[President_Elect_Shang]

Well I was having a great debate with my History professor so I need to change gears, however let me address these questions.

Magnum: Sorry to hear that you can’t beta test but by all means tackle the ship sets. Send an email to the address I provided and I will send you a list of the updated ship hulls, I have the feeling that you are working off of the pre-UTM hulls. Also should you enlist any other aid let me know so that can give proper credit. If you do get aid from others than I will trust you to act as the “Lead Designer” and follow your recommendations (it will save you from having to ask me for guidance) unless it is something far out of lines with the StarFire motif, but I seriously doubt that will be the case as you are really working unrestricted already. *Motif? Define StarFire motif?*

Inner and Outer Hull: This is a fair idea but I can see too many complications with it:

First is the damage. If I where to increase the tonnage structure of a component that sits on the Outer Hull I would have to increase the damage of all weapons so that a single hit could still destroy that system, this would mean that a single hit could destroy multiple Inner Hull systems.
Second is the AI factor, I can’t say for certain but it would seem to me that the AI would have a hic-up applying the actual armor component to a ship that has components with armor traits. Let’s say that I set the AI to create ship A with two points of armor and it adds two components with the armor trait, now it has no need to add actual armor as it has just satisfied the requirements.
Third it would still be random, if you have two components with the armor trait (component A and B in that order) it can not be guaranteed that A will be damaged and destroyed before B. The sought after effect is still missing.
Fourth: I could increase the tonnage structure of Inner Hull components to make up for the lop-sided effect of the Outer Hall, yet still is the fact that anything with the armor trait is fair game for damage. In other words it would be nuts to loose your “Outer Hull” missile launcher before all of your armor is gone. Then again I could increase the tonnage structure of all armor, and then I would have to increase the damage of all weapons that hit armor, then that would be too much damage on internal scores, increase their tonnage structure… See the dilemma?

So “Leaky Armor” just won’t work in this mod and still keep a balance. Now on to the Last item, I saved it for Last on purpose. The issue of the interdiction field, I may have an idea that will work however that is something I think should be addressed “off forum”. Once I create the outline and an explanation as to the idea I will email my proposal to the addresses you have provided me. Mr. Floppy at what address should I contact you, or would you prefer a private message for ease?

Almost forgot, shields, they are modeled just as normal shields in SE4G. I could not see any difference between the two except that 3rdE shields interdict scanning and that was easy to add in. I can not say for certain that it will work and there is no way to avoid scanning a ship once combat has started. Other than this one “flaw in application” it should by all rights work just as in 3rdE, beta testing needed of course.