[Traveller Answer] Armor Values

Date: Tue, 29 Oct 96 00:42:17 -0500
From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
Subject: [Traveller Answer] Armor Values

Thanks for your very informative post on converting armor and penetration from QSDS to T4 personal combat.

You're welcome! It's always nice to hear feedback about the answers I give; I often wonder if they are too detailed or not detailed enough.

But I would like to ask on behalf of the Striker and High Guard holdouts on the list how to convert these armor values too.

OK, sure ... To hook things into everyting else, here's the Striker (original, 1981 edition) and High Guard (second edition) data:

High Guard USP	Striker Armor	CM Steel Equivalent
0	40	33.6
1	64	269
2	67	349
3	70	453
4	72	538
5	74	640
6	76	761
7	77	830
8	78	905
9	79	987
A	80	1080
B	81	1170
C	82	1280
D	83	1400
E	84	1520
F	85	1660

For lower amounts of Striker armor (such as personal and vehicle armor), the following table should assist you with conversions:

Striker Armor	CM Steel Equivalent
1	0.25
2	0.50
3	0.75
4	1.00
5	1.25
6	1.50
7	1.75
8	2.00
9	2.25
10	2.50
15	3.86
20	5.95
25	9.17
30	14.1
35	21.8

Actually, if you could just tell us how to convert from T4 armor/penetration to the equivalent centimeters of steel plate, we could do the rest ourselves.

There are three (yes, three) armor scales running around in T4. They are all related, and relatively easy to convert to centimeters of steel.

1. the Quick Ship Design System uses the USP armor rating (note that the T4/QSDS USP number is _different_ from the old High Guard USP number). These convert into hard steel using the following table:

   T4 USP	CM Steel
   0	10
   10	20
   20	40
   30	80
   40	120
   50	160
   60	200

   The QSDS/T4 armor scale exists because the mechanics of the T4 basic space combat system require it. It's not related to the personal and vehicle combat system because that would have complicated the design of the game at a time when more complications would have made parts of it (probably the starship design sequence) too late to be included.

   Future starship combat systems may use the USP armor value directly, or may use it divided by 10. For T:TNE owners out there, the T4 value divided by 10 is the same as the Battle Rider armor value.

2. The Standard Ship Design System (in the forthcoming _Starships_ book) uses an "armor level" or "armor value" for the hull that is chosen when the hull is designed (this armor level is multiplied by factors relating to the hull chosen to determine the armor volume and mass). Although it is not described in the SSDS design sequence, this "armor level" is the armor's equivalent in centimeters of hard steel.

   SSDS should also use the USP armor rating system as the final result, and the table given above for the QSD system is also approximately correct for SSDS-designed hulls.

   The SSDS armor level exists as an easy interim unit for performing calculations; it is not currently being used by any T4 combat rules. This value is also the same as the _Fire, Fusion, and Steel_ armor value, which was expressed in equivalent cm of hard steel.

3. The personal-scale and vehicle-scale combat system uses a different armor value scale, designed to mesh well with weapon and attribute values in the personal combat system. Vehicle armor using this scale is detailed in the forthcoming _Central Supply Catalog_ book.

   To convert T4 personal-scale or vehicle-scale armor ratings to the equivalent in centimeters of steel, divide the armor value by 6, and cube the result. The following table summarizes a variety of useful armor values:

   T4 Armor	CM Steel
   1	0.005
   2	0.04
   3	0.13
   4	0.30
   5	0.58
   6	1.00
   7	1.59
   8	2.37
   9	3.38
   10	4.63
   15	15.6
   20	37.0
   25	72.3
   30	125
   35	198
   40	296

I hope this helps you with all of your conversions; and it should also explain how I generated the table I gave in my last post, which related T4 USP values to T4 personal and vehicle armor ratings.

I should close by noting that High Guard starships may turn out to have radically different armor values (when converted to equivalent centimeters of hard steel) than T4 starships. I recommend choosing one system and sticking with it, instead of trying to mix starship design sequences.

Guy "wildstar" Garnett
Traveller Answer Team

wildstar@qrc.com
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Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 14:50:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Flammang <FLAMMANG@vms.cis.pitt.edu>
Subject: CT to T4 armor conversion

Hi.

Guy Garnett was kind enough to give us some values for converting T4 armor ratings into thicknesses of steel plate. I asked him to do this and promised this list a table for converting High Guard and Striker armor values to T4's. Here it is.

This is for those of us who want to run T4 games with all the equipment we used in previous (CT) games.

Note that my High Guard armor values are different from those that Guy posted. This is because the language used in the Striker errata was ambiguous; it can be interpreted in two different ways.

The columns are:

1. The striker penetration value. This number is roughly compatable to the penetration value found in MegaTraveller.
2. The High Guard armor USP rating as interpreted by me (Rob).
3. The High Guard armor USP as interpreted by Guy (Wildstar).
4. The T4 personal armor rating (in dice).
5. The QSDS and RPSC armor rating from T4's Universal Ship Profiles.

