Shields

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Varyon

They need to be unstreamlined (which is indeed appropriate for capital ships) and have 2 systems in each hull section dedicated to armor, which is pretty substantial (30% of the ship's mass is in armor*). And doing this doesn't protect them from the fighters aiming at weakpoints (at -10 to hit, true, but the bonus from the capital ship's SM offsets this markedly) - you need 4 armor sections (60% of the ship's mass is in armor, at which point it's dense enough that it's targeted at -1) to protect from that. Well, under Spaceships 1 rules anyway - needed armor modules is reduced if using the more realistic armor volume rules from Pyramid #3/34. Regardless, you're talking about some very heavily armored ships. If using the optional rules for exposed radiators, those can't be protected by armor (at least, not while exposed), so the fighters can take those out, forcing the target to basically shut down in 30 minutes - a solid mission kill that can set it up for proper destruction (either by heavies or a boarding party, depending on the feel you're going for).

All that said, that's a pretty good observation, and something to keep in mind if you want primarily energy weapons.


*For reference, a Main Battle Tank built using Spaceships would likely have somewhere around 60% of its mass in armor.

All very true points, and if you notice in the Spaceships series, capital ships - even with shields - usually mount 2 armor systems in at least one facing. And considering how lenient Spaceship rules are for pointing a facing at your opponent, this makes the bigger ones quite scary. Just a general heads up. Personally, if I wanted fighters to hurt capital ships through volume of fire, I'd make armor ablative like shields. That'll give more of a video game feel than simply unarmored ships.