[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Puke:
the porportions mod (and some others) uses a concept where regular armor does not get damaged first, but mearly soaks up damage as if it were a regular component. it also has a kind of armor that IS damaged first, but provides less protection (presumeably since it is more spread out)

CAR WARS is a steve jackson game, loosely themed around Mad Max. it has a concept where armor is heavier on larger vehicles, because you need more to cover a larger car or van.

some genius recently (okay, a month or so ago) came up with the idea to use engine mounts to allow for a better QNP movement system, by scaling engine size to match ship size.

What are peoples thoughts about using an Armor Mount to scale ship-covering armor to mass more on larger ships? I think that I brought this up in the thread about the engines, but as im putting together my GritTech mod, and am thinking of including this, I thought it deserved its own discussion.

edit: i was first inclined towards basing the armor mass around cylindrical surface area, but to be as fair as possible, perhaps it should be based on spherical surface area. that way, it could be assumed that even if the ship is not perfectly spherical, some facings might not need to be as heavily armored if the ship could be manuvered to present its strongest side in battle. even though ships might not be designed to provide perfect surface area efficiency, they could be constructed in such a way that their armor requirements were the same as if they were.

On one side:

The function of armor is different from the function of engines. While it does make sense to have larger armor for larger ships (and I have modded this myself) it doesn't make sense to require that the armor be larger. It is possible for an engine to be 'too small to be effective' relative to ship size but not really possible for armor to be 'too small to be effective' in the same way. Sure, lighter armor is less effective than heavier armor but there are corresponding advantages to lighter armor. And you are getting at least some protection from even the lightest armor.

On the other side:

Ships are physical structures and building them requires that you follow basic rules of engineering dictated by your materials. Since it makes sense for the actual structure of the ship to be proportionaly larger and heavier (diminishing returns) as the ship gets larger, so it makes sense for the armor to be larger and heavier. Many mods include increasingly steeper basic hull costs as ships get larger. So it does make some sort of sense in these terms to force armor to be larger and more expensive for larger ships.

Conclusion:

Roll your own and enjoy.