Should probably be able to pay for more armor if I so desire
Just add more layers?
I think Jorgen was referring to the idea of limited surface area for the ships to try to constrain box launchers, so I was saying I'd be willing to accept paying for more armor in exchange for more surface area.
Sure... if there was some sort of system for this... the problem that I have is that people almost always think like gamers and don't understand how complex things actually are in "reality" even within a games lore there are internal consistent rules you need to follow that are in some way consistent with our reality in some sense.
This is also why I think that we sometimes think that we can do this when in "reality" it would likely be impossible or the drawback would be so huge that doing so would be stupid.
A ship with too much surface area would probably be so unstable or weak that no one in their right mind would build it. The reason why you can fit more box launcher on a smaller platform is because the ship is built around the launcher system as they take up the internal part of the ship, just like a spinal weapon would. When a ship gets larger this is no longer possible so a much smaller area to fit the launchers would be possible. making the hull as thin as that of a 500t craft would make the ship so weak it might not even be able to turn without breaking or even turn their engines on (depending on the the technology work), also probably could not fit either engineering or most other components in there either in a reasonable way.
What I mean is that we often just hand-wave these limitations that most probably would exists, and the only way we can do this is role-play.
I have no problem using role-play to impose these risks, AI ships are never designed to do any of this so there is no real problem. I don't know what's in Steves mind... but from past discussions on similar matters he seem to think that people should just build reasonable ships but they don't have too. You can play however you like and use whatever restriction feels best for you. If it make little sense from an engineering perspective to fit a 20kt ship with 50% size 4 box launchers then that is how it is in your lore, there are mechanical and engineering reasons for not doing it.
I invoke MANY engineering reason for how different system can interact on different types of ship hulls, in my opinion this give allot more character to the game than just abusing game mechanic as they are. I also think this is how the game is intended to be played... using your own lore to what is possible or not.
My reasoning though was that I think the game would in general be beneficial of making it slightly more balanced so these extreme cases are less one sided as they are mainly the only way to go if you do what is most efficient from a game mechanics perspective. Not everyone can or want to role-play self limitations. Box launched strikes should still be a strong tactic, just not as strong (or the only way) and a bit more expensive.