Removing armor removes the mitigating effect armor has on hull. You seem to be stuck on "bypass." Perhaps a better word would be "reduce the effectiveness of armor" or "counter armor." Satisfied?
No matter how you style it, armor piercing doesn't remove armor, it just goes through it...an armor piercing projectile like GRG should be able to penetrate the ships armor and directly damage the internal systems...this is why GRG affecting engine speed is logical, because the armor is penetrated and the engines are directly hit...the issue I have with this debuff is that it just isn't as useful as other debuffs...changing it to something else, such as a penalty to shield mitigation or passive regeneration is a decision motivated by game play....however, those debuffs also make sense, because both represent GRG penetrating the armor and damaging internal systems...
A blanket armor debuff suggests that this one shot by GRG somehow has crippled the armor all over the ship...that is just completely nonsensical...nanites? Sure, blanket armor debuff...telekinetics? Sure, blanket armor debuff...but a fast moving projectile? NO...
I said nothing about shot versus missiles. Missiles I guarantee you have their place in space combat. But their warheads, like a gun's, is going to be nuclear (or something more powerful then nuclear) or solid/shot. My modern example was the effectiveness of "explosive warhead versus solid" NOT "Gun versus Missile." I thought that was obvious.
What you are arguing is obvious, but you aren't arguing against my proposition...my entire proposition for incendiary shells has nothing to do with warheads or missiles or explosive shot...I am not advocating explosive shells or explosive warheads, I'm advocating incendiary shells...bullets can be incendiary (I assume you know that) and are still bullets...just because you have a nifty combination of metals that make up your bullet doesn't magically make it a warhead, it is still a bullet...
My conception for incendiary shells sticks to it being "bullets"....as I stated before, incendiary shells is tied to the autocannon weapon on the marza, so it clearly does not need any "payload" or "warhead" in order to be incendiary....technically incendiary shells also is tied to missiles, but my conception of the idea still works...just like a bullet, the missile can be made of a nifty combination of metals to also act as an incendiary upon impact in addition to the "normal explosion"...
There is much you don't understand. Say you make a stronger alloy/composite in the future. Great! Now your shots have increased in toughness as well....!!!! I don't care if you coat your warship in diamond armor, my slugs will boil plasma off that hull.
I don't understand? I think I understand physics quite well...the strength of the armor is determined by the material being used and the process to make it...the energy released by a kinetic weapon is based solely on the speed and mass of the projectile and is independent of the material...as a silly example, if I upgrade my armor from triple hardened titanium to quadruple hardened titanium, my armor gets stronger...if you upgrade your projectile from triple to quadruple, the mass and achievable velocity are still the same, so your projectile still carries the same energy...
Now, the material is still relevant...it has to be able to withstand rapid acceleration without falling apart, and its shape/composition can help it penetrate as oppossed to breaking apart on impact (at least, at "slow" speeds)...still though, the amount of energy released on impact is only dependent on the mass and speed of the projectile...the material/hardness only helps you penetrate the armor and "do the damage in the right place"....so again, it makes perfect sense that GRG would somehow affect the ships internal systems...
Acid burning through armor is pretty crazy as a warhead.
Never said acid burning (not all chemical reactions that "eat" or "burn" require an acid)...and again, you are fixated on "warhead", which I am in no way advocating...another problem:
I was talking about the fact that the heat from the incendiary would dissipate on impact instead of igniting anything (read: igniting very much). And an fire ignited on a warship's hull would need an oxidizer. A warhead hitting itself on a ship would spread the "fire" none too effectively....
Incendiary shells carry the chemicals they need to "explode" or "burn" or do whatever it is they need to do...while it is true that most shells need enough friction between them and what they are penetrating to start the necessary reactions, there is no need for more oxidizer or an atmosphere in order for these things to at least work...sure, explosions may work better in an atmosphere, but I'm not interested in an explosion, I'm interested in a chemical reaction between the shell and the armor...
Sure, adding more "fuel" to your chemical reaction will help it expand, but it's not like you have only one round hitting the ship...you have dozens if not hundreds of rounds hitting the target in different places, damagin pockets of armor all over the ship....this is demonstrated by the marza shooting more than once in a battle, and by the fact that the ability "stacks" to indicate the debuff gets worse the longer you are shooting at the target...
And why are you fixated on "fires" and "flamethrowers"? The point here isn't to start a fire, the point is to chemically react with the armor...maybe this is a simple "release of energy" due to an extremely exothermic reaction, or maybe it is something more complicated like a chain of chemical reactions that break down the armor...point is, I'm not talking about "fires"...
It is very difficult for a ship to dissipate it's own heat, but the missile with your "incendiary" warhead must also overcome a lot to actually transfer all of it's heat to that of the target ship. Further, when it comes down to it, heat is essentially kinetic energy on a micro scale. A solid shot will deliver more heat because it will fry itself into the target hull by E=MC^2 (mass being however much mass is converted to energy, the faster the shot the higher the %). Although at the high speeds I'm talking about your incendiary warhead would melt itself like a solid shot, thus making "incendiary" pointless [edit: roughly at 3km/s, see below]. When I said "dissipate" please read "incendiary warhead dissipate." Obviously there are three methods of dissipating heat, one of which is no good in space.
I'll try to ignore the missile/warhead fixation...first, heat is not "essentially kinetic energy on a micro scale"...as an example, much of the heat released by a reaction could be in the form of EM radiation...when you see a fire or a "bright" chemical reaction, most of the heat coming off of it has absolutely nothing to do with kinetic energy, it is all radiation....as I stated previously, these shells are lodging themselves in the armor, so anything they radiate or conduct is all going into the ships armor...another problem:
Although at the high speeds I'm talking about your incendiary warhead would melt itself like a solid shot, thus making "incendiary" pointless
Key word here is "your"....I never gave a speed for these shells, only indicated that they most certainly are not relativistic...why do incendiary shells have to be moving at this magical speed of 3.5 km/s...why can't they go slower so that they actually function? And again, the weapons are "autocannons"...not sure what that is, but it isn't coilguns or railguns so I don't think those shells are travelling at 3.5 km/s...
I see no obvious reason why a bright engineer in the far off future couldn't make a shell that travels slower than 3 km/s, is able to partially penetrate the typical starship grade armor, and uses the friction from penetration (or a niftier method) to start a chemical reaction that severely damages the armor beyond "making a hole in it"....
Are high energy kinetic weapons better on a per shot basis? Obviously...compare the damage done by GRG or snipe to the meager damage done by incendiary shells or the typical missile...seems though that, for whatever reason, the TEC have a bit of trouble putting giant railguns on everything...maybe its because railguns take up lots of space, or are too expensive, or etc etc etc....there could be a million reasons why puny ships like gardas and fighters use "autocannons" and only the Kol, Ragnarov, and stationary defense platforms are able to have railguns or Gauss guns....
