10  Armor

10.1 Basic Mechanics

• Before the beginning of a battle, a unit can assign its armor points to the front and/or back positions. Some armor must have all points for the armor assigned to either the front or back, but default armor can be broken up and assigned with some to both positions.
• Default armor is also permanently lost for that scenario when it is hit. It is usually automatically repaired between scenarios, but instances may certainly vary (not many refills in space).
• Armor usually works by absorbing damage, so it (usually) only takes effect when a target takes damage.
  • For attacks made to the front line:
    • Armor points are the first ones lost, before any functional points
    • The target can determine which armor is hit first, second, etc. in a given hit to the front. E.g., they can decide to use a specialty armor first and then have any excess damage absorbed by default armor
  • For attacks made to the back line:
    • The target rolls randomly for each point of damage to determine if it is absorbed by armor or taken from somewhere else (viz., HPs)

10.1.1 Versus Defensive Points

Defensive points¹ are those gained by using APs to conduct, well, defensive maneuvers. These are always stacked upon other defenses: Defensive points are always the first ones lost in front-line defenses, even before any armor. In other words, the order in which points are lost to attacks is:

For the Frontline	For the Backline
Defensive Points	All points are added equally to a pool.
Armor	Each point taken off of the back randomly draws from this pool to determine what point is lost.
Targetted mechanized systems	So there.
Any other points at random

10.2 PPE

• PPE can be spread however between the front and back lines
  • The arrangement must be determined before a battle scenario starts
    • If it is not determined explicitly beforehand, it’s assumed to be all in the front except for 1 point on the back
  • Units can spend 1 AP during the scenario to re-allocate the points between the lines
• PPE is destroyed when hit in battle, and does not automatically regenerate during a battle
  • APs can be used to roll against any repair skills to mend that many degree of points during a battle
  • All PPE armor points are assumed to regenerate between scenarios unless otherwise noted
    • Like when units don’t have access to resupplies and don’t have a first factory

PPE is the default armor in Humans. It is indeed to protective equipment Humans typically wear in the Athropocene. And yes, it not only protects against noxious elements like pollutants and toxins, but also against the other common feature of the Anthropocene: other Humans.

In Humans, a unit’s default level of armor is their social degree. Those of the Substrate’s default is 1; the Normals’ is 3.

This can be augmented, of course, but usually isn’t: Units given better armor much more than they’re given more armor. The basic materials used to make PPE are streamlined well enough (it’s among the optimized economies) that it is flexible, light, and comfortable enough—and it is most importantly economical enough—that it’s worth wearing on any real outing. And the increases of prices for a higher caste’s armor is dramatic enough (it is engineered to be an order of magnitude) that upgrades are not frequently done.

• Extra armor points above a unit’s degree can reduce the numbers of APs available, usually movement APs.
  • Units require 1 point of propulsion for every extra point of armor above that unit’s degree.
  • For every point of armor above the unit’s degree that does not have a concomitant propulsion point, that unit must spend an extra AP per movement.
    • Most armors can be jettisoned if need be to lighten loads.
    • The unit can decide which armor points are jettisoned (e.g., jettisoning default armor while keeping specialty armor).

10.3 Speciality Armors

In addition to / instead of default armor, units can have some or all of their armor points replaced with special armor points. Flavoring those armor points with a special effect. Often—by default—theses specialty armors will move together, and so can all be assigned to the front or all to the back positions.

It is much less common for units to have specialty armor points added on in addition to their default points, however. It is much cheaper to replace armor within one’s degree than to add points onto it.

That also implies that most units wealthy enough to have armor levels above their degree have also bought all of a specialty for their degree.

• Specialty armor added on in addition to a unit’s default armor degree can have a different sort of specialty, and these points don’t have to move together; it’s assumed each degree was a separate add-on.

10.3.1 Ablative

A foamy skin wrapped around most of a ship (comms, guns, jets, etc. sticking though) that looks like a drab-grey wool sweater from a distance. Well, from a interplanetary distance, it looks a lot like a ship’s unarmored skin. And still does even after it ablates, bursting into a cloud uniformly around the ship like it just went a little fluffy. Ripples in the cloud bounce along it and slowly spread it away. (Better armor bounces less.)

