The rational of at least the current armor skipping weapons is that they penetrate it, not 'slip by' it. It would be nice to have a slight chance to 'skip' armor with any weapon, but that's a combat change that MM will have to consider seperately. I'd like to see the three 'layers' of a ship like SE III had brought back for SE V, too.
I doubt that emissive armor will be so powerful that the 're-emitted' energy of a single round could make the difference of a ship being destroyed or not. By the time a ship is about to be destroyed the armor is a ragged mass of shredded metal, or completely vaporized. If the damage fro one round is so huge that it could wipe the ship out in that single hit then it's not surprising the armor would be over-whelmed anyway.
[ March 19, 2003, 15:46: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]