Re-Reenforced hulls

> Schoon wrote:

> My proposal doesn`t actually increase the number

Not really. It is taking advantage of a mechanic foible, but BIF made it so
expensive that it isn't worth the trouble even on very small ships.

Looking at the example ship, BIF's suggestion transformed it from
10/10/10/10 hull boxes to 16/9/8/7 hull boxes, but the ship's NPV was
increased by 49 points.

As Charles pointed out, the FB2 design rules allow you to get almost
the same effect (except against large K-guns) for *NO* extra cost: with
8 armour boxes and 32 hull boxes instead of the straight 40 hull boxes
you get (8+8)/8/8/8, which is effectively 16/8/8/8 - which is pretty
damn close to 16/9/8/7, unless of course you're fighting Kra'Vak. And
the (8+8)/8/8/8 configuration is 49 points cheaper.

Or, if you have those 49 points to spare, you could use them (in the standard
FB2 design system) to buy ~10 extra hull and armour boxes
instead - call it 4 armour boxes and 6 hull, giving the hull
configuration (4+12)/12/11/11. Even the Kra'Vak will need to use K5s
exclusively to bypass any significant amount of armour; against all
other weapons it is equivalent to 16/12/11/11 - which is clearly better
than BIF's 16/9/8/7, and has the same cost.

For smaller ships it gets a bit more iffy. Look at the NAC Huron, with
15 hull boxes. With a reinforced hull it'd go from 4/4/4/3 to 10/3/2/0
(which is a big improvement), but it'd pay 24 points for it.

This hull is impossible to approximate with the FB2 rules since it only
has 3 hull rows. However, I've been playtesting 3-row hulls recently
(see the "Some more comments..." post I sent yesterday), and so far they seem
to balance OK at 3xMass in both sims and real battles. Using
that system, the 10/3/2/0 hull would be equivalent to (7+3)/3/2/0,
though with that much armour on such a weak hull I'd prefer to use a
two-layer Phalon-style armour instead so make it (3+4+3)/3/2/0; the
total cost of that hull is 3*4+4*2+8*3 = 44 pts, which is only *14*
points more than the standard hull cost of a Huron (15*2 = 30 pts). BIF's
reinforcement gave an almost identical effect (a bit better against Kra'Vak),
but costs 10 pts more.

Schoon's variant:

> (pulling numbers out of my tuckus)

Not sure I want to know what your tuckus is, but this seems a bit expensive.
Moving 1 from the 4th, one each to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd rows, cost as much as
buying 4 entirely new hull boxes and giving *all*
rows (including the 4th) one extra hull box... OK, the 4th-row boxes
aren't worth very much, but I'm pretty certain that their value is larger than
0 <g>

> Brian Bell wrote:

> I like the simple 11/11/9/9 style you suggested the best. A

No, upgrading to 11/11/11/11 means that you add 4 Mass to the ship
(which you don't do in the 11/11/9/9 or 12/12/8/8 cases) - which in
turn means that the engines will get bigger (and more expensive) as
well. Assuming a thrust-4 human ship, upgrading from 10/10/10/10 to
11/11/11/11 has an effective cost of about 18 points, not 8; so the
11/11/11/11 hull is slightly more expensive than the 12/12/8/8 one.
Which is appropriate, since it is slightly more powerful as well.

As long as you don't overdo it, Brian's version looks OK. I'm concerned
about the possibility build a 19/19/1/1 hull, though - it is
essentially equivalent to an *extremely* cheap 38-box, 2-row hull. A
2-row hull is worth 6xMass or more - much more, if the 2-row hull ships
have screens and the enemy relies mainly on beams - it varies much more
than the 3- and 4-row hulls. 6xMass is a minimum cost only. However,
taking a super-reinforced 4-row hull gives you 19/19/1/1 for only
40*2+8*9=152 points, ie. effectively this "38-box 2-row" hull only
costs 152/38 = 4xMass - and that is *much* too cheap.

Later,