Aerospace fighters are the core unit in Aerospace 2, so understanding how to fill out their armour diagram is important.
Each aerospace fighter has 4 hit locations - Nose, Left Wing, Right Wing, Aft.
Each location has an amount of Internal Structure rows equalling to the following table + 1 line per 5 SI points (or fraction).
| Tonnage | Nose | Wings | Aft |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20-25 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 30-35 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 40-50 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 55-65 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 70-75 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 80-90 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| 95-100 | 6 | 4 | 4 |
Use Armour Values as per vehicles.
For Example:
A 20 ton SYD Z1 Seydlitz (SI 11) has 4 Nose, 3 Wings and 3 Aft Internal Structure rows.
It has 3 Nose, 2 Wing and 3 Aft Armour rows.
A 40 ton S-4 Sai (SI 8) has 4 Nose, 3 Wings and 3 Aft Internal Structure rows.
It has 9 Nose, 8 Wing and 7 Aft Armour rows.
A 100 ton Thunderbird (SI 10) has 8 Nose, 6 Wings and 6 Aft Internal Structure rows.
It has 20 Nose, 13 Wing and 10 Armour rows.
Each location must mount all equipment within the Internal Structure of the vehicle.
| Ammunition: |
Each ton of ammunition takes up 1 critical slot. Where this is actually allocated is up to the player, although it is usual for it to be in the same location as the weapon it feeds. |
| Avionics: |
The Nose and each Wing must allocate 2 critical slots to Avoinics. |
| Crew: |
The Nose must allocate 1 critical slot to Crew. |
| Engine: |
The Aft must allocate 4 critical slots to Engine. |
| FCS: |
The Nose must allocate 3 critical slots to FCS. |
| Fuel: |
Fuel must be allocated at 1 critical slot per 40 points of Fuel. Unlike normal critical slots, Fuel critical slots are only 1 internal square in size. This can be allocated to Wings or Aft. |
| Gear: |
The Nose and Wings must allocate 1 critical slot each to Gear. |
| Heat Sinks: |
Each heat sink takes 1 critical slot (or more for double heat sinks), allocated anywhere. A fighter must allocate an amount of heat sinks equalling: Total Heat Sinks - (Engine Rating /25). Round Down. |
| Sensors: |
The Nose must allocate 3 critical slots to Sensors. |
| Weapons: |
Each weapon takes up an appropriate amount of critical slots in the relevant location. |
Thrusters:
You'll notice that for aerospace fighters, thrusters are not listed on the armour diagram. This is because as far as I can see, fighters cannot get their thrusters damaged by critical damage, so I left them out. If this isn't the case and I've made a mistake, then could someone point this out to me!
In addition, all other equipment must be allocated at the normal amount of critical slots in the relevant location.
Bombs are not placed on the critical chart.
A Critical Slot is an area of two internal squares. Weapons and the Engine must have their critical slots adjacent to each other, other items don't. When an item is hit, it is only effected if a critical slot is hit. Multiple hits to the same critical slot do not confer any additional penalties - different critical slots must be hit for further effects to take place.
There may come a time when not all components will fit inside the available internal structure. If this is the case, then halve the size of all critical slots for the most common item. If there still isn't enough space, do this again for the next most common item. Reducing a critical slot means it now only takes up one internal square per slot. The actual amount of slots stays the same. If there is more than one item with the most critical slots, the owner may decide which gets reduced.
For Example:
The SYD Z2 Seydlitz cannot fit all the medium lasers into the nose because of a lack of space. In this case, the most common item can have its critical slot size reduced. As the Nose now has three items which take up three critical slots (Sensors, FCS and the medium lasers), we decide to reduce the FCS in size. This means that each FCS critical slot now only takes up 1 square instead of the normal two, and this frees up enough space to allow the three medium lasers to fit.
Example Record Sheets:
