[Ward]

Suicide junkie:

If you are trying to maximize the defense strength of your ship (using a given amount of space, of course), then the amount of damage the enemy fires at you per round dosen't matter for shields and stealth/scattering armor.

Yes, you are right. But you can eliminate it if you wish. Just make an equation you know is right and cut the "damage dealt" off. The formula was meant to be as universal as possible. It could certainly use much refining but I thought this should suffice for your comparisons.

And whenever the to-hit chances get locked at 1% or 99%, then our formulae will certainly be off.

Again you are right. But if you begin to count the formula for such extreme circumstances, you should also count how many times enemy fires at you (and the math of many chances - two chances of 5% aren't one chance of 10% - is much more difficult and I think it's useless in this example).

You showed some interest in that so tomorrow I'll post here a complete Version taking everithing into consideration (I'll look at it at home. Now am at work and I don't have much time).

P.S.: Excuse my English, please. :-))