Author Topic: (Answered) IO - Primitive Jumpship Armor question  (Read 3185 times)

Liam's Ghost

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(Answered) IO - Primitive Jumpship Armor question
« on: 27 April 2020, 17:29:32 »
The interstellar operations errata says this about primitive jumpship armor:

"All armor mounted on a Primitive JumpShip—including the “free” armor provided by the vessel’s structural integrity value— must be multiplied by 0.66, rounding down to the nearest whole number."

Does this apply to any type of armor the jumpship could use, such as standard or superior armor on a retrotech hull, or is this specifically referring to the modifier assessed by primitive armor?

If it is the former, than the subsequent example would be inaccurate, as the total armor points available to the ship would have to be first multiplied by the primitive armor modifier (itself 0.66) and then again by this additional 0.66 modifier.

If it's the later, then it merely establishes that standard primitive jumpships use primitive armor.
 
« Last Edit: 01 July 2022, 02:11:02 by Xotl »
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Primitive Jumpship Armor question
« Reply #1 on: 02 June 2020, 18:51:09 »
Additional context to possibly speed this answer along:

It has been suggested that this errata note for primitive jumpship construction...

"All armor mounted on a Primitive JumpShip—including the “free” armor provided by the vessel’s structural integrity value— must be multiplied by 0.66, rounding down to the nearest whole number."

...would be applied to all armors of any type, including those more advanced types available to retrotech jumpships.

However, the text refers specifically to a primitive jumpship, and matches references to primitive armor found on primitive battlemechs, primitive aerofighters, primitive dropships, and primitive small craft. For example armor on primitive dropships says the following:

"Primitive DropShip armor is identical in all ways to standard armor (including costs), except that all armor mounted on a Primitive DropShip—including the “free” armor provided by the vessel’s structural integrity value—must be multiplied by 0.66, rounding down to the nearest whole number."

This is almost identical to the above errata note about armoring primitive jumpships, save omitting any reference to specifically discussing primitive armor.

In addition, it is already established on page 121 of interstellar operations that:

"Primitive ’Mechs, aerospace fighters, small craft, and larger aerospace units (including DropShips and JumpShips) may only mount Primitive Armor".

This is repeated in each of the other unit's sections, but not in the primitive jumpship text in the un-eratta'd version. It's my contention that the purpose of the errata mentioned at the start of this post was to bring primitive jumpships in line with other units, in essence restating that these primitive units are limited to primitive armor, not to apply an additional modifier to retrotech hulls as well.

To further support this, whenever retrotech units are discussed in any of the other rules entries, they are done so in a section clearly marked as such, to indicate the difference between primitive units and retrotech units, which the book identifies as distinct unit types. The errata specifically refers to primitive jumpships.

To sum up, the 0.66 modifier is clearly talking about primitive armor on a primitive jumpship, because it specifically mentions primitive jumpships and primitive jumpships can only carry primitive armor. Retrotech jumpships aren't, by the rules, primitive jumpships and can mount any armor type (page 122):

"RetroTech units may mount any type of armor available to the unit type, including modern armors such as ferrofibrous, hardened, and the like."

Therefore that modifier would only apply to their armor if they were using primitive armor.

At least that's my assumption. Thank you for coming to my ted talk, I'm going to go ice my wrist now.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Liam's Ghost

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Re: (Research) IO - Primitive Jumpship Armor question
« Reply #2 on: 19 May 2021, 17:39:40 »
bumpity bump, in the hopes that if there's errata to be done it'll be done in time to go out with the finalized stuff.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Liam's Ghost

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Re: (Research) IO - Primitive Jumpship Armor question
« Reply #3 on: 21 March 2022, 21:26:37 »
Well the new volumes of IO were released and no rules clarification appears to have been made, so...

BUMP
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Xotl

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Re: (Research) IO - Primitive Jumpship Armor question
« Reply #4 on: 01 July 2022, 02:10:57 »
For the upcoming reprint of the IO volumes this errata will be implemented for p. 116 of IO:AE:

Armor (All Units): RetroTech units can only mount primitive armor available to the unit type, and cannot use modern armors such as ferro-fibrous, hardened, and the like. RetroTech combat vehicles and conventional fighters are still built using the support vehicles rules, and so may only mount armor types available to support units (but are still bound to any Tech Base or BAR restrictions).
3028-3057 Random Assignment Tables -
Also contains faction deployment & rarity info.

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=1219.0

Liam's Ghost

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Re: (Answered) IO - Primitive Jumpship Armor question
« Reply #5 on: 01 July 2022, 02:29:19 »
Well that makes me sad
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!