Indeed -- the point is to allow for "ablative" armor through a special rule, rather than a separate construction process. You build your ship normally, print out your ship display normally, and just cross off one section of armor before the start of the game.

This should be balanced against "normal" armor, and thus not affect construction/point-costing in any way.

The theory is that hull hits in the first section are worth more than those in the second section, which are in turn worth more than those in the third section. (Because until you reach that first damage check, you have all of your weapons, your shields/ECM are at full-strength, etc., meaning your ship is more efficient earlier in the game.) So, you could think of a ship's "effective" hull strength as follows:

( 3 x HULL-1 + 2 x HULL-2 + 1 x HULL-3 ) / 2

Since all ships have the same split in hull boxes (33% in each section) there's usually no need for this equation (we're ignoring rounding here). Armor simply adds to the number of hull boxes in each section:

( 3 x (ARMOR-1 + HULL-1) + 2 x (ARMOR-2 + HULL-2) + 1 x (ARMOR-3 + HULL-3) ) / 2

If, however, all the armor is added to the first hull section, the equation becomes:

( 3 x (ARMOR-1 + ARMOR-2 + ARMOR-3 + HULL-1) + 2 x HULL-2 + 1 x HULL-3 ) / 2

Comparing an armor 12, hull 12 ship in "normal" and "front-loaded" versions:

NORMAL: ( 3 x (4 + 4) + 2 x (4 + 4) + 1 x (4 + 4) ) / 2 = 24

FRONT-LOADED: ( 3 x ( [4 + 4 + 4] + 4) + 2 x 4 + 1 x 4 ) / 2 = 30

In this case, front-loading increases the "effective" hull size by 25%. However, if you drop the armor by 33% (i.e. ignore one section of armor), you end up with:

NORMAL: ( 3 x (4 + 4) + 2 x (4 + 4) + 1 x (4 + 4) ) / 2 = 24

FRONT-LOADED: ( 3 x ( [4 + 4] + 4) + 2 x 4 + 1 x 4 ) / 2 = 24

Voila!

Also incorrect. Ships do have 50% more hull boxes than in Admiralty edition; however, every hit goes to the hull (or armor) rather than a 50/50 split between hull damage and systems-only damage. Thus, ships in Nova are actually 25% LESS resilient than in Admiralty.

The primary rationale is retaining the balance between the different forms of defense.

In any event, I am open to playtest reports. If someone wants to try giving fighters an additional +1 attack modifier across the board to see how they fare, I'm happy to listen. However, be advised that I'm relatively confident fighters are costed appropriately for their current capabilities -- even though they may be underpowered compared to their Admiralty edition counterparts.

With the "long shots" rule, fighters still get at least one attack die out to -7.

However, you could allow two full strength or two damaged flights to combine fire with a +2 bonus. One full-strength and one damaged flight would combine at +1.

From a starting effectiveness point of view, Shields 4+ is the same as ECM 2 is the same as Armor = Hull. However, the armor is slightly MORE effective over the course of a battle, because it doesn't degrade like shields or ECM.

It's the same link as provided in your purchase confirmation email.

I cannot figure out the problem. The Drydock works fine when applying a single trait, but goes all wonky when applying two or more.

I uploaded the 1.1 file yesterday (again?). The filename is mjg0130_v1_1.zip.

<concerned face>

I added the updated version to RPGNow/Wargame Vault at the same time I updated the one on our site. I'll check it again.

No, this is not correct. Something is wrong with the fighter traits.

It is not tournament-legal to have multiple instances of Scout and/or Escort on the same ship. I will need to find a way to stop the Drydock from allowing this...