Armor Questions

[cwemyss]

OK, a couple questions about armor, I've pieced together some info from the 1.1 manual and some of the forum responses, but I've got questions.

1) "Light Cruiser" armor: discovering Light Cruiser armor allows armor other than Protected Cruiser for CLs, is that correct?  For some reason I was expecting to have a new armor configuration choice when I went to the ship designer.

2) "All or Nothing" armor: The way I read the rules and a couple forum responses, a ship with "Flat Deck on Belt" armor, with 0 BE/DE armor, will get AoN armor benefits.  Questions as follows:

  - Is that correct?

  - Does that include any ships designed/built that way prior to AoN research completion?

  - Does that include CLs, after Light Cruiser armor is researched?

  - What are the benefits of AoN armor?

3) Why is 0.5" armor listed in the ship designer as an available thickness, if it always throws an error?  I was going to put very light armor on a large MS for colony duties, but I had to bump it to 1".

[ccip]

1) That's correct - and you can still build protected cruisers if you want after that.

2) That's also correct - it only works on flat deck + armor. Be careful using it before your AON technology is researched, because even though you can build ships with belt/deck extensions set at 0 inches, they will be much more vulnerable to damage than a true "AON" ship, and you can't simply "upgrade" once the technology is discovered. A pre-AON ship is a pre-AON ship - once you build it that way, it keeps its configuration and will still be vulnerable after you research AON. It applies to cruisers too.

The benefit is a) saving weight on armored extensions that you can instead use on other things (better machinery and armament); b) better overall protection for core parts of the ship like magazines and propulsion, which are now completely enclosed behind your main belt/deck. Your ship will be more vulnerable to flooding from BE/DE hits that will slow it down as a result, but AON ships cannot be seriously damaged or taken out of action by BE/DE hits, unlike pre-AON ships. To kill an AON ship, you have to penetrate its main belt/deck.

3) You can use 0.5 for certain things like turret roofs, and you can use .5 increments for everything else. But minimum belt/deck thickness is always 1 in.

[krawa]

Aug 3, 2015 14:41:46 GMT -6 ccip said:

The benefit is ... b) better overall protection for core parts of the ship like magazines and propulsion, which are now completely enclosed behind your main belt/deck.

Sorry but I think your post as it is might be misleading on this point (or I don't fully understand the Topic?).

First I'm not sure if magazines or machinery spaces can be hit without piercing B and/or D for either armour scheme, IMO AON or doesn't make any difference.

I agree with you that AON offers better overall protection than the Standard scheme but you have to keep in mind that this is per used amour weight, not thickness. For the same belt thickness AON actually gives LESS protection as it is lacking the deckslope behind it, so in order to reach the same protection level you need to use some of the weight saved from discarding BE/DE to increase the belt armour. 

[ccip]

Well, I should clarify that I meant "in theory" and I was definitely talking about weight not thickness - I'm assuming that everybody who uses AON will end up putting more of their weight allowance into increasing the thickness main belt and deck anyway. If you put the weight savings from AON all into machinery or armament, then yes, you're completely right - you will be much less protected. But I can't think of any example where I did that, at least - seems like that would not be a smart thing to do!

One thing where AON does have an effect as far as thickness (or lack thereof!) is the extensions - where 0 armor pre-AON and 0 armor post-AON is a huge difference. Before AON that's a fatal weakness, after AON not so much.

I also should also add that regardless of scheme, turret armor and torpedo protection is another part that shouldn't be ignored and AON won't save you from either magazine explosions or torpedo hits!