Supporting continuing development for Empyrean Challenge / Cluster Wars
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No real use for STUN in the game beyond what exists at the beginning and no incentive to increase its TL when SLS is already 10 times better (although you have to make it in an OBC).
What if STN had a protective effect like armor? For the cost of carrying around more mass on a SHP the STN would absorb some damage from enemy weapons before it was applied to the SHP. Perhaps the STN would absorb MSS damage in some amount like ESH absorb EWP - but without a FUEL cost. It would seem that EWP can drill through armor, so say it is only 20% as effective against EWP fire, much like ESH provide 20% effect against MSS that reach the S/C and explode. Feels like a balance in the universe sort of thing.
I have also been thinking that structure in general is light and might take disproportionate damage in combat, often leaving a negative space condition. Also, SLS-10 is much lighter than SLS-1 for the same volume it encloses but by definition of enclosing that space is significantly stronger or a per mass basis. To adjust fo this, I would propose all SLS takes damage as if it has the mass of SLS-1 and all STN takes damage as if it had the effective mass of STN-1.
Thoughts?
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Some people were using STUN as armor in essence. Just fill all available extra space with STUN, and, most damage would go there. FOOD was used in this way too since FOOD was produced without any raw materials. So, it sort of works that way already. I do suspect damage was applied based on mass, so, things that had more mass took more of the damage.
Regarding light structures, also keep in mind that today some lighter materials are actually stronger than heavier materials.
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I remember using STUN as buffering armor. If I remember correctly, any of the structural unit types (STUN, LTSU, SLSU) were equally useful for armor, if you go by mass. My understanding was that hits applied are allocated randomly, so if you over-built STUN by a large margin, it would in effect soak off damage. If half your ship's mass is STUN, then half the damage gets sunk right there.
The problem is that this abstracts away something that is actually interesting to model. From the perspective of physics and narrative theme, armor is entirely different from bulkheads and cargo holds. As a ship builder, if you're going to maximize the utility of ship-mass in warding off damage, you're not just adding extra staterooms and hallways all around your ship. You're building plates of armor, or ablative surfaces, or collapsible frames, or angled mirrors, etc.
Given everything else that is modeled in Cluster Wars, it makes sense to model armor, too. Also, I remember the ship design stuff in Traveller, where they had different hull configurations that conveyed different combat properties. You could build a sleek, needle-like design, but get only 10% of the internal volume for a given investment in hull, for instance. Such a hull would allow the ship to land on atmospheric worlds, and would be much harder to hit in combat.
You could go for a big block or sphere, which would maximize internal volume and minimize exposure, but limit maneuvers and how many weapons you can bring to bear.
Or you could go for a "dispersed structure", in which your ship has components welded on with no regard to compactness or volume efficiency. It would be the cheapest hull for the volume, but have sharp limits to maneuverability and any incoming damage would be maxed out.
I believe they also had options for using hollowed out asteroids as hulls -- cheap and pre-armored with a rock/ice buffer, but slow!
A very simple way to model this would be to just add an "armor" component, which can be researched and upgraded. Some percentage of incoming damage must hit armor first, and armor gets destroyed by damage just like anything else.
A little more modeling? Maybe add 2 types of armor -- one for missiles ("traditional" armor plating), and one for energy weapons ("mirrors" or sand-casters). Maybe the traditional armor plating blocks both kinds, but is considerably heavier.
Maybe add a "hull configuration" element to ship design. Compact/sleek hulls take less damage and/or get more protection from armor, but need to spend some multiple of STUN/SLSU for any given ship volume. Bulk hulls maximize ship volume, get moderate advantage from armor, but can't ever have structural modifications once built. Dispersed structure hulls get minimal advantage from armor, get penalties to speed, and can be modified/expanded any number of times.
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I agree that it was a strategy to use STN as additional mass or FOOD as a buffer to absorb damage. I would like to give STUN an additional property to be considered armor so that there is some reason to upgrade on the technology tree. It seemed reasonable since ESH are 100% effective against EWP then STUN could be 100% effective against MSS (by some formula) but less effective (20%) against EWP.
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This part makes no sense:
"It seemed reasonable since ESH are 100% effective against EWP then STUN could be 100% effective against MSS"
ESH are a weapon defense system, STUN is structure. I don't see how you can relate the 2. STUN is equally effective against EWP and MSS, one mass unit damage from either. ANM is the defense system against MSS.
It would seem like a good idea to give some incentive to research STUN. I would think armor should apply to both types of attack systems myself. 1 damage = 1 damage.
Overall, I like giving some sort of incentive for STUN research.
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I think the idea should be taken in the context of "gameplay", not "physics". There is a counter-measure against EWP (which is ESH), so there should be a counter-measure against MSS. But of course there already is -- ANM. STUN and FOOD are merely used as ballast, to soak up damage that penetrates ESH and ANM.
To me, having ESH to counter EWP and ANM to counter MSS is good thematic game design. But having STUN and FOOD to counter incoming damage is a game exploit. It doesn't seem realistic, and it definitely doesn't fit the theme. When they built battleships in WWI, they didn't cover them with plywood and cheese to soak up damage. They built armor. The armor's only use was to block damage. It wasn't used to store cargo. And building cargo holds and hallways on ships took relatively little technology and materials, while building armor for gun turrets was very expensive, very heavy, and was researched and improved continuously.
Vern got rid of markets when he found out people were selling expensive items on their planetary markets to protect them from damage during attacks, and then buying them back later. He thought that was a game-exploit, and he was right. Along the same lines, I think shielding your ship with cargo holds and cheese is a game-exploit.
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I agree that covering your SHP with plywood and cheese (i.e. using food to absorb damage) is a bit of a kluge. Not sure how to fix that given the current combat mechanics. The point I was making about using STUN as armor is that ESH primarily guard against EWP and ANM primarily guard against MSS but shields also get activated at 20% to defend against missiles that blowup so then armor can defend only 20% against energy weapons(i.e. they drill thru instead of blunting area impact)
The increased playability issue is that here is a reason to upgrade STUN TL where there is not one. Ow
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I can see the logic of armor stopping 20% of EWP.
I was proposing that armor be a much better or more effective way of protecting a ship than ballasting it with STUN/FOOD. Part of that would be to have an armor component (ARM), which can be researched. And part would be to reduce the effectiveness of STUN/FOOD at absorbing damage. Or have damage apply mainly to ship components and not cargo. It would take some fine-tuning.
In this model, I don't see a research path for STUN, other than making it lighter.
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