IronHide OXP
Overview
The Ships Systems Department of the Aquarian Shipbuilding Corporation introduce their latest development - IronHide armour. This is a simple but effective technology which applies a special treatment to the hull of the customer ship which helps to strengthen it against combat and physical damage in collaboration with the ship's shielding.
In practice the armour helps to absorb damage that gets past (or takes down) the shields, although if a truly concentrated attack occurs then localised penetration and energy damage may still occur. This is especially true of missile attacks, which can still cause internal damage and equipment failure due to concussion effects. The current strength of the armour can be viewed on the ship's manifest (F5-F5) screen, and any damage can be repaired at a suitably high-tech station.
The armour itself is available from all good tech 5 locations, for a recommended retail price of just 750 credits. These stations should also be able to quote for repairs to damaged installations. It should also be noted that insurers class armour as a combat consumable, and so its replacement is not included as part of the insurance for equipment such as escape pods and lifeboats.
A special enhanced upgrade for military uses has also been developed, and may be available to customers at tech 10 systems (the upgrade requires an undamaged civilian-grade installation). The upgrade doubles the effectiveness of the regular armour.
Acknowledgements
This OXP came about following a discussion over a beer with ClymAngus, and was one of my fastest-written OXPs (sketch-out concept to beta-test was around 7 hours on a boring day at work with nothing to do).
Thanks also to UK_Eliter and Caracal for beta-testing for me, and their feedback and comments.
Discussion
You can find the IronHide discussion thread on the Oolite Bulletin Boards here.
Version history
31/07/2010 - Version 1.00, initial release. 01/08/2010 - Version 1.01, changed shield strength from this. to mission variables to maintain across save games. 19/02/2011 - Version 2.00, upgrade for 1.75 trunk - and operating properly now after shields are gone! 19/06/2020 - Version 3.00, updated by Milo; IronHide OXP now requires Oolite 1.79+; armour durability increased but energy restoration is now proportional to damage absorbed (previously the ship's energy was fully restored after every hit, which could conflict with other OXPs' attempts to regulate energy levels); damage below 5 (10 for military grade) will not degrade IronHide armour; further improved compatibility with other OXPs by checking damage type instead of energy level to decide which damage the armour can absorb.
Download Location
This OXP requires at least version 1.79 of Oolite.
Download the latest version in OXZ format here for Oolite 1.79 or later (downloaded 0 times).
