[GURPS Starships] Armor tweaks

[The_Ryujin]

A few days ago serendipity bit me and I came up with two simple and quick ways to tweak the protection provided by the armor systems listed in the GURPS Spaceships line in the hopes that they will lessen the eggshell feel of it and figured might as well share them on the forum for all that are interested.

Armor of Quality
The Spaceship series makes the assumption that the hulls of ships are going to be covered in lower end armor to keep costs low which in turn is part of the reason why dDR in those books are generally so low for a given TL. Now this is over all a reasonable assumption since, for the most part, even modern day real world warships don't use the highest grade plate available but this isn't always the case both in reality and fiction.

A good fix for this is take how Spaceships already handles armor and tweak it a bit:

Assume that the RAW armor values represent good, but not the best quality version of the given material.

Fine quality armor gives 1.5x the listed amount of dDR but costs 5x as much- It gives as much protection as armor as the average armor of the next TL up but costs more since it's not as easy to makes give the current TL's technology.

Very Fine quality armor gives 2x the dDR but costs 20x as much for the same reasons.

Ships that have need for some protection but not long term protection or simply desperate captains can make due with Cheap quality armor. Divide dDR by 1.5 and cost by what should be 1.5 in most cases but use the cost of a same sized armor one TL less if cheaper.

Note in most cases round numbers to closest progression on the SSR table (i.e. 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 70 and so on) to get figures close to RAW if you want.

For example: SM +11 US TL11 Diamondoid armor gives dDR100 and costs $300M. Fine quality Diamondoid armor would give dDR150 but cost a whopping $1500M! Very Fine Diamondoid armor would give dDR200 but cost an even more staggering $2100M. On the other hand Cheap quality Diamondoid armor would give only dDR70 (67 rounded up) but only cost $150M (since that would be better then the $200M given by dividing by 1.5).

Armored Belts
Another way to add better protection to a ship without upping the cost to much is to lay better or simply just more armor in belts over only the vulnerable spots on a ship.

To add belts to a ship just select a armor system of choice but instead of it covering the full ship you instead get 6 "belts" to divy up between a sections systems that only protect the given system if hit by an attack.

For Example: You are designing a SM +10, TL10 armored cruiser and deicide to give the center section a belt armor system and then to give 2 belts each to the ships control center, reactor (a core system) and the a cabin systems located there. If the ship is attacked, only these sections will receive any protection if hit unless you take another armor system.

Each belt gives a system dDR equal to the amount that the chosen system normally gives x the number of belts you gave it on top of the dDR given by any other armor systems you decide to add. It also increases the amount of Radiation PF someone in a given system gets, treat each belt you give as a an extra system worth of PF but only for that system (belt armor only gives as much PF to the full ship that a normal armor system would give).

For Example: To continue from above, let's say the armor chosen is (good quality) TL10 Nanocomposite armor, this would give each of the choosen systems 2 x dDR70 or dDR140 against attack on top of any other full armor systems added. Anyone inside any of those systems would receive 2x more PF as well (this lends it's self well for making storm shelters).

Note that you CAN give armor to com and sensor systems but realistically I would limit it to no more then 1 belt for each system. You also can give belts to core systems, this will help make then good storm shelters.

Another thing to note is that if you choose a smaller armor system to be turned into belts you still get 6 belts, they just give less dDR and PF per belt (for example a half system of armor would give only half as much dDR and PF per belt).

Alright guys, hope you find these tweaks usefull. Any questions, comments and error findings are welcome as well as any Starships tweaks you might have yourself that you would like to share.