Spaceships and other large objects require very special rules to cover how they are protected and what happens when their M.D.C. is being depleted. It is a fact of life that generally, the larger an object is, the more M.D.C. is possesses. This works fine for living creatures, but for objects like space stations and space ships, there needs to be a way to penetrate the armor before the entire M.D.C. value of the object is reduced to zero. Also, as the M.D.C. is reduced, what other kinds of internal damage is being caused? Does everything work perfectly fine until the very end? In an effort to allow small targets to penetrate a ship's armor without having to deplete its entire M.D.C. value, Palladium Books introduced the concept of a section of the hull with a certain area, the most common being a 40' by 40' (12.2 m by 12.2 m) area, which is 1600 square feet (148.6 square meters). Unfortunately, this system only works so well. There is no mention of how many of these areas that a ship has and if each one is destroyed, sometimes the total M.D.C. value of a ship is much lower or much higher then the M.D.C. listed for its main body. This article will attempt to create a new system for determining how a ship's armor is damaged and penetrated.
All ships are composed of two generalized things, a Main Body and Hull Regions. The Main Body could be broken up into different major pieces, such as the forward, middle, and rear thirds of a ship, or it could be a single value for the entire ship. The Hull Regions are sectionalized pieces of a ship that can be of any shape or size and the total value of the Hull Regions is the same as the total value of the Main Body section they compose. Although many Hull Regions will probably possess the same M.D.C. value, it is not necessary, and the Hull Regions near the engines, for example, may be more heavily armored then the ones near the cargo bays. A ship can have any number of Hull Regions, although a ship must have at least 2, otherwise it is not considered to be a ship at all, merely a large fighter or a small shuttle.
When a ship is attacked, some attacks damage a particular Hull Region while others damage the ship's Main Body. It is fairly easy to determine what kind of damage direct fire weapons cause but it is harder to make the same sort of determination with missiles. All director fire weapons, such as energy weapons and projectiles, that have a Weapon Rating that is at least 10 points higher then the Armor Rating of the ship's Main Body will cause damage to the ship's Main Body. The only exception to this are Capital Ship weapons, which always inflict damage to a ship's Main Body regardless of what its Weapon Rating is. It is possible to force a direct fire weapon to hit a specific region instead of the Main Body, but this requires the attacker to make a called shot and roll over 14, including any strike bonuses and armor rating modifiers.
The type of warhead on a missile and the number of missiles in a volley are very important in determining whether a missile damages a ship's Main Body or a Hull Region. Unless a missile has a Weapon Rating of at least 20, then there is a good chance that the missile will damage the single Hull Region it hits, whereas a volley of missiles has a much greater chance of damaging a ship's Main Body. The size of the missile determines how large the volley has to be before the missiles will damage the ship's Main Body, the only exception to this is the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which always hits a ship's Main Body . A volley of Mini-Missiles must have at least 50 missiles and their combined Weapon Rating must be at least 600. A volley of Short Range Missiles must have at least 25 missiles and their combined Weapon Rating must be at least 300. A volley of Medium Range Missiles must have at least 10 missiles and their combined Weapon Rating must be at least 125. A volley of Long Range Missiles must have at least 5 missiles and their combined Weapon Rating must be at least 60. A volley of Cruise Missiles must have at least 3 missiles and their combined Weapon Rating must be at least 25. For example, a volley of five Fragmentation long range missiles has only a combined Weapon Rating of 45, meaning that this volley would only damage the Hull Region that it hit, whereas a volley of four Armor Piercing missiles has a combined Weapon Rating of 60, but there are not enough missiles in the volley.
When an attack damages a ship's Main Body, the damage is so large and destructive that the damage trickles down to all of the Hull Regions that make up the Main Body causing damage to all of the Hull Regions. The damage to the main body causes damage to each of the ship's Hull Regions evenly, rounding all fractions down. If the Hull Regions have different M.D.C. values, then they take damaged based on the Hull Region's proportion of the ship's Main Body. For example, if two Hull Region represent 10% of the ship's M.D.C. value, then the two each take 5% of the damage that the Main Body took (10% divided evenly among the two Hull Regions. Since all attacks are considered separately, it is possible for an attack to damage a ship's Main Body 1 point of damage at time, causing no damage to the ship's regions, but reducing the ship's Main Body to zero, causing the ship to shut down. Although it's hull will be completely intact, attacking a ship in such a manner will still cause horrible internal damage to a ship, explaining why it was forced to shut down completely.
When a Hull Region is damaged and destroyed directly, such as by a fighter constantly attacking that specific Hull Region, all systems and weapons on that region are also heavily damaged and mostly likely destroyed. When the M.D.C. of the Hull Region is depleted to zero, all location in that region suffer an amount of damage equal to half of the M.D.C. value of that Hull Region. For example, if a ship has a Hull Region with 100 M.D.C. and on that same region is a communications antenna with 20 M.D.C. and a laser cannon turret with 200 M.D.C. and that Hull Region is destroyed, then both the antenna and the turret suffer 50 points of damage; this will destroy the antenna but only damage the turret, allowing it to continue to function normally. While all of the Hull Regions combined must equal the ship's Main Body, the destruction of a specific Hull Region by itself does not reduce the M.D.C. of a ship's Main Body. Any damage caused directly to a Hull Region in excess of what is needed to destroy that region is reduced by half and inflicted against the ship's Main Body. If all Hull Regions in the Main Body are destroyed, the ship is suffering heavy internal damage and all attacks that would normally damage a Hull Region can damage the ship's Main Body and all damage against the ship's Main Body from any source inflict double damage. For a more detailed example of what happens when a ship's Main Body is damaged, please see the example below.
