Fires and Magazine Explosions

[welchbloke]

This got me thinking about damage resolution in Aurora, and it might be time for you to revisit this, Steve, although probably not for 4.0.  The new armor system is very interesting, but has made internal armor and turret armor problematic.  Currently, Aurora treats turrets and other weapon mountings as internal systems, when turrets can only be considered external systems, and most other weapons mountings are probably the same.  Hmmm...basically, Aurora currently considers turrets as having the same armor as the rest of the ship, right?  Because first the ship's armor must be breached, and then damage can be scored on internal systems, including the turret.  

Perhaps it would be interesting if, during the design process, the designer could add extra armor to the turret.  Unlike the current system, the new system would use the armor system currently used for the hull, so that by adding additional armor to the turret the designer is adding additional lines of armor to that one area of the ship.  The amount of armor needed for each line would be based on the size of the turret, using the same formula as is used for the ship's hull.  The same scheme could be used for the ship's engines and power plants, which, IIRC, are the only things that can be armored now.  Hmmm...this might be too complex, though.  That would be adding multiple seperate armor boxes for various systems, all of which would have to be tracked.  

I don't know, I just feel that with the armor and penetration changes, it is probably time to standardize this issue.  

I certainly need to remove the internal armour as it was part of the old armour rules. I am just not sure yet how to replace it. One option is the same as the new magazines, where you can increase their HTK by adding armour. This means I don't have to track actual damage to internal armour but it makes internal systems harder to destroy at the expense of space. I could do that with engines, power plants and turrets. Another option, as you mention above, is to have separate "sections" of armour covering different parts of the ship but that would increase the complexity of both design and damage resolution quite a lot. It would also mean more armour was required for the same level of protection.As an example, five 10m3 spheres have more surface area than one 50m3 sphere so more armour would be required to cover them all to the same depth. I think the HTK system is probably the better option but I am open to ideas.

Steve

Personally, i think the HTK system would be better; otherwise there will be another increase in complexity without a huge leap in gameplay.

[Father Tim]

I too suport the HTK system, especially as I seem to recall the chance of disabling a system is poportional to the amount of damage it suffers with respect to its HTK.

[IanD]

Kurt wrote
basically, Aurora currently considers turrets as having the same armor as the rest of the ship, right? Because first the ship's armor must be breached, and then damage can be scored on internal systems, including the turret.

I am not too concerned about turret penetration before the rest of the vessel is breached. My reasoning is thus; the turret faces were some of the heaviest armoured parts of a battleship, and while the turret roof may be considered vulnerable it must be remembered that at Jutland HMS Malaya received a hit on the roof of X turret that

exploded on impact, although the 4.75 ” turret roof was set down a few inches and a very small hole made, a lot of the armour bolts were sheared but the only internal damage was to the local range-finder and the turret remained in action

(source http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/Qu ... HMS_Malaya).

The turrets were usually put out of action by other factors (see my earlier post in this thread on Scharnhorst). However it may be that the probability for externally mounted items (e.g. the turret) being put out of action (not necessarily destroyed) should be higher than for more deeply buried systems such as the CIC or magazine. This is what I was referring to in earlier posts with my reference to machinery spaces, if you can’t get the shells to the turret or you can’t train it, the turret becomes so much dead weight.

Just an after thought but if your magazine is the best protected system right at the heart of your ship and if the absence of oxygen will not inhibit its detonation, just how do you jettison the unused ordinance without creating a weak spot which could cause the event you are trying to minimise?  

Regards
Ian

[rmcrowe]

As in the late "Death Star"?!

[MWadwell]

Kurt wrote
basically, Aurora currently considers turrets as having the same armor as the rest of the ship, right? Because first the ship's armor must be breached, and then damage can be scored on internal systems, including the turret.

I am not too concerned about turret penetration before the rest of the vessel is breached. My reasoning is thus; the turret faces were some of the heaviest armoured parts of a battleship, and while the turret roof may be considered vulnerable it must be remembered that at Jutland HMS Malaya received a hit on the roof of X turret that

exploded on impact, although the 4.75 ” turret roof was set down a few inches and a very small hole made, a lot of the armour bolts were sheared but the only internal damage was to the local range-finder and the turret remained in action

(source http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/Qu ... HMS_Malaya).

The turrets were usually put out of action by other factors (see my earlier post in this thread on Scharnhorst). However it may be that the probability for externally mounted items (e.g. the turret) being put out of action (not necessarily destroyed) should be higher than for more deeply buried systems such as the CIC or magazine. This is what I was referring to in earlier posts with my reference to machinery spaces, if you can’t get the shells to the turret or you can’t train it, the turret becomes so much dead weight.

Just an after thought but if your magazine is the best protected system right at the heart of your ship and if the absence of oxygen will not inhibit its detonation, just how do you jettison the unused ordinance without creating a weak spot which could cause the event you are trying to minimise?  

Regards
Ian

Just a word of caution though - it depends on the armouring of the ship.

An example is that battle between HMAS Sydney and the Kormoran in 1941 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_bet ... r_Kormoran)

Of the Sydney's 4 turrents, 3 were put out of action by direct hits on the armoured faces by the Kormorans 150 mm guns (although at ridiculously _low_ ranges).

[jfelten]

I certainly need to remove the internal armour as it was part of the old armour rules. I am just not sure yet how to replace it. One option is the same as the new magazines, where you can increase their HTK by adding armour. This means I don't have to track actual damage to internal armour but it makes internal systems harder to destroy at the expense of space. I could do that with engines, power plants and turrets. Another option, as you mention above, is to have separate "sections" of armour covering different parts of the ship but that would increase the complexity of both design and damage resolution quite a lot. It would also mean more armour was required for the same level of protection.As an example, five 10m3 spheres have more surface area than one 50m3 sphere so more armour would be required to cover them all to the same depth. I think the HTK system is probably the better option but I am open to ideas.

Steve

The only thing I can think of is to have internal armor give a probability > 0 && < 1 that a given hit will do no damage.  Then you don't have to actually track armor damage to it over time, you just "roll the dice" every time that system is hit to see whether the armor nullified it or not.

[ShadoCat]

I certainly need to remove the internal armour as it was part of the old armour rules. I am just not sure yet how to replace it. One option is the same as the new magazines, where you can increase their HTK by adding armour. This means I don't have to track actual damage to internal armour but it makes internal systems harder to destroy at the expense of space. I could do that with engines, power plants and turrets. Another option, as you mention above, is to have separate "sections" of armour covering different parts of the ship but that would increase the complexity of both design and damage resolution quite a lot. It would also mean more armour was required for the same level of protection.As an example, five 10m3 spheres have more surface area than one 50m3 sphere so more armour would be required to cover them all to the same depth. I think the HTK system is probably the better option but I am open to ideas.

Internal armor won't ever be thick enough to worry about tracking damage to it.  I think that it can be simulate quite easily by just increasing the HTK of a system.

If someone wants to have an armored section of their ship then just armor several systems and declare that they are in the same section in the fluff text.  

One thing that would add realism but will add programming complexity is the ability to armor some portion of a set of system components.  Thus, have a few engines or a few life support modules in the armored section and the rest outside the armored section.

BTW, I glanced up and saw that my browser was flagging "armour" as a misspelling.  My first thought was that my typos were making me look like a Brit.  Then I realized that the "typos" were in Steve's quoted text.  I may be slow but I get there eventually.  

Still, I had to resist the urge to spellcheck them into "proper English."  <grin>