Not that I doubt your results, but I am intrigued that there is a difference. As "pseudo-hull", the effectiveness of ablative armor should not depend upon other factors... :?:

1) No.

2) I wouldn't.

:idea: Try the same ships again, but make only this one change:  Increase the amount of hull & ablative armor.  Let one ship have  16 hull and the other ship have 10 hull with 9 ablative armor.  This should make a difference.  At the point where each ship has had 9 hits get thru their shields, the Ablative armored ship will have all of its systems intact.  The nine internals on the 16 hull ship will knock down shields, knock out weapons & engines.  It should impair its fighting ability.  Although it should have 11 or 12 hull left vs the 10 on the ablative armored ship, the loss of weapons, shields, and engines will leave it with less combat ability.  0r, at least, logic and statistics would predict this.  :shock:

Hello again Marcus,

I played Starmada today, and am playing again Sunday. 
:idea: I have made an Ablative-Armor version of the 24 Hull  "Improved USS Mississippi" that is listed in the 'Basin.  I calculate that by dropping the Armor Plating, and adding 20 Ablative Armor, this ship's CR becomes 1317. 
(Please let me know if this is inaccurate).   

I plan to play 2 of these battleships with escorts in a big battle that 4 of us are playing @ Wardogs here in Jacksonville on Sunday. Each player gets 3000 points, two players on a side.   I will let everyone know how this turns out. 
[The game today in St Augustine was awesome; Sunday's should be excellent also]

Twenty Ablative-Armor may sound excessive; but hey, if ur gonna protect ur ships, Protect them well :!:
Ironically, there is a parallel in what we are doing and the game Full Thrust, which my friends and I played 'til we discovered Starmada. 
With most Full Thrust weapons, any hits a ship takes go first to armor.  As a result, my ships in that game had lotsa armor; almost as much as they had hull.  Just like the Ablative-armor editions of the refitted Mississippi class BBs
Then the Kre'Vak came in with Kinetic Penetration Weapons.  These did only one armor per hit, then the rest of the damage was all hull damage.   As a result, I changed all of my Full Thrust ships to have adequate armor, and lotsa hull. 
A weapon that one of my friends used yesterday, down in St Augustine, is similar to these "K-guns.  His weapon is: {range=18, 3+ to hit, 3/1/3, with "double hull hits" taken twice}.  We presumed that this weapon ability from the ship designer that works with Open 0ffice means 'extra hull damage'.  So each hit that gets thru does six hull hits +  3 damage-roll hits.  He also had 2 TD&R on this ship; Very brutal.  If these become more popular, it will be better to have Armor plating back, even if it means deleting the Ablative armor. 
I am not sure if a ship can have both... :?

I played full thrust before coming to Starmada.. so I'm familiar with the addition, and then deletion, of massive armor belts.

As for the 'K Gun' weapon your friend is using.. while I dont have that version of the SXCA in front of me, id double check that 'double hull hits' is the same as 'extra hull damage'.  The author might have meant something else (Id just double check the multiplier.. if its x3, its extra hull damage.. extra Hull Damage is a BIG multiplier!)

Side note.. your friends weapon, assuming that its using the x3 mutliplier, may be too expensive for what hes getting... the 'normal' weapon does .5 hull hits per damage roll.  The 'extra hull damage' weapon does 1.5 hull hits per damage roll (because it always hits at least one hull), and thus costs 3 times as much.  If this weapon always does 2 hull, plus the roll, its average damage is 2.5 hull hits...  or 5x as much as the normal weapon.  However, hes paying 9x as much as the normal weapon, if hes appling that modifier twice.

wish I had a copy of that one in front of me.

As for whether or not the 'extra hull damage' of an extra hull damage weapon ignores the ablative armor... I suppose it really ought to, since ablative armor is priced appropriate to preventing the normal damage roll.  Hmm, thats kinda cool... 'extra hull damage' weapons would then do 1 hull damage, and also knock off a point of ablative armor (and not get to roll).

Too true.

I'd be happy if we still capped hull sizes at 12, like in the first versions of the game.

The 24 hull DNs that I frequently play may seem a little big.  But I think of the "refitted USS Mississippi" class as being 12 hull ships with the 'compendium-style Reinforced Hull.  It is an effective design, but from time to time, one of them has been destroyed. 