Generally speaking, a ship will have an Armor Rating for its Main Body and an Armor Rating for all other parts of the ships. More detailed ship descriptions could have a separate Armor Rating for each section of the ship. A ship's Armor Rating is very important for attacks that would cause damage to both a Hull Region and to the Main Body, such as when an attack inflicts more then enough damage to destroy a Hull Region. To damage the Main Body with an attack that destroys a Hull Region, the attack must also defeat the Main Body's Armor Rating, if it doesn't, then the extra damage is ignored. The example below does not mention Weapon Ratings except to determine if a volley of missiles is able to damage a ship's Main Body.
Two ships, one a military destroyer and the other a space pirate, engage in combat in deep space. The pirate has a heavily armed civilian ship with a Main Body M.D.C. of 5000 and 50 Hull Regions each with 100 M.D.C., the pirate is also equipped with an assortment of capital ship weapons and point defense weapons. The military destroyer has a specially built hull with a Main Body of 8000, 10 Hull Regions with 200 M.D.C. near the ship's engines, 20 Hull Regions with 50 M.D.C. over the relatively unimportant cargo section of the ship, and 50 Hull Regions with 100 M.D.C., the destroyer is also accompanied by two small fighters.
Catching the destroyer by surprise by playing dead, the pirate opens fire at an extremely close range simultaneously with its two Heavy Laser Cannons (capital ship weapons) and its six Light Laser Turrets (point defense weapons). Since the pirate is hoping to capture the destroyer relatively unharmed, all of the light lasers are being used against a single Hull Region in the engine section. The pirate causes 300 points of damage with its volley of light lasers, which completely destroys one of the ten Hull Regions in the engine section and causes 50 points of damage against the ship's Main Body (100 / 2 = 50). The pirate then causes 2000 points of damage to the destroyers Main Body with its two Heavy Laser Cannons. Between the two attacks, the destroyer has lost one of its Hull Regions and has taken 2050 points of damage to its Main Body. Since the engine section's Hull Regions represent 25% of the ship's Main Body and there are 10 such regions, each region takes 51 points of damage (2050 * 25% = 512.5 / 10 = 51.25 = 51); obviously the destroyer region cannot take any more damage, but it is still included in these calculations. The cargo section's Hull Regions represent 12.5% of the ship's Main Body and there are 20 such regions, each region takes 12 points of damage (2050 * 12.5% = 262.5 / 20 = 12.81 = 12). The remaining Hull Regions represent 62.5% of the ship's Main Body and there are 50 such regions, each region takes 25 points of damage (2050 * 62.5% = 1312.5 / 50 = 25.63 = 25).
Now that the pirate has used its element of surprise, the destroyer fires back first with its three Heavy Laser Cannons, then its long range missile launcher, while simultaneously launching its two fighters. The laser cannons inflict a combined 1800 points of damage to the pirate's Main Body. The damage to the pirate's main body damages each of its Hull Regions by 36 points (1800 * 100% = 1800 / 50 = 36). The volley of 10 long range missiles equipped with light plasma warheads then hits the pirate because the ship was too close to attack or intercept the missiles. Since the ten missiles have a combined Weapon Rating of 120 and there are more then five of them, they hit the pirate's Main Body inflicting a generous 1000 points of damage. The damage to the pirate's main body again damages each of its Hull Regions by 20 points (1000 * 100% = 1000 / 50 = 20).
Without any other fighters or small targets to attack, the two fighters attack the pirate with their laser cannons. Each fighter targets a different Hull Region and the first fighter inflicts only 80 points of damage against its target, which normally would not destroy a Hull Region, but all of the pirate's Hull Regions have been reduced to only 44 M.D.C., this allows the fighter to destroy one Hull Region and inflicts 18 points of damage (36 / 2 = 18) to the ship's Main Body. The damage to the pirate's main body could have damaged each of the pirate's Hull Regions, but the fighter only inflicted 18 points of damage, which causes 0 points of damage against the pirate's Hull Regions (18 * 100% = 18 / 50 = 0.36 = 0). The other fighter inflicts 120 points of damage, also destroying the Hull Region it targeted and causing 38 points of damage to the ship's Main Body. The damage to the pirate's main body again does not cause any damage to the ship's Hull Regions (38 * 100% = 38 / 50 = 0.76 = 0).
By the end of the first round of combat, the pirate has completely lost two of its Hull Regions, lost 2856 M.D.C. from its Main Body, and its remaining 48 Hull Regions have only 44 M.D.C. remaining. The military destroyer, however, is not undamaged, it has had one of the Hull Regions in its engine section destroyed, lost 2050 M.D.C. from its Main Body, and its Hull Regions have been damaged such that the engine section's nineteen intact Hull Regions have 149 M.D.C. remaining, the cargo section's ten Hull Regions have 38 M.D.C. remaining, and the other fifty Hull Regions have 75 M.D.C. remaining. Seeing how badly its surprise attack did compared to the destroyer's response, the pirate would probably retreat as quickly as possible or attempt to use another trick against the destroyer.
The different groups in Phase World have employed Hull Regions in different ways, with the most important groups described below. The CAF has always used 200 Hull Regions on their ships, no matter how much M.D.C. each Region may have. For example, the Packmaster Class Carriership has 200 Hull Regions with 400 M.D.C. each. The Transgalactic Empire always uses Hull Regions that have 200 M.D.C., no matter how many Hull Regions this may create. For example, the Doombringer Dreadnought has 1750 Hull Regions with 200 M.D.C. each. The average civilian ship used by all other galactic powers have a number of Hull Regions that each have 100 M.D.C., similar to the style that the TGE uses, while the average military ship used by all other galactic powers has 100 Hull Regions, similar to the style that the CAF uses.