full coverage armor
 

the porportions mod (and some others) uses a concept where regular armor does not get damaged first, but mearly soaks up damage as if it were a regular component. it also has a kind of armor that IS damaged first, but provides less protection (presumeably since it is more spread out)

CAR WARS is a steve jackson game, loosely themed around Mad Max. it has a concept where armor is heavier on larger vehicles, because you need more to cover a larger car or van.

some genius recently (okay, a month or so ago) came up with the idea to use engine mounts to allow for a better QNP movement system, by scaling engine size to match ship size.

What are peoples thoughts about using an Armor Mount to scale ship-covering armor to mass more on larger ships? I think that I brought this up in the thread about the engines, but as im putting together my GritTech mod, and am thinking of including this, I thought it deserved its own discussion.

edit: i was first inclined towards basing the armor mass around cylindrical surface area, but to be as fair as possible, perhaps it should be based on spherical surface area. that way, it could be assumed that even if the ship is not perfectly spherical, some facings might not need to be as heavily armored if the ship could be manuvered to present its strongest side in battle. even though ships might not be designed to provide perfect surface area efficiency, they could be constructed in such a way that their armor requirements were the same as if they were.

[ September 25, 2002, 19:02: Message edited by: Puke ]

Re: full coverage armor
 

What kind of percent of armor increase/Decrease are you going with. Sound like a interseting idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: full coverage armor
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">On one side:

The function of armor is different from the function of engines. While it does make sense to have larger armor for larger ships (and I have modded this myself) it doesn't make sense to require that the armor be larger. It is possible for an engine to be 'too small to be effective' relative to ship size but not really possible for armor to be 'too small to be effective' in the same way. Sure, lighter armor is less effective than heavier armor but there are corresponding advantages to lighter armor. And you are getting at least some protection from even the lightest armor.

On the other side:

Ships are physical structures and building them requires that you follow basic rules of engineering dictated by your materials. Since it makes sense for the actual structure of the ship to be proportionaly larger and heavier (diminishing returns) as the ship gets larger, so it makes sense for the armor to be larger and heavier. Many mods include increasingly steeper basic hull costs as ships get larger. So it does make some sort of sense in these terms to force armor to be larger and more expensive for larger ships.

Conclusion:

Roll your own and enjoy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: full coverage armor
 

Makes perfect sense to me. 10Kt or all over armor on a 150Kt escort would be thicker than the same 10Kt of all over armor on a 800Kt battleship. To get the same protection you would need the same thickness. And to get the same thickness over a larger surface area you would need more mass (or volume) in armor. Since we can't really mod what what would be ideal, that is armor that only protects certain facings, then this is a good compromise.

And by the way, Car Wars rocks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I loved that game. Unfotunatly like everything else in my role play phase I had very few friends that got into them as much as me. One thing I liked about Car wars though was it had a fairly extensive set of rules for solo play with random encounters and other stuff. Very cool.

Geoschmo

Re: full coverage armor
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">it would not need to be required, ships could always use armor that does not provide full coverage, and is not damaged first.

running some numbers, it looks like this works passably well for ships of 100-1500 KT, using 1/500th of the hull size as the radius of the sphere, and producing armor requirements from .5%-7% of the total hull size. as vehicle hulls get huge, they start to require alot more armor. using the same formula, a 15000KT ship would require about 75% of its mass to be devoted to a single piece of armor.

of course, thats just a rough measurement, based on r=mass/500. if someone can provide me a better formula to use to find the radius of a sphere based on mass, id be happy to make adjustments.

Re: full coverage armor
 

Yep, great idea, I think. I did this a couple of weeks ago for Proportions 2.5, which I've been too busy to release. I have a whole range of new "scale mounts" for every ship size that I have vehicle sizes for from 50kT to 5000kT, and then there are several types of component that can use this. I have a new Category of armor (armored shell) in addition to the existing Proportions armor types, which uses this, as well as applying it to cloaking devices, stealth and scattering armor, scanner jammers, and emergency propulsion.

