[LGM]

Because of construction aspects, Organic III is the best, but neither is justification alone for buying their associated advanced trait. Look at their other components and facilities. Both are better than Armor III.

Organic Armor's main strength lies in that it uses no Minerals to add it to a ship, making for faster construction time. The regeneration is nice, but the regeneration amount is trivial in the late game as you add weapons with larger mounts that will quickly shred through whatever armor you can affort to put on your ships.

Crystalline Armor still uses minerals, but it uses fewer per point of protection than Armor III. The shield boon is small when you figure one or two hits will destroy a piece of armor from a larger mount weapon.

Armor III uses 1.25 Minerals per point of protection Crystalline uses .47 Minerals and .47 Radioactives per point of protection, excluding points added to the shields, but only comes in 30 KT increments whereas Armor III comes in units of 10 KT. Organic uses only organics, .87 Organics per point of protection. If you have shields and only take one big hit, Crystalline is worth 165 points of protection, which would be .42 Minerals and Radioactives per pointof protection, which is marginally better than Organics. It is hard to predict how much bonus protection, if any, you get from regeneration of organic armor, because it depends on the tactical situation.

To take it further you should take Armor Protection / KT of space / Resources Used. From a pure resource per point of coverage, Crystalline Armor I is better than Crystalline Armor III, but III uses the hull space more efficiently.

[ December 15, 2002, 12:09: Message edited by: LGM ]