Near the top of my list of pet hates in science fiction, comes energy shields, so one of the first things I did after reading the Full Thrust rules was to write some rules for armour. After reading More Thrust I decided I preferred my armour rules to the ones for the Kra'vak, so I've continued to use mine in preference to the 'official' armour rules.

These rules are more expensive, and somewhat more detrimental, than the armour used by the Kra'vak, but they do allow up to three levels of armour, on a ship of any size (though as will be seen, an escort ship with three levels of armour is severly penalised). I use them for my

Neu Swabian League - fleet, and if you want to use them, feel free.

Any ship can be armoured, with up to three levels of armour. Each level of armour costs 25 points. Armour acts in the same way as for an equivalent level of shields, except that it cannot be lost, plus it has the added bonus of being useful against Kra'vak railguns.

Armour is represented on the ship diagrams by using extra borders around the hull of the ship - one extra line (two total) for one level of armour etc. The four possible levels of armour (from none (left) to three (right)) are as shown in the image.

Armour though is massive, and hence reduces a ships acceleration. Escort sized vessels have their acceleration reduced by two for each level of armour. Cruiser sized vessels have their acceleration reduced by one for each level of armour. Capital ships are as for cruisers, except they may have one level of armour for no reduction in acceleration. Super ships up to 250 mass suffer no penalty from the first two levels of armour, and superships greater than 500 mass suffer no penalty from armour. This reflects the fact that smaller vessels have a higher proportion of surface area to armour compared to larger vessels. Reductions to acceleration come after the maximum acceleration limit of eight.

So, for example: An escort with two levels of armour, has its acceleration reduced by four. A capital ship with three levels of armour has its acceleration reduced by two (no penalty for the first level, and minus one for each of the next two levels).

Using these rules, it means that, yes, it is possible to give a corvette or frigate three levels of armour, but it's going to have a maximum acceleration of two. If anyone can think of a use for such a ship, then I'd like to know…

This reduction in acceleration effectively adds to the point cost of the ship, since you are having to buy more expensive drives for an armoured ship, to get the same acceleration as an unarmoured ship. This can make armour expensive. But then, armour cannot be lost, it gives more overall protection than shields do, while not taking up mass space.

If you think this makes armour too expensive, then a possibility would be to allow it to reduce damage from torpedoes and missiles (absorbs one point of damage per level of armour from each attack). Whether this then makes it too powerful I don't know, but it's definitely realistic (armour should do something to protect against such attacks after all).