P&N Bucky Tube Gel Armor

Suicide Junkie · #1 October 24th, 2002, 03:23 AM

Ah, but size isn't important in a spaceship. Mass is.
Since this mod uses QNP, the KT "size" of a component is a measure of mass, not volume.

The Buckytube Gel is meant to be a replacement/upgrade for your ship's decks & walls. You won't actually be making the ship that much bigger, and it would acutally get lighter since you're using BT gel instead of solid tritanium (or whatever).

If you add hundreds of them on a little escort, yeah; it would probably look like a giant ball of snot, but you'd be hard pressed to shoot the bridge through all that goop!

It would still manoeuver like an escort though, since its mass has not increased substantially.

[ October 24, 2002, 02:26: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Val · #2 October 24th, 2002, 03:33 AM

Just leaves those nasty snot trails as it flies around

Pax · #3 October 24th, 2002, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidG:
I was wondering what the idea was behind Bucky Tube Gel Armour in P&N. Since it has a size of 0 could you not make a ship almost invincible by adding a whole mess of them??

Where buckytube's rule is, in UNITS.

Satellites, WPlatforms, FIGHTERS.

They don't care about armor-vs-not-armor. They only care about HIT POINTS.

Pack in the high-cost BuckyTubes into your fighter; it mak cost as much as an escort (1 per year per planetary SpaceYard3), but damn, it'llbe near impossible to shoot down ... heh!

But even 1 or 2 of them, really REALLY does a fighter good.

Suicide Junkie · #4 October 24th, 2002, 06:50 PM

Yeah, it can be abused on Fighters... Troops too

I think I might just limit the zero-mass BTG to 1 per 5kt of hull size or so.
Just one visible mount should do it.

CombatSquirrel · #5 October 24th, 2002, 09:38 PM

Before you fix it, S_J, let me have just a few more games with my favorite: the special, made-to-order, BuckyDrones...

Cost to manufacture and fire: 265,000 Rad/Min/Org

The look on the enemy crew's faces peeking out the portholes as it sucks up PD bLast after PD bLast after PD bLast while barrelling down on them: priceless

Combat Squirrel

Suicide Junkie · #6 October 24th, 2002, 10:19 PM

I need to come up with a good policy on BTG...
If I have a maximum BTG on ships, with BTGs beyond that costing 1kt, it would be worse than Armor 1's.

For ships, I think I'll allow the below-max BTG to cost a small negative in minerals, since its replacing metallic bulkheads.
Beyond the limit (at which point your ship would be mostly composed of BTG), BTGs will cost more.

BTG for Sats and Platforms seems fine to me, and can be allowed to stand as unlimited.

Troops and fighters, and probably drones, will not get regular BTG. Instead, I'll make it an upgrade component for something else, or a maybe a mount for major structural items (Cockpit, lifesupport, engines, etc). It would add some structural points, and slightly reduced mass if possible without going to zero mass.

Are those usages/effects too different, or does what I'm saying make some sense?

CombatSquirrel · #7 October 25th, 2002, 12:55 AM

What you are proposing makes sense, but it seems like a lot of work to get the effect you want. Why not merely set a max limit on how many BTGs you may have for each vehicle type and possibly re-evalute the cost to build each BTG component. The max limit could represent the fact that although the BTG causes no relative mass increase, the basic hull of any ship still needs some percentage of non-BTG material to provide the skeletal framework.

But then again, I kinda wish no one had brought the darn thing up in the first place... I really enjoyed those darn BuckyDrones...

Combat Squirrel