[GURPS Starships] Armor tweaks

Varyon · 08-20-2014, 02:29 PM

Based partially (in terms of effect) on the DR progressions from Vehicles, my own version has Cheap (-1 TL) as 1/3rd price, Advanced (+1 TL) as 3x price, and Top of the Line (+2 TL) as 10x price. For Space Opera, I've also allowed for Optimized armor (+1 TL against one of Cr, Cut/Pi, or Burn; -1 TL against the others) and Ablative armor (+1 TL, armor is semi-ablative), both of which cost the same as normal armor (and can stack with Quality and each other).

I do like your idea of "armor belts," although the math needs work (or maybe I'm just misreading). The way it looks now, someone could buy an Armor Belt system and use 3 belts on 4 and 4 belts on 2 of the systems in that hull section for 3x or 4x dDR on that entire hull section. Each Armor Belt system should instead give you 6 belts, with the same effects as now.

Honestly, one thing I think has been suggested before and makes a good deal of sense (most armor is so dense compared to the rest of the ship that it will take up effectively zero volume) is to actually design vessels without armor, then add on the armor (and downgrade performance of engines) later. So you might start with a design like this:

Front Hull
[1] Spinal Battery
[2-4] Major Batteries
[5] Tactical Array
[6] Defensive ECM
[core] Control Room
Central Hull
[1] Spinal Battery
[2-4] Tertiary Batteries
[5] Antimatter Power Plant
[6] Defensive ECM
[core] Spinal Battery
Rear Hull
[1-4] Fuel Tanks
[5-6] Fusion Torches
[core] Antimatter Power Plant

At TL10, it would have 1G acceleration and 60 mps delta-V. You'd then toss on armor as you see fit - 6 systems might be divided up as 3 in the front, 2 in the center, and 1 in the rear, and would increase the ship's mass by 30%, thus dropping acceleration to 0.77G (1/1.3) and delta-V to 46 (60/1.3). This adds complication but can make it easier to design the ship you want without having to give up as much protection, and also gets rid of the oddity of hitting the armor system (what does that even mean?). Combined with your armor belts idea, you could improve the dDR of individual systems on their own - each system-specific piece of armor would add 0.17% (1/6%) to vessel weight, be 1/6th cost of a "full" armor system, and give full dDR to that one system.

08-20-2014, 02:29 PM	#5
Varyon Join Date: Jun 2013	Re: [GURPS Starships] Armor tweaks Based partially (in terms of effect) on the DR progressions from Vehicles, my own version has Cheap (-1 TL) as 1/3rd price, Advanced (+1 TL) as 3x price, and Top of the Line (+2 TL) as 10x price. For Space Opera, I've also allowed for Optimized armor (+1 TL against one of Cr, Cut/Pi, or Burn; -1 TL against the others) and Ablative armor (+1 TL, armor is semi-ablative), both of which cost the same as normal armor (and can stack with Quality and each other). I do like your idea of "armor belts," although the math needs work (or maybe I'm just misreading). The way it looks now, someone could buy an Armor Belt system and use 3 belts on 4 and 4 belts on 2 of the systems in that hull section for 3x or 4x dDR on that entire hull section. Each Armor Belt system should instead give you 6 belts, with the same effects as now. Honestly, one thing I think has been suggested before and makes a good deal of sense (most armor is so dense compared to the rest of the ship that it will take up effectively zero volume) is to actually design vessels without armor, then add on the armor (and downgrade performance of engines) later. So you might start with a design like this: Front Hull [1] Spinal Battery [2-4] Major Batteries [5] Tactical Array [6] Defensive ECM [core] Control Room Central Hull [1] Spinal Battery [2-4] Tertiary Batteries [5] Antimatter Power Plant [6] Defensive ECM [core] Spinal Battery Rear Hull [1-4] Fuel Tanks [5-6] Fusion Torches [core] Antimatter Power Plant At TL10, it would have 1G acceleration and 60 mps delta-V. You'd then toss on armor as you see fit - 6 systems might be divided up as 3 in the front, 2 in the center, and 1 in the rear, and would increase the ship's mass by 30%, thus dropping acceleration to 0.77G (1/1.3) and delta-V to 46 (60/1.3). This adds complication but can make it easier to design the ship you want without having to give up as much protection, and also gets rid of the oddity of hitting the armor system (what does that even mean?). Combined with your armor belts idea, you could improve the dDR of individual systems on their own - each system-specific piece of armor would add 0.17% (1/6%) to vessel weight, be 1/6th cost of a "full" armor system, and give full dDR to that one system.