Re: "realistic" ship design.
 

Well, maybe solar sails should be protected by shields. If the shields are a bubble around the whole ship.

There is also the physical properties of the sail to consider. They are very large, very thin things. Perhaps the weapons would go right through them, making small holes and such, but not seriously degrading their performance until a lot of damage was done, or a hit landed on some vital mounting point which could be protected by the armor.

There are also theories now about magnetic or electrostatic solar sails where the sail itself is not a phisical object that could be damaged. In taht case you'd have to hit the generator and that could certainly be protected by armor.

Geo

Re: "realistic" ship design.
 

Posted by Geo:
"right through them, making small holes and such, "
Reminds me of paintings of Wooden Warships with cannon ball holes through there sails.
Anybody ever play, "Wooden Ships and Iron Men"?
You were in big trouble if your rigging / mounting got recked.

Re: "realistic" ship design.
 

Right Gryph, that's kind of what I had in mind too. IIRC they could take lots of shots through the sails, but if one hit the mast square they were pretty much dead.

Geoschmo

"realistic" ship design.
 

This is an idea for modders:
It does not sound right that armor protects solar sails and solar batteries - they are mean do be outside the hull and in fact can be or even should be bigger in size than the ship herself.
So, why not add "armor" ability to such components with some tiny number. Then they will be destroyed before any damage can be done to the "inside" components that are supposedly protected by ship armor. The same can be done to mod externally mount weapons, external fuel cells, etc.
I have no idea though how to make solar sails not to be protected by ship shields.