Although it looks ship-skin dull, though, ablation clouds—especially the one that forms immediately on hit—spreads that in-coming energy evenly around and away from the ship. The particles of dust calibrated even so well as to ease that energy out in a diffraction pattern that makes the burst going out from the ship look like the energy that would go out from a typical hit on a ship.

• Only effective against energy weapons
• Also shields from most scans

Defense Effects

• A hit target gains defense mods equal to the armor’s degree any round that it is hit by an energy weapons (from the gas & dust from being ablated by the hit turning into an ablation cloud that lingers around the ship)
  • The cloud gives the ship extra protection. It adds its degree to the ship’s armor for the rest of that round.
    • These defense mods “stack,” i.e., are added to any existing defense mod from the cloud
  • This defense mod looses 1° of per round after first hit.
  • This defense mod is lost if the ship uses any APs for movement
    • Except if the target uses an AP expressly to simply signalling that they’re using an AP but stay in the cloud. Why do this? To make it seem like it shouldn’t be going in the direction it is. It wouldn’t happen often, but:
      • A ship sends out a movement signal when it uses an AP for movement (in space combat, players must announce to everyone what they used their AP to do (move, defend, attack, recon, etc.), albeit it by saying what they did last round), so if an other ship successfully recons them and sees they’re going the same direction even after using movement AP, that’s pretty suss. So, a ship could use up an AP for movement (especially if they’re waiting to move and have an AP to spare) so that if their position is successfully reconned, they’d think that was just the ablation cloud and start reconning elsewhere. (Told you it wouldn’t happen often, but you: A ship hit by an energy beam might just opt to keep going in that direction—maybe even still getting to where it was going—and snuggle up in its comfy cozy ablation. And not being ready to shoot yet, sends out a movement AP while it waits. If it’s found to not be shot upon, then the protection from the ablation cloud just went from a couple degrees to infinity.)

Recon Effects

• The target ship can make an AP-free evasion roll against any successful recons against it. Any successful roll makes the reconning ship believe the ship hasn’t changed course (i.e., they saw the ablation cloud instead of the ship and thing that’s the ship).

  • Any additional recon rolls against that ship, must also be successfully avoided; if not, this second reconning ship with detect the target ship at it’s correct disposition
  • If the two ships that successfully reconned that target are in communication with each other, they can share this information.

• The ablation cloud has “HPs” equal to its current “lingering” defense mod

  • Attacks against the ablation cloud are made at no defense mods.
  • Successful hits on the ablation cloud (of any weapon type) dissipate the cloud. Damage to the cloud dissipates it at the rate of t current degree of defense mod

• Damage made to the cloud will appear to be damaging an actual ship

• Ships can also use a defense AP to “pulse” their own armor and send out an ablation cloud (and use up a usage) without being hit.

Duration

• Ablative armor is automatically used whenever the ship is successfully hit by an energy attack (including nuclear bombs). I.e., it must be used
• Ablative armor can be used for a number of times equal to its degree (e.g., 3° armor can be used 3 times)
• Like default armor, ablative armor looses a degree every time it is hit

Example

Round 1

1. An opponent fires a 5° γ-gun on a ship with 3° ablative armor
2. The opponent rolls a 4:
   • 1 point of damage penetrates the ablative armor, damaging the ship.
   • 3 points are absorbed by the ablative armor, which immediately forms a tight cloud around the ship.
   • The target’s ablative armor level is reduced to 2°
   • Any further attacks that same round against that target are made at -3
3. The opponent indeed fires again that round with its 5° γ-gun
   • Since they are firing into the activated ablation cloud, the attack is -3, now requiring a 5 – 3 = 2 to hit (suppressing on rolls of 3 – 5)
   • Note that the attacking ship only know the ray hit, not that it was absorbed by the ablation cloud
4. The opponent now rolls a 3, suppressing but not damaging the ship

Round 2

1. The ablation cloud’s defense mod is reduced by 1 to 2°
2. The opponent fires again with its 5° γ-gun
   • The attack is made at -2, this hitting on rolls of 1 – 3 (and suppressing on rolls of 4 – 5)
3. The opponent rolls a 2:
   • The armor absorbs the 2 damage
   • The current degree of the armor (2°) is added to the existing ablation cloud, which is also currently at 2°, making the cloud now 4° for the rest of the round (and assuming the target maintains its current path)
   • The ablative armor is reduced to 1°

10.3.2 BC8s

Rigid and durable scale-like armor made of carbon and silicon in their BC8 phases.

