Some where in the mass of postings is Steve's original post on how the missile armor worked. As I recall It only applied to beam weapons. Any missile that hit another missile was supposed to auto kill both missiles. Sort of like in Star Fleet Battle's. The missile was however supposed to have a 1 point warhead as a minimum to qualify.
That sums it up well. The armour on missiles reduces the chance of a beam weapon kill but does not affect missiles. A better name than armour might be more appropriate as well. Does v3.1 have "ablative armour" on the missile design window or have I only added that for v3.2?
The formula for beam kills vs missiles is Weapon Damage / (Missile Armour + Weapon Damage)) * 100. So a 1 point hit on a missile with 1 armour would be 50%. A 3 point hit on a missile with 2 armour would be 60%.
Missiles do need a 1 point warhead according to the rules but after Charlie reported this I looked and the code doesn't check. So 0 point warheads will work in v3.1 but I have fixed it for v3.2 (which won't be long now).
Steve
BTW: 3.1 does say "Ablative Armor".
From your statement above, I take it missile armor only affects beam weapons. Including gauss and rail guns (which are kind of in the beam weapon category)? Given the fact that anti-missiles need a warhead, which means that they rely on an explosion to kill their target, rather than kinetic impact, I would think ablative armor might work against missiles as well, although not against weapons requiring impact like gauss and rail guns.
Another thing about armor, I'd like to suggest a change so that increasing armor technology increases the effectiveness of armor on a missile. Exactly like missile engine tech increases the effectiveness of missile engines per space devoted to them. This could either be based solely on the race's armor tech, or you could make a special missile armor tech line.
Kurt
PS: I had a whole long post planned about changes I'd like to see in the way missiles are designed and modifications to the various things that go into missiles, but when I checked I realized that you were a step ahead of me.