The armor effect is very fuzzy. The larger the armor's hp, the more likely it is to absorb hits. However, the larger armors are also slightly weaker in terms of hp/kt.
Send one ship with heavy armor against another ship with light armor (otherwise identical designs, same space devoted to armor).
What will happen is that the light armor ship will have 50% more hitpoints, but will lose most of the time.
If you look carefully, you see that the light armor ship suffers from damage skipping the armor, and loses guns, eventually turning into an inert, burning wreck, which has a few 1000 hitpoints left. The winning ship keeps firing, and eventually vaporizes the wreck.
If the light armor ship gets lucky, and dosen't lose its weapons early on, the extra hitpoints will enable it to outLast the heavy ship. When the heavy armor fails, the light would still have 40% left, and the light armor ship wins.
The structural supports form the skeleton of the ship, and can take a severe beating. Unforunately, they also tend to be the Last things hit. Think of it as light armor, taken to the extreme.
What they will do is allow your ships to hold together after being nearly destroyed, possibly drawing fire away from more important ships (ie: those with guns still operational).
They also provide a great amount of power when you are ramming someone
[ July 07, 2002, 19:23: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]