[Spaceships] Armor Density

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

re table. Using only dense armour, 20x9 = 180. Any reason it goes over 180?

If you have an exotic armor that is denser than steel, you can use a higher multiplier than 9. Look at the special case note at the end.

[jacobmuller]

Oops - Reading failure LOL

Have you assigned density to other systems?
eg Habitat, hanger, cargo 0.25, electronics 0.5, powerplant 1, drives, 2...

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Have you assigned density to other systems?
eg Habitat, hanger, cargo 0.25, electronics 0.5, powerplant 1, drives, 2...

No. I considered it, and might do it in the future. If I do, it's going to be only one or two non-standard multipliers. Maybe -5 for "roomy" systems and -10 for open spaces. That would mean sending the tables into the negative.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by RyanW

No. I considered it, and might do it in the future. If I do, it's going to be only one or two non-standard multipliers. Maybe -5 for "roomy" systems and -10 for open spaces. That would mean sending the tables into the negative.

I think the volume of what is inside the armour is more important than the volume of armour - armour volume is just how thick the covering will be.

Using excel and VDS:
for a known dDR, you can get the thickness (2.75 pe mm for steel?)
for the weight of armour, you have a volume (density 7.9)
volume and thickness give you area of coverage, ie the surface area these ships are meant to have.
Assign volumes for all systems, and a hull design, and you get how far your armour has to spread.

[Trachmyr]

I was working on a mass/shape modification for spaceships although I got sidetracked and haven't finished it.

Basically, I assigned a density modifier to various components based on the intitial Mass:SM ratio, which hovered around 0.3 Specific gravity... I then just used the Spaceships 3-10-30-100 mass progression to create a "Density Modifier".

• This worked out to -2 for Hydrogen tanks (Specific gravity less than 0.1)

• -1 for open areas and roomy habitats (Specific Gravity less than 0.3)

• +0 for normal habitats, organic/ice armors, and most components (Specific gravity less than 1)

• +1 for low-access components (penalty to Fire Control), Most fuel Tanks and low-density armors (specific gravity less than 3)

• +2 for clamps and high-density armors (Specific gravity less than 10)

• I do have a hardened High-Density Armor type (Irridum based alloy) in my
  campaign that earned a +3 density mofifier (Specific gravity less than 30)

Total it up, divide by 20, round towards zero, subtract it from SM.
This affects targeting and active sensors (not passive sensors).
It also affects armor value, add the density modifier to SM to determine dDR.

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I also came up with rules that modified front/center/rear profiles based on shape... as well as coolant issues based on shape. For instance a sphere gets -2 on all profiles but has a much bigger heat problem. The base-line assumption was a 3:1 rectangular/cylindical shape.

Hope that helps!