Built-in armour for hulls
 

Anybody managed to mod hulls with built-in armour?

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

All hitpoints come from components, not abilities.
Hulls can't have built in hitpoints.

Instead, you can give hulls built-in shield generation.
You can also make a one-per-vehicle armor component that uses up zero space.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hi SJ,

I was trying to make a special ship for each racial trait, but looks like I can't use armour after all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif As to the shields, I don't think I want to use it too, since a non-phrased built-in shields can't mix with phrased ones and will cause problems later in the game with PPBs. On the other hand a built-in phrased shield is probably too much of an advantage in the early game.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

No, you can't have built-in armor. Armor is just another type of component that really acts as ablative hit points becuase it gets hit first. There really is no hull to target. When you create a design and choose a hull size you're not actually selecting an empty hull, you're deciding how much space you're going to use. The system assumes that you'll use all of that space. That's why the different sizes have different defensive modifiers. Put only required components on an escort and a destoyer, and the same amount of engines, and the same amount of damage will destroy both ships.

Nodachi

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

Adding a hundred or so phased shields to the hull is not that big a deal. If the player adds normal shield generators, the PPBs will work normally, and skip all the shields.
If the player dosen't add normal shields, the ship will be protected from the first 1 or 2 PPB shots, but that dosen't make much difference in the outcome of the battle.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

Inherent hull abilities would be nice, but might have unexpected effects. I think giving a ship built-in cloaking ability would make it permanently invisible, for example, like mines are. Would armor regeneration work as a hull ability? Or does it require the component family in order to know what to work on? hmm....

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

Armor regeneration would work.
Cloaking on a ship hull can be turned on and off.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

I've gotten several abilities to work on hulls. Emissive armor ability does work (I've set it to 40 points, works fine), shields work fine. Cloaking works good, built in sensors, scanners, supplies, minesweepers, repair components, solar panel abilities, combat thrusters, Talisman.....

Just look at the abilities of most components, most of them can be applied directly to the ships hulls.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

Hmm, troop with 'weapons always hit' talisman power = Jedi. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Armor regen makes much more sense as part of the hull than as a seperate ability for the armor components. I wish we didn't have to mod a whole special set of ship hulls to make that work for organic races. But... since Organic Manipulation is already a racial tech I guess it wouldn't be too big a hassle to create alternative sizes in an "Organic Ships" tech field. Now here's the interesting question: Would the ship's inherent regen stack with the same ability on the armor?

'Intelligent' ships would justify master computer as an inherent ability.

I don't understand how emissive armor could work unless it is applied to all components in the ship? That would be difficult to destroy.

Scanner Jammer would be cool as an innate ability. If only it worked in combat as well as on the strategic screen.

[ June 13, 2002, 02:28: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

Organic armor regen ability only heals components that have that same ability.
The hull would just be adding a bonus amount, and would have the interesting side effect in v1.67 that you could take internal damage, and then have the OA heal over top of it (since there is still the hull's OA ability).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's the way emissive works already. You don't have to hit the emissive armor to get the effect.

It really wouldn't be hard to destroy, since anything over the emissive rating still does full damage as if there were no such thing as emissive.

[ June 13, 2002, 02:33: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hey, that's great! Finally a way around the loss of regen when the armor components are destroyed! Now I know that I have to mod this in somehow. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Erm... I haven't noticed this. Emissive armor ability only affects the armor components that actually have it in my experience.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

It is possible that the emissive armor has been changed from how it worked the Last time I checked.
I'm sure there would have been a big thread discussing the change, though.

Basically, if the ship's highest emissive ability on any component is higher than the damage hitting the hull, the ship will take no damage. Otherwise there is no effect.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If this is true it's really out of kilter. It's only supposed to affect the component that has the ability set on it. I'll have to check this.

Edit: Ack! Ack! Ack! It's true! And that's insane! I'll have to send this to MM immediately...

[ June 13, 2002, 22:50: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

This could make for an interesting tech tree. You could get not only larger hulls but enhanced smaller ones for specific roles.

Re: Built-in armour for hulls
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I've been saying that ever since I got SE4. In fact, a lot of people have said that at one time or another.
IIRC, One entry in a history.txt said the EA had been fixed, but AFAIK, emissive armor hasn't been altered in what it actually does.

I would very much enjoy SE3 style emissive armor, but I have lost hope of ever seeing it again.

Some people will jump at you saying "that makes it too similar to crystalline", but NO! SE3 EA must be hit (damaged) in order to activate the ability, and only the component currently being hit gets to use its ability (no stacking except when multiple EA components are hit and/or destroyed).