a small one ...

Physics says otherwise. The Square-Cube relationship, and knowing that armor effectiveness is functionally linear after a CM or two...

To put a 1cm thick shell on a 1m cube takes 58808cc, or just shy of 6%.
To put a 1cm thick shell on a 10m cube takes 5988008cc, or about 0.6%, but will stop the same bullets just as easily.

 

[Amber Chancer]

I see your point, Aramis - but I'm thinking of armour less in terms of solid plate hanging on the outside, and more in terms of internal structural integrity, bracing and so forth to hold the ship in one piece despite serious concussion shock waves.

I guess this is one of the problems with science fiction ... one guy's science is inevitably going to be another guy's fiction :file_21:

 

[aramis]

I see your point, Aramis - but I'm thinking of armour less in terms of solid plate hanging on the outside, and more in terms of internal structural integrity, bracing and so forth to hold the ship in one piece despite serious concussion shock waves.

I guess this is one of the problems with science fiction ... one guy's science is inevitably going to be another guy's fiction :file_21:

Internal structure has multiple issues - internal armoring, you're still up against the square-cube relationship. Only for load bearing does it change, and that's still the square cube, but invert the size relationship - stuctural members strength is a function of the cross section of the members, which only goes up as the square of the cube root of volume.

But internal strengthening versus damage has to be a surface area solution itself, because any protection from damage needs to be one or more shells...