Ablative Armor

[Tilarium]

Ok, me again. Curious if anyone figured out the point of Ablative Armor. As it stands, you spend 5 space to get the armor trait giving your ship +5 structure. Or, instead of getting the edge you can spend that 5 extra space to get 5 extra structure points. The only differance between the two is that the armor can only be repaired at a starbase while the pure structure points can be repaired anywhere.

Kyle

[Erik Filean]

The point of ablative armor is that it exists in the Trek universe, and therefore should be available in the game. Yes, from a rules perspective it's a bit silly, but one could make a related argument for the whole idea of ablative armor vs. thicker hull plating in the first place. It's Treknology; when all else fails, smile and nod.

[Phantom]

What they need to do is decide on where they want to place the +5 bonus. Left over space, for a flaw, and Ablative armour. Three things that say the same thing. Pick one! And leave it at that.

This my only complaint so far.

[JBWan]

Keep in mind that for every 5 full points of damage you suffer from a system hit. It may be that Ablative armor is the first 5-point set and that you don't suffer a critical for having it destroyed.

I would simply suggest having Ablative armor provide 10 extra points rather than 5.

Jay

[Don Mappin]

Originally posted by JBWan
Keep in mind that for every 5 full points of damage you suffer from a system hit. It may be that Ablative armor is the first 5-point set and that you don't suffer a critical for having it destroyed.

Correct.

You can also pick up Ablative Armor for "free" by taking a Flaw. You'd have to spend valuable space to do that with structure, so essentially you could mimic the same result by taking a Flaw and increasing your structure through space, but then that 5-point block would trigger a roll on the Damage Chart.

Ablative Armor lets you shrug off those first five points with no ill effect.