Game in the Brain

The problem arises from the way armor is currently calculated in the Cepheus Engine vehicle and ship design system. In this system, armor is proportional to the percentage it occupies of the ship’s or vehicle’s volume. This means that a smaller object, by proportion, has thinner armor, as the armor is a function of thickness.

Let’s take an example to illustrate this. Consider a human and a car. The human has a volume of 0.08 cubic meters and a surface area of 2 square meters. The car has a volume of 21 cubic meters and a surface area of 20.7 square meters. If we add armor of varying thicknesses to both the human and the car, the armor will occupy a certain percentage of their respective volumes.

For instance, if we add 1mm of armor to the human, it will occupy 2.5% of the human’s volume. If we add the same 1mm of armor to the car, it will only occupy 0.26% of the car’s volume. This is because the car has a much larger volume than the human. As we increase the thickness of the armor, the percentage of volume it occupies also increases. However, the percentage of volume does not scale with the surface area, as the surface area remains constant while the volume increases. This shows that using the percentage of volume to measure armor is not a good method, as it does not account for the thickness of the armor.

The proposed solution is to consider the armor as adding volume to the object it is protecting. As the armor gets thicker, it expands outward, adding to the total volume of the object. The amount of volume the armor adds is a factor that depends on the shape of the object (from spherical to more complex shapes). So, the formula for calculating the volume of the armor would be: armor thickness * surface area (which is factor x spaces) = % of volume in spaces the armor occupies.

This method takes into account the thickness of the armor and the surface area it covers, providing a more accurate measure of the armor’s effectiveness. It also ensures that smaller objects do not disproportionately have thinner armor, as the armor’s volume is calculated independently of the object’s volume. 

So Armor is a Function of Thickness. We wont cover sloping and how armor is thicker when approached at an angle. As well as this is Average Thickness and vehicles are never uniform in this, tanks have more armor in front and at their sloping front. It’s easy enough to Add more armor in one side while reducing armor of another side equally. 

Surface Area Factor. Basically how much surface area given a volume. The technique I used was GPT4 and Wolfram alpha to get the Volume and express it as different shapes. The most interesting is the Wedge – which has the most surface area for a given the volume.  

Change the Speed of Walked to 30kph increments instead of 50kph, based on mechwarrior speeds. So a Speed 6 is 180kph. Streamlined is at 360kph.
  

Seat Standard 2spaces

Seat Standard 2spaces

Seat, Cramped 4spaces

Seat, Cramped 4spaces

How they fit in 1DT or 12 space Life Pod

Update: 

I haven’t started my edits on the Space Combat because of work and duties. Being a “Discount Director” means people think they can waste my time. Of course the root cause is why do people like to waste the time of others. If the client makes mistakes and it causes us to waste time – why is there the cultural behavior to pass that suffering down to others. 

It’s funny when a Company that is working for 30 years and have a 30 year old operations method believes its still relevant method of micromanaging is what it believes it should be doing for the next 2-5 years if it still manages to exist.