quote:
Missiles-
-Small & Large missile types
-Fusion
-Nuclear
So, small & large chemical warheads (chemical = C4 style blam, not poison).
Then fission warheads, then fusion warheads, then maybe antimatter warheads.
'Cause nuclear includes Fusion, you know
.
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Just to clarify something, atomannj:
What do you mean by shields?
Nothing like original SE4, I hope.
"Electromagnetic Defenses" would be ECM
"Gravimetric Defense Grid" would be a crystalline effect (subtract damage by slowing the projectile)
Shadow ships' defenses are probably best modeled by a large emmissive armor ability (if it ever gets fixed), or crystalline in the meantime.
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There are more than enough ways to make defenses that don't require a shield to be worn down before the ship is damaged.
1) Defense % bonus. (ECM style)
- lots of varieties possible, most included in standard SE4, but they could be beefed up and spread out in the tech tree
2) Classic armor.
- I'd reccommend making beam weapons skip armor, since they put a tiny hole in the armor, then gut your ship
- Kinetic and plasma weapons can be non-armor skipping, since they just bLast the surface of the ship to bits.
3) Emissive armor.
- unfortunately, this ability has not been fixed, but the effect can be modeled using the crystalline armor ability.
-
Be sure to make it a "one-per-vehicle" thing, or your players will build invulnerable ships
- great for ships like the shadows, who can absorb one solid hit for an unlimited time, but is wiped out by any more than that.
Given the crytalline ability, and the minimum required shield points to support that crys ability, it will work great, ignoring weak hits.
4) Internal "armor"
- by making tough, but inert components, you can simulate a B5 type armor.
In this case, most shots do some internal damage, but not the full amount. The more armor added, the smaller the chance that an internal component will be lost.
In order to punch through all that armor, beam weapons simply do LOTS of damage.
A ship peppered by small hits will occasionally lose a critical component, and it could happen at any time.
A beam weapon would slice off perhaps 1/6th of the ship, depending on size, instantly crippling the ship.
5) Organic Armor.
- As seen in SE4, also potential use combined with another type of armor
6) Organic internals.
- make all components (not armor) regenerate, but keep the values very small (zero or one for most).
-When designing a ship, place components in the order you wish your damage control teams to work. eg: bridge first, then one weapon, then sensors, then one lifesupport, then point-defense...
The organic regen will happen in that order.
- make Damage Control Team component, with a large value for OA.
- a cruiser with DCTs for 30 OA regen per turn can repair three minor (10 hitpoint)components per turn (Eg. emergency patch an atmosphere leak (lifesupport component)), or can fix a light weapon in 3 combat turns (90 hitpoints).
All values are subject to scaling!
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From what I've seen of B5, everybody maxes out on type 1 defenses. Mainly, since once you
are hit, you are dead meat.
Type 6 is pretty weak for most ships, but does occur according to plot
Ships which are holed early, and then given lots of time alone could jury-rig a gun to fire potshots, for example.
Type 4 armor is good, since fighters can pop lots of shots into the big ships to wear them down, and the big ships can slice each other in two. Also, there is a little bit of Type 3 in every armor. The old ships have very low amounts, but they can stop small arms without suffering significant damage. The older races have moderate ability values, and the shadows & vorlons have lots.