Hitpoints vs Armor

[Smoothie]

Call me a landlubber but I never really got behind the difference between Hitpoints (HP) and Armor (Thickness)

If enemy shoots cannonballs at me... what prevents my ship from being damaged? HP or Thickness?

And as a result, do I want my ship to have more HP or more Thickness?

Can anyone try to explain?

[Liq]

Thickness determines whether or not a cannonball can penetrate the Hull and therefore even deal damage.

The higher the thickness, the closer your enemies will have to be in order to penetrate (as penetration values drop over distance)

You can artificially increase the thickness by "angling" and therefore increasing the thickness (e.g. "Hull Distance" a cannon ball has to penetrate)

[admin]

2 hours ago, Smoothie said:

Call me a landlubber but I never really got behind the difference between Hitpoints (HP) and Armor (Thickness)

If enemy shoots cannonballs at me... what prevents my ship from being damaged? HP or Thickness?

And as a result, do I want my ship to have more HP or more Thickness?

Can anyone try to explain?

Ship consists of Planking and Frame, Together they make the ship structure. 

• Structure determines how well everything sits together (frame, planking, masts connections to keel)
• Planking holds the cannonballs outside
  • Planking has
    • Thickness (ability to block the cannonball) and stop it from penetration
      • Cannonball can ricochet or get stuck in wood (partial penetration)
    • HP (amount of wood that can absorb energy) If the energy is too high the ball will penetrate and will work with HP
  • When cannonball hits the planking - energy is transferred to wood, the less intact planking is the more energy is transferred to ship structure 
  • Once planking is very weak all energy is transferred to structure or opposite side
    • Some woods hold energy better than others even when weak, others pass energy (damage) to structure at any damage.
• Once your structure integrity goes to zero - your ship no longer can hold water. And no longer can hold masts in place.

 

[Licinio Chiavari]

if cannonball has not sufficient penetration to overcome thickness, the ball will bounce doing 0 damage to your HPs (same going for hits on masts).

Remember that effective thickness/penetration are influenced by ball angle of impact (from this the manouver "angling" the hull before receiving a broadside).

The lower the side remaining HPs, the lower the effective thickness.

 

Therefore you could like both even if prioritizing one would change your tactical preferences in combat.
Example: an high thickness meh-HP ship would like to keep some distance and angle to reduce the incoming damage.
An high HP meh-thickness ship could like to get side-to-side where the thickness will be close to not relevant while having (hypothesis) more HPs would lead to the enemy sinking before her.

[van Veen]

One more thing to consider: thickness is reduced during combat when HP go down, i.e. a half damaged side is easier to penetrate. 

[Smoothie]

9 minutes ago, van Veen said:

One more thing to consider: thickness is reduced during combat when HP go down, i.e. a half damaged side is easier to penetrate. 

What does the ship indicator in battle shows me? The HP that goes down or the thickness? Or a combination of both?

[van Veen]

1 minute ago, Smoothie said:

What does the ship indicator in battle shows me? The HP that goes down or the thickness? Or a combination of both?

The damage bar shows the HP. Thickness is not displayed at all. 

[Smoothie]

Thank you guys. I think I got it now

[Liq]

35 minutes ago, van Veen said:

One more thing to consider: thickness is reduced during combat when HP go down, i.e. a half damaged side is easier to penetrate. 

? I don't think so

But as soon as the sides (HP) is down to 0, structure gets damaged, which has its own thickness (basically zero) as far as i know

[GrubbyZebra]

1 minute ago, Liq💋 said:

? I don't think so

But as soon as the sides (HP) is down to 0, structure gets damaged, which has its own thickness (basically zero) as far as i know

Structure starts getting damaged when the side HP gets below 50% (might be 30%, it's more than 0). As side HP decreases, more damage is dealt (call it reduced thickness if you want) because the center structure is taking damage as well as the sides.

[Liq]

Yeah but the thickness, as far as i know, does not decrease when the ship is being damaged

(Except when the sides are 0 hp and you directly and only damage the structure)

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

That was also my understanding that thickness receved a malus if hp is low.

[Vizzini]

Balls that do not penetrate can also cause serious injury to crew with splinters IIRC