That's an easy one.
Count all the hitpoints of all the components and add them together. Then add all shild points to this result, too. That's it. To answer your question: Special armor and shield do NOTHING, they just add their hitpoints and nothing else. If you fire on a unit it will never be damaged and only destroyed when you accumulate enough points to compensate for all of the unit hitpoints.
Extended example:
You have 2 weapon platforms. Both have a "body" (i.e. all components added together) of 500. Platform A has 1 shield V (300 shield points) so the total hitpoints for platform A is 800 (body+shield). Platform B has a phased shield V (375 shield points) so its total hitpoints are 875.
Both are stationed on the same planet and so form one stack with 1675 hit points (800+875).
If you apply 799 damage points, nothing happens.
If you apply 800 damage points, platform A (800) will be destroyed.
Iy you apply 875 damage points (in one salvo), platform A will be gone IMHO but here I could be wrong.
Anyway, you got the idea.
[ 10 December 2001: Message edited by: [K126]Mephisto ]