From the readme draft:

* Added Scale mounts. These make the size, cost and supply use of certain
components directly proportional to the size of the thing they are
built on. Applies to components which naturally require effort and size
based on design size: Stealth Armor, Scattering Armor, Emissive Armor,
Scanner Jammer, Emergency Propulsion, Cloaking Devices.
Note: Upgraded games from earlier Proportions Versions will find existing
components of these types unchanged, but unable to be repaired until
retrofit with scale-mounted Versions.

I really love the effect on some of these, because it gives appropriate new abilities to smaller ships. A small cloaked ship is now not hugely expensive, but a cloaked baseship is, etc.

PvK

Re: full coverage armor
 

okay, using better math this time.

where density = 1, mass = volume. v=4/3*pi*r^3, therefore r=(mass/((4/3)*pi))^(1/3)
and area=4*pi*r^2

so still using 1/500 mass, a 200KT hull takes a 1.31% size armor component, and a 15000KT hull takes a 0.311% size armor component.

much better, though 1/500 mass might be a bit small.

Re: full coverage armor
 

You are confusing me with the 1/500 thing. The way I see it what you really need to be concerned about is surface area. Since we don't really know what the thickness of the armor is we can use pretty much any number there. But the thickness should stay the same no matter how big the ships gets. So what we nee is a ratio of surface area from one size to another.

You can get surface area from radius and you can get radius from volume using the formulas you already gave. Calculating the surface area of a 150KT escort and a 1500Kt baseship tells you the surface area of a baseship is 4.64 time larger than the surface area of an escort. So to get the same protection that a 10Kt piece of armor gives to a 150Kt escort you would need roughly a 50Kt piece of armor for a 1500kt baseship.

It's not a linear relationship but there is probably a way to make one formula and calculate the size of the armor based on hull size.

Is that what you are trying to do? I am a little confused. My math is a little rusty.

Geoschmo

Re: full coverage armor
 

using the actual ship tonnage for mass in the formulas below generates rediculously high numbers, so i am using mass/500 instead, which is essentially the same as increasing density.

edit: i actually ended up with mass/20, using 500KT armor components.

[ September 25, 2002, 23:44: Message edited by: Puke ]

Re: full coverage armor
 

To keep calculations easier I'd suggest using Cubes for calculating surface area.
So it would be
Length X Height X Width X 6
Then decide The Weight of the Armor per cubic unit
This way you could apply Heavy armor to an Escort if you wanted to or Light armor to a Battle Crusier
My understanding of Proportions is this would allow a trade off in Number of Engines / Speed / Amount of Armor
Or: have I over simplyfied?
2nd Edit: What I meant to say the first time.
Final Edit:
As ships got longer and higher wider the calcs would be easy, (I think).
I guess this means making an "Armor Weight class" for each hull size

[ September 25, 2002, 23:57: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: full coverage armor
 

to late, i already put the real formulas into a excel spreadsheet, and rounded off the final answer to the second decimal point, and plugged that into my components enhancement file.

im glad to say that it works gloriously, although there is now a need for small (1kt) space filling components to account for all the oddball armor sizes. i think that reinforcing bulkheads will answer the call, as i am having a hard time justifying bringing cargo and supply niches down to the 1kt size.

Re: full coverage armor
 

1kt components? Small suplimental ECM or Sensors?
Maybe they would add 1/2 what an equivelent size ECM would generate?

[ September 26, 2002, 00:30: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: full coverage armor
 

I think any of those three would be appropriate for the 1kt components. All three of those make perfect sense to me as "filler space" on the ship.