Kinetic Attacks

• Provides protection from kinetic attacks
• Retains its degree when hit by kinetic attacks

Energy Attacks

• Works like PPE against energy attacks (absorbs damage but is destroyed when it does)

Chemical Attacks

• Works like PPE against chemical attacks (absorbs damage but us destroyed when it does)

10.3.3 Conductive

An entropic conductor designed for armor.

Trans-dimensional armor. Humans invented conductive armor when they reverse-engineered the idea for Deux ex drives from the Succubi. It massively warps the Kalabai-Yau dimensions with extra mass, warping the space around it so that incoming mass and energy flows around the target²

• The effect of conductive armor depends on the amount of damage taken:
  • If the armor absorbs less damage than its degree, the armor remains intact, not being reduced in degree
  • If the armor absorbs damage equal to (or greater than) its degree, it shatters, loosing all of its protective ability
• Conductive armor placed on the back line works in this all-or-nothing way, too: If an attack hits conductive armor in the back line, then all of that back-line damage is first absorbed by all of that conductive armor. It soaks up all of the backline damage at once³.

10.3.4 Quasicrytsaline

• Quasicrystaline armor defends against both kinetic and energy attacks.
  • However, any time a target is hit, it must make an AP-free defense roll against the degree of the armor.
    • Failure: The roll deducts that much from the strength of the armor. (I.e., target has 3° armor; rolls after being hit; the roll is a 5; 5 - 3 = 2; armor loose 2° and becomes 1° armor.)⁴ This is the new degree of the armor for the rest of the scenario, including for subsequent damage done by the attack that hit it.
    • Success: The armor absorbs up to its degree without loosing any value. Any damage beyond what it can absorb is absorbed by other frontline points and then backline, like normal.
• Energy attacks (like direct radiation) only penetrate on a 1, like other attacks

10.3.5 Gel

A series of porous cells in a very durable skeleton filled with quantum-tunneling gel. It offers a strong defense against kinetic attacks. Doesn’t do much against being deep-fried by lasers, though.

• When gel armor is hit by kinetic damage, the defender rolls against the original degree of their armor (even if some points have been knocked off)
  • Failure deducts one degree regardless of the original level of damage
  • Success retains the armor’s degree and prevents most damage from going through to be absorbed by other armor, OPs, or HPs. Subtract the gel armor’s degree from the attack roll to determine how much gets through. (You know, \(\text{Penetrating Damage} = (\text{Pips on the Die}) - (\text{Degree of the Gel Armor})\))
• When hit by energy weapons, acts like default armor (points hit being lost permanently for the rest of the scenario, etc.).

10.3.6 Camouflage

Usually grants:

• Its degree as a mod to evasion rolls
• 1° defense mod for the rest of a round whenever that unit uses an AP for movement (The camo can create animated patterns that confuses targeting. Countervailing movement, disorienting shadows, false stop and cover.)

---

1. Because this game doesn’t have enough different types of points yet!

2. I mean, seriously, if you’re going with the idea that that form faster-than-light travel as working—that you can warp into other dimensions—then you’re kinda stuck with having to agree you can also do this. And that there’s a god chance that any other space-faring race you run into is going to also be infected with Succubi, and so may well have also reverse-engineered conductive armor. Humans build Häggs with it, but that doesn’t mean everyone else builds Hägg-like monsters. But it does mean they may have conductive armor and thus very durable ground-based targets. The main difference between settle-world denseness of Humans and most other races is that Humans can not only take a hit, but shoot a lot back. Häggs are very strong planetary defense systems with very durable command/production centers. Planets defended by Häggs not only exert the attack strength at melee level; they can also shoot anywhere in the system with it. A well-placed Hägg can shoot out into the system the most (e.g., on a huge, tidally-blocked rock in the habitable zone) of any orbiting ground-based positions. They’re essentially very durable ground-based, system-active units. That and Häggs also grow quickly, gaining mass and energy every round as their roots dig down into the planet’s core. This mass and energy they can also store, and have ready at the moment to repair any lost parts, or build new ones. (in-game, gaining OPs over rounds.)

3. Just like it does frontline, actually, but its less dramatic there.

4. Good conductive armor is nearly impenetrable, but the worst is very fragile. It’s only worth having the good stuff. But that doesn’t stop MULERs from brewing their own 2° armor out of less than thin air.