I was thinking (always a sign of trouble ) about external components. And I came to be thinking of armour.

Why isn't the armour augments and upgrades external (like armour plating)? Most armour is on the outside, right.

Why does it take up hull space if it is on the outside (would you put your it anywhere else).

If I put it externally as an exposed component with the RAW the armour would be destroyed from the first hit getting through the shields. Surely its not ablative armour. It would be very strange to have your armoured prow or armour plating or excess void armour be destroyed from the smallest tap that got through the void shields.

As you can probably tell from above, I think that those armour components should have the external rule.

I know that the external rule says external components do not take up hull space and these armour augmentations all take up hull space.

My point is why should it. I know the most likely response will be "Game Balance". But if game balance was the reason wouldn't extra ship points compensate for it. Doesn't the Dead Weight rule compensate for this.

What is your opinion. Am I right or just talking out my aft section.

I agree.

The idea of armor plating taking up inside space seems weird to me too. I think it goes against the general Impirial mindset of expansion.

Well of course you could argue that the armor had to fit between and tightly around the framework of the ship or the many layers of armorplaying would peel off on the first clean hit.

So I'd have to say that I too believe armor should be an external component and then just screw the realism on this point This is the dark ages in space, we're not supposed to care

They take up space because they must be fixed to the superstructure of the ship. Nothing holding it to the ship makes it act like ablative armour which would be thrown off by the first heavy enough blow to score a Critical Hit.

Hm, I'd say that a void ship's armour does not only consist of the armour plates on the outside of its hull. Apart from that there sure are lots of empty cavities, support struts and a whole bunch of other mechanisms inside a ship for soaking up and spreading impact momentum and the like, all that being part of that which is called armour plating. So, yeah, it seems a bit odd to have armour taking up hull space, nonetheless it certainly makes sense IMHO.

Well, at least some of that space cost is going to be extra relays and engineering work, moving the maneuvring thrusters to the new "hull" surface, not to mention the vox and auspex arrays. Also, any gun deck so armoured is going to have to have beefed up motors to open the gunports/traverse the turrets, now that there's more armour covering them.

Or, alternatively...

NEW COMPONENT: Ablative Armour

S:0 P:1 SP:0

Unlike true armour, ablative armour are thick sheets of armaplas and ceramite that are simply layers upon the surface of a starship, rather than being afixed to the ship with the massive reinforcing rods of adamantium and giant ribs of plasteel. Many captains consider abative armour a waste of reactor time, as the secondary augers and manouvering thrusters that dot the surface of the plating to compensate for the extra mass of armour is inevitably destroyed in the first hour of any engagement. For this reason, it is rare to find ablative armour on naval vessels, usually being found only on the poorer Rogue Trader vessels or Q-Ships. More than one cunning captain has foud a way to turn these extra plates to his advantage, however, buying enough time for another volley or deflecting a hit that would have crippled their vessel.

Ablative: This component can always be chosen as the target of a critical hit, regardless of the attackers choice of component hit. If selected in this way, the armour is destroyed but the critical hit is negated.

Deaf and Blind: Even with backup augers, the slabs of armour plate surrounding the augers cause no end of ghosting and static. Reduce the ships Detection by 3 until the armour is destroyed.

Cheap and Nasty: Any successful aquisition roll to repair hull integrity will also replace destroyed Ablative armour.