(Note: This table contains Tabs. Tabbing is set to 8 spaces.)

Striker	HG USP	HG USP	T4	T4 USP
pen.	(Rob)	(Guy)	(pers.)	(QSDS)
1			4
2			5
3			5
4			6
5			6
6			7
7			7
8			8
9			8
10			8
11			8
12			9
13			9
14			9
15			9
16			10
17			10
18			10
19			11
20			11
21			11
22			12
23			12
24			12
25			13
26			13	0
27			13	1
28			14	3
29			14	4
30			14	5
31			15	6
32			15	7
33			16	9
34			16	10
35			17	11
36			17	13
37			18	14
38			18	15
39			19	16
40	0	0	19	17
41	0	0	20	19
42	0	0	21	20
43	0	0	21	21
44	1	0	22	23
45	1	0	22	24
46	1	0	23	25
47	2	0	24	26
48	2	0	24	28
49	2	0	25	29
50	3	0	26	10
51	3	0	27	12
52	4	0	27	14
53	4	0	28	16
54	5	0	29	18
55	5	0	30	21
56	6	0	31	24
57	7	0	32	27
58	8	0	33	30
59	9	0	33	34
60	10	0	34	38
61	11	0	36	42
62	12	0	37	47
63	13	0	38	52
64	14	1	39	57
65	15	1	40	63
66	16	1	41	70
67	17	2	42	77
68	18	2	43	85
69	19	2	45	94
70	20	3	46	103
71	21	3	47	113
72		4	49	125
73		4	50	137
74		5	52	150
75		5	53	165
76		6	55	180
77		7	56	197
78		8	58	216
79		9	60	237
80		10	61	260
81		11	63	283
82		12	65	310
83		13	67	339
84		14	69	371
85		15	71	405
86		16	73	443
87		17	75	484
88		18	77	528
89		19	80	577
90		20	82	630
91		21	84	688
92			87	751
93			90	820
94			92	895
95			95	978
96			98	1066
97			100	1164
98			103	1270
99			106	1386
100			110	1513

FORMULAS:

There are formulas for converting these armor values to the equivalent thickness in steel plate. I used these formulas to make these tables. "A" is the armor value. "T" is the thickness in centimeters of steel.

Striker Penetration:

Striker uses 1 inch steel plate as its standard. For armor less than 1 inch thick, Striker uses a linear progression with A=10 equal to 1 inch. So A=1 is one tenth of an inch and so on. For armor thicker than an inch, Striker uses an octave binary progression (it doubles in steps of eight) so 18 = 2 inches, 26 = 4 inches, 34 = 8 inches, etc.

For penetration values less than ten, the thickness in cm of steel is:

T = 0.25 * A

For values of "A" larger than 10, then "T" is:

T = 2.5 cm * 2^( (A - 10)/8 )

where the "^" sign is the exponential operator (like in BASIC), equivalent to FORTRAN's "**".

High Guard:

High Guard uses a one to one correlation with Striker as shown on the tables. Because of vaguely worded errata, there are (at least) two interpretations for conversion, as was noted above.

T4 personal combat

As Guy mentioned, T4 uses the following formula:

T = (A/6)^3

QSDS Armor

For values of "A" smaller than 30:

T = 10 * 2^(A/10)

For values of "A" larger than 30:

T = 4 * A - 40

-Rob

Date: Tue, 5 Nov 96 22:38:22 -0500
From: Derek Wildstar <wildstar@qrc.com>
Subject: [Traveller Answer] CT to T4 Armor Tables

*** QSDS Armor
For values of "A" smaller than 30:
T = 10 * 2^(A/10)

For values of "A" larger than 30:
T = 4 * A - 40

NO! Please DON'T use the above; it's NOT the general rule, and is only valid up to QSDS armor values of 60! The QSDS armor values are based on a geometric progression. When I answered Rob's original question, I only posted the section of the table that applies to to QSDS hulls (which have armor values from 0 to 60).

Here is more of the scale, up to QSDS armor value 200:

Steel CM	QSDS Armor
10	0
20	10
40	20
80	30
120	40
160	50
200	60
250	70
300	80
400	90
500	100
750	110
1000	120
1250	130
1500	140
1750	150
2000	160
2500	170
3000	180
3500	190
4000	200

Note that my High Guard armor values are different from those that Guy posted. This is because the language used in the Striker errata was ambiguous; it can be interpreted in two different ways.

The error correction reads: "Book 2: In Rule 75, Naval Vessels, the Striker armor rating corresponding to a High Guard armor rating of zero should be 40, not 60." -- Errata for 2nd printing of _Striker_.

I left the rest of rule 75 unchanged (since the errata does not mention any change to it). Robert assumed that the quoted text implies that all of the values on the table should be 20 points lower.

Guy "wildstar" Garnett
Traveller Answer Team

wildstar@qrc.com
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                                                     In the Far Future