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Originally Posted by Mgellis
(By the way, its not DR that matters but having about 5-7 tons of mass per square meter between you and the radiation of space...any armor would do, probably, but you need four levels of it and a SM+15 hull. I'm not sure if the "four levels" rule would apply to smaller craft...the DR goes down but is that because the armor really isn't as thick?
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Pulver's previous vehicle design systems were based on vehicle volume, but with GURPS Spaceships he shifted to vehicle mass.
The reason that DR goes up with SM is that as the ship's mass increases, the ship's surface area increases less, i.e. if you make the ship three times as heavy (3000 tonnes instead of 1000 tonnes) the surface area does not increase by a factor of 3, but by a
smaller factor, so you get thicker armour per square meter, on the same "mass percentage/mass budget".
Someone with more math will be along shortly, hopefully to elaborate on what I've written rather than saying I'm wrong.