Ablative Armor

[StarShadow]

Not quite, as I said, ablative armor *destroys itself* to reduce or prevent damage to it's vehicle. That is not the same as a regular armor plate that takes damage until it is destroyed. It is not possible to model true ablative armor in SE4. Also, and this is just my opinion, I do not see emissive armor as a magic armor that negates damage. It is simply an advanced armor that requires a lot of damage to overcome, in the same manner that it's nearly impossible to damage a main battle tank with small-arms. However we don't consider tank armor to be magic armor that shrugs off damage even though, with weak weapons, that's exactly what it does.

[Suicide Junkie]

Only if by "destroys itself" you mean "is destroyed by the enemy weapon".

You might be thinking of reactive armor, where you have an explosive charge in your armor plate to counter penetrating rounds.
Reactive armor is generally simulated by giving the armor a range-1 point defense weapon, with a reload time of 30.

Ablative armor absorbs a lot of energy by allowing its surface layers to be vaporized, leaving the inner layers unscathed.
This is simulated in SE4 by having very small components with good HP; each hit destroys at least one armor plate, but you have lots behind it.

In stock-like games, the repair time is usually irrelevant, since ships are very rarely left alive but damaged in combat, and repair rates are quite high.

[StarShadow]

Yes, I was thinking of reactive armor, my mistake.

[Fyron]

PvK said:
Lots of 1kT components would make it take a really long time to repair.

Which is a good thing, as it can create tradeoffs between armor and shields. With armor, you get more raw hit points but it takes a bit to repair. With shields, you get all the defense points back each combat. Turning armor into insta-repair with 100kt components makes things far less interesting IMO.