[Suicide Junkie]

I guess I was just surprised that the armour was so ineffective and surmise that I must have been doing something wrong on the design front. I was mixing up the various flavours (i.e. Primary, Alternate and Addtional) as well as including ten or twenty units of Structural Supports - does that have a negative impact on the efficiency of the protection? Or did I have unrealstic expectations of how much protection the amounts I fitted (five or six 'slabs') would afford me?

Well, first of all, structural supports are just that... since they have fewer hitpoints than most of your components, they are usually hit LAST.
As the description says, though, this can hold the ship together...
If the enemies aren't careful, they'll probably waste shots attacking the dead hulk...

For moderate to small ships, you probably only want the "Primary" Passive Armor, and possibly a second for cruisers.
It gives you some crystalline ability, so you'll take less damage from each hit, but dosen't provide the "bulk"...

You will want to bulk up using inert armor for more solid protection
(the crystalline effect will reduce incoming fire, the inert armor can protect the internals from the rest)

In general, the Heavier the armor, the better.
Even though it has a lower hitpoints per size ratio, the heavy stuff absorbs a greater % of the shots, letting less damage leak into the critical components.
Of course, if your ships are getting vaporized in one volley by large fleets, try lighter armor, for the added hitpoints. Your ship will still be a writeoff, but it will distract the enemies longer.
In small combats, heavy armor is better because your weapons and engines will remain intact longer, allowing you to dish out more damage.

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For inert armor;
Light armor = more total hitpoints
Medium armor = average all around.
Heavy armor = more protection to critical systems.

Structural supports are a special case past the extreme-light end of the spectrum... They have infinite hitpoints per KT space, but provide basically no protection to internals.

Passive armor reduces the incoming damage, but can't do all the protecting on its own... think of it as multiplying the hitpoints of your inert armor by a few percentage points.
EG: if your passive armor totals 5 CA points, and your enemy's guns do 20 damage, your inert armor will effectively have 30% more hitpoints.

PS:
And don't bother expecting to not get holes
With armor, the holes will just be smaller; in combat, anyone who is hit will bleed.

[ June 18, 2003, 00:24: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]