The 5800 point battle that we played on Wed in St Augustine involved ships of all sizes from 10 hull spinal-mount CR = 262 to the 24 hulled DNs.  The entire battle took less than 3 hours to play, even with battle satellites, and long-range fighters involved.  It was a blast. 

The smooth play of Starmada makes even large battles such as these easy to handle.  Again, my complements to the designers. 

Having to keep the enemy in "C" or "D" arc is a challenge, but overthrusters help... I use the level 3 shields as screens. Keeping them up in the right direction is definitely not always easy. :shock:

Hello everyone,

Three of my friends and I played a 6,000 points-a-side game today.  I played two of my California class BBs, escorted by a DD that carries 40 drones.  The details on these BBs, which have 20 ablative armor, can be found in the Bourbaki Basin.  The battle took c2 hours 45 min.  The usefulness of Ablative armor was conclusively proven.   Yet the cost being too low was also very obvious.  The cost now is three of the ablative armor costs the same as two hull.  Based on analyzing the battle and discussing this with my friends, I think the cost should be that three of the Ablative armor costs the same as four hull.

There were several reasons we think the cost should be doubled.  First, the armor absorbs hits just as hull, but unlike hull, this ab-armor protects shields, weapons, engines, & equiptment completely, until all of it is gone.  It is thus better than hull so should cost more. 

A comparison of these 2 nearly identical ships listed in the Boubaki Basin is useful: 
When USS California takes 18 internals, it looses no systems, just ab-armor, and is still fully effective.  When the previous "refitted USS Mississippi", takes 18 points of damage, its a different story!   Assuming average distribution of hits, the Mississippi will loose 3 weapons, 3 engines, all three shields, 3 equipment, and c6 hull (instead of ablative armor, it has armor plating).  Although repairs can be made, the shields cannot be brought to 3 again, the 3 weapons, if repaired, won't fire as well.  Clearly, the Mississippi is now much more vulnerable, especially if no shields get repaired and it has to rely only on its PDS for protection.  Given the randomness of repair rolls, this can happen.  This also leads me to conclude that the cost of Ablative armor should be increased.   What do others think?

I enjoy having the Ablative armor on my ships, but want to calculate its cost accurately & fairly. 
(Perhaps then my friends will let me use it again) 
We are playing again on Wednesday 7/25. 

Good idea Daniel,
I will give it a try, with the
cost of Ablative Armor = the cost of hull,
and see what happens.  Hopefully I can convince my friends to let me use ships with Ablative Armor again.

Actually, my experience with the one or two hull small ships is that only limited firepower is directed at them.  They are only in range when my big ships are in range.  So if my opponent fires too many weapons at them, he is not firing less at my BBs.  So often just a little firepower is directed at them.  With 2 or 3 ablative armor, these small ships would survive this shot, and require a second shot to be destroyed, further reducing hostile fire at the big ships.  My small ships now have PDS and level 2 screens, forward firing weapons and spinal mounts.  They strengthen the front shield and usually can only be penetrated on a roll of "6".  Sometimes they are harder to damage than the bigger ships.

I have a plan  to deal with the slower ships referred to in another posting, with only AB arcs.  Keep your fleet the same, but have a small "DDG" = 40 drone carrying ship with one launch bay.  It can launch all 40 drones in 2 turns.  Slow ships are very vulnerable to these.  If possible, have the drones hit the big slow ship not in the front shield, but in a side or rear one.  The turn that these drones are going to hit, get your fleet in range.  The drones will probably reduce his shields and make him vulnerable to that turns firing.  Clobber the big ship with your entire fleet!!!  This works for me every time...

This will give you a good approximation, but it isn't totally accurate, as the ablative armor should only increase the point cost on the DefRat side -- hull size is also used on the OffRat side, although to a minimal extent.

Yes, it would. But only for the defensive rating; i.e., instead of HULL x SHIELD RATING, it becomes (HULL + ARMOR) x SHIELD RATING.

However, I was pointing out that the hull size also has an effect on the offensive rating. From A.2.1: "A starship's base offensive rating is: Hull Size x (MPs + 1)".

And I'm saying that armor should not impact this part of the equation. However, changing the hull size in the SXCA will change that part of the equation, so the resulting CR is not completely accurate.

That's all.