So I've been poking armor a bit... and been confused by it in general. Particularly, with armor upgrades. I'm assuming that it lowers the cost/weight of armor, by upgrading from one armor tech to the next. If a warhead 9 missile penetrates 3 layers at all tech levels, then it must have to do with weight, right? It doesn't make armor thicker, but it allows you to pack more on for the same space.
With that in mind, how much armor do people put on their ships? In a low-tech battle, my flagship/sensor post had 10 layers of armor and was soaking up missile fire. I saw someone else say that 35 armor was extremely thick. So is there a certain percentage of hull space that people like to dedicate, or some other determining factor? I understand that a larger ship with the same armor becomes somewhat more hardened, because chances are an attack will fall on an undamaged section instead and thus "spread the damage" over a wider area. So in a way, armor already scales with ship size. But, I'm a huge fan of big ships. If left to myself, I'll develop 50 thick armor behemoths and casually trundle up to an enemy base under intense fire.