[Mars]

I tend to think, and am backed up within in game dialog, of GTVA ships being covered in heavy armor plating (collapsed-core molybdenum apparently) and blowing off small nuclear explosions.

Are UEF ships supposed to possess a similar level of armoring?

By that I mean, were they originally imagined to be?

[Liberator]

One would assume so.  Of course the GTVA blew of nukes in FS 1 and 2, what do you think a Harbinger is.  The thing about nukes is that the vast majority of their damage comes from the atmospheric shock wave they generate.  Take that out of the equation and it's a bit easier to design a system or material that would shrug off the thermal emission and mitigate the radiation component as well.

[Mars]

One would assume so.  Of course the GTVA blew of nukes in FS 1 and 2, what do you think a Harbinger is.  The thing about nukes is that the vast majority of their damage comes from the atmospheric shock wave they generate.  Take that out of the equation and it's a bit easier to design a system or material that would shrug off the thermal emission and mitigate the radiation component as well.

Nukes were not the point - my question was: are UEF ships roving space tanks to a similar extent to those of the GTVA

[SypheDMar]

Well, if you look at the Karuna's HP (85,000) and compare it to the Deimos (80,000) and then compare their length, it would not seem to be the case. However, you should wait for someone with more backing other.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

One would assume so.  Of course the GTVA blew of nukes in FS 1 and 2, what do you think a Harbinger is.  The thing about nukes is that the vast majority of their damage comes from the atmospheric shock wave they generate.  Take that out of the equation and it's a bit easier to design a system or material that would shrug off the thermal emission and mitigate the radiation component as well.

Nukes were not the point - my question was: are UEF ships roving space tanks to a similar extent to those of the GTVA

Tanks?

Well in that case, it's like british tanks against german tanks. The UEF ships are very vulnerable to beam cannons. But if the Tevs lose their beamz, they are fu**ed. But they have Steele, that's the problem.
UEF ships seem to be more vulnerable to bombz/torpedoes too.

[Flak]

They certainly are, beams and massed maxim strikes are probably the only real threat to them. Most of them can fight off strike crafts on their own without fighter escorts. They probably more vulnerable if the hull damaging bombs/missiles behaves like the real life counterpart where they move at much higher speed and for most HEAT/HESH warheads, most of the damage is done by kinetic energy rather than explosion.

[NGTM-1R]

They certainly are, beams and massed maxim strikes are probably the only real threat to them. Most of them can fight off strike crafts on their own without fighter escorts. They probably more vulnerable if the hull damaging bombs/missiles behaves like the real life counterpart where they move at much higher speed and for most HEAT/HESH warheads, most of the damage is done by kinetic energy rather than explosion.

It's long been a line of thought that most of the protection on these ships comes from multiple-hulling and compartmentalization, rather than sheer armor plate, and that you get the most lethality out of direct-fire non-explosive weapons.

This is partially because we can't think of a way to do a damn thing to slow a nuke down save to ensure it's not in direct contact with the next layer of protection.

[General Battuta]

All Blue Planet warships - whether GTVA or UEF - were generally conceptualized as both heavily armored and heavily compartmentalized. Crew spaces make up a minority of the ship's volume.

Ships are layered in a sandwich of ablatives, shock dispersal, non-Newtonian fluids, radiation tanks, and old-fashioned physical belts of metals and ceramics. The armor is studded with sensors, integral electronic warfare systems, and conformal shield generators of the type seen on the FreeSpace 1 Stiletto bomb, which propagate through the hull rather than above it.

Damage control to the armor proper is difficult under combat circumstances. UEF warships take one approach - damaged hull areas are sealed with layers of rapidly coagulating polymer coating, like a scab. This can't match the original armor plating but will stop incoming weapons fire to a degree. GTVA ships rely on their integral shield systems to recruit and bind repair fragments. Damage control is rarely conducted at the surface of the ship.

In the future you'll be seeing warships on both sides employing more active countermeasures too.

[Snail]

What about the mainhalls? Those are frikken huge and have retarded big ass windows.

[-Norbert-]

Those aren't windows, they are just really big screens, to the people inside can see what's going on outside
On a more realistic note, the designers of the mainhall were probably just trying to make it cool, without caring about how it workes with the actual ship models.

[Snail]

I imagine in a combat scenario areas like that are maybe compartmentalised or evacuated or something

[Ypoknons]

Damage control to the armor proper is difficult under combat circumstances. UEF warships take one approach - damaged hull areas are sealed with layers of rapidly coagulating polymer coating, like a scab. This can't match the original armor plating but will stop incoming weapons fire to a degree. GTVA ships rely on their integral shield systems to recruit and bind repair fragments. Damage control is rarely conducted at the surface of the ship.

So that was what was actually happening in Delenda Est when the frigates did their self-repair routines?

[Qent]

So that was what was actually happening in Delenda Est when the frigates did their self-repair routines?

Not to mention The Blade Itself.

[PsychoLandlord]

Is there an upper limit to how many times a UEF ship is capable of deploying those polymers over a given area, by chance? In terms of fluff, of course.

[General Battuta]

Ideally the repair system would suffer diminishing returns over time to represent the loss of key structural elements. You can't build the entire ship out of excreted resin!

[PsychoLandlord]

Well yeah, thats obvious, but I was asking how much material a UEF warship, lets say a Karuna for sake of ease,  generally carried to allow for such repairs. That resin has to come from somewhere.

My last post wasn't terribly clear on that point though, was it?

[General Battuta]

Yes, there should be limited volumes. Presumably it is stored in the same place as the Narayana's magazines. 

[PsychoLandlord]

Hammerspace it is, then.

[NGTM-1R]

Is there an upper limit to how many times a UEF ship is capable of deploying those polymers over a given area, by chance? In terms of fluff, of course.

I would imagine the more serious limit is in the size of the wound it can provide adequate cover for. That's the technical limitation on similar systems in reality. If the hole is too large you have to send in people with a framework for it deploy over.

[General Battuta]

Indeed so. There's nothing written down about how that situation is handled. If forced to elaborate on it I'd pick one of two options -

1) For more human drama and grit, damage control parties and drones to set up frameworks (this would be a hell of a task)

2) For more plausibility, it's probable that both systems are capable of some form of gross self-organization, with the GTVA variant establishing its framework through the projected hull ghost, the UEF variant building its own skeleton as it goes. It's not nanotech at all, but it could probably be manipulated crudely via external EM since it was always envisioned as being activated with charge.

Talented damage control is a big unsung factor in the history of big ships fighting each other and I expect we'll continue to do more with it.