Geoschmo

Re: full coverage armor
 

And for the role-player in all of us:

How about 1kt "luxury" components? You know, high quality officer's quarters, an on-ship bar, civilian quarters, observation decks, heck, maybe even a Zee-Gee pool. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Maybe even a brig, or diplomatic quarters, or something that wouldn't need a whole lot of space, might not have a practical in-game use, but would at least give us the satisfaction that not a single kiloton of potential space is going to waste in any of our ship designs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: full coverage armor
 

"im glad to say that it works gloriously, although there is now a need for small (1kt) space filling components to account for all the oddball armor sizes. i think that reinforcing bulkheads will answer the call, as i am having a hard time justifying bringing cargo and supply niches down to the 1kt size."

(from Deathstalker's Mount Mod 1.3-Gold)

Long Name := Ship Armor Plating
Short Name := Plate Armor
Description := Small units of armor added to reinforce critical areas of a ship or unit.
Code := Plt
Cost Percent := 10
Tonnage Percent := 10
Tonnage Structure Percent := 10
Damage Percent := 10
Supply Percent := 10
Range Modifier := 0
Weapon To Hit Modifier := 0
Vehicle Size Minimum := 0
Comp Family Requirement := 10
Weapon Type Requirement := None
Vehicle Type := Ship/Base/Satellite/Weapon Platform
Number of Tech Req := 2
Tech Area Req 1 := Armor
Tech Level Req 1 := 2
Tech Area Req 2 := Physics
Tech Level Req 2 := 1

or in other words, 1kt armor 'patches'
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ September 26, 2002, 02:41: Message edited by: Deathstalker ]

Re: full coverage armor
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That'd be me. *blush*

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That would be a BRILLIANT idea, IMO ... but it might also be more appropriate for *shield* generators (putting 100 points of shield energy around a 100kT ship, should require l.ess power, and less machinery (etc), thanputting the same 100 points of energy around a 1500kT ship ...).

Re: full coverage armor
 

Hot foot,
I guess if you wanted to carry that a bit further, perhaps it could be built into part of a game where the "goal" of one side would be to capture the ship with the Embasador on board.

Re: full coverage armor
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, it would certainly introduce some interesting role-playing opprotunities at the very least. Though you could code something into the game where it could be considered some sort of victory (or defeat) for one side or another.

Re: full coverage armor
 

Hotfoot,
Here is a thread on, "Capture the Flag" ideas. May be of intereste to you.
Capture The Flag Thread

Re: full coverage armor
 

Might be too late to chime in, since Puke already made the enhancement file, but here are my $0.02 anyway.
Puke, if I understand this correctly you are changing the size of the armor component and leave the structure constant, right? That leaves you with some odd numbers. How about if you keep the size of the armor constant and let the mounts change the structure? In effect that would mean that 10kT of armor will result in a 'thicker' armor on an escort compared to a battleship. That also means that armor on bigger ships will take longer to repair, since you must use more components to get the same amount of protection. Not sure if that side effect is desired or not. Just an idea, anyway.

Re Shields: I proposed such a system a while ago. Makes perfect sense to me that shields get weaker on bigger ships. Worked out a system for this, too. Got mixed reactions on this and seemed too much work at the time, since the my to-do-list was already long. So I haven't yet implemented it, but I am still considering it for a future Version of DNM.

Rollo

Re: full coverage armor
 

hey, i like your idea better, Rollo. good thing i kept the spreadsheet, it should be simple enough to tweak it to increase durability rather than decrease size, although if i go down that road, the armor mount might end up playing second fiddle to p&n style 'premium' component mounts.

Re: full coverage armor
 

It seems to me, that the difference between shields and armor, is that armor can get holes in it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
With an energy shield, it should be easy for the protection to remain balanced in each direction until the entire field collapses.

If shields were to be left almost normal, and the armor were altered as discussed below, you could get a nice divergence between large and small ships. (Set the balance so that shield and armor are equally effective on a Cruiser, say. Then small ships would be better with armor, and bigger ships better with shields)

It would also create a mid-game situation where large ships are available, but they are only useful for non-combat jobs (since shields haven't been researched to worthwhile levels yet.