Copyright (c) 1996 by James Lowry Welcome to the second edition! Much expanded and complicated for your confusion! Sloped Sides (TL6) (V10) By sloping many of the larger armor panels on a vehicle away from the vertical (or horizontal), the effective armor of a vehicle can be much improved. Sloping a particular side multiplies the DR that side's armor since any beam or projectile will most likely have to travel through a greater thickness of armor. Multiple sides may be sloped, paying for each side seperately. While cost is a constant $1/6 degrees, do note that higher degrees of slope have an increased effect as well as volume requirement. Most vehicles will have no more than a 60-degree front slope with 30-degree sides and maybe an 18-degree top or back. The underbody is never sloped on most normal vehicles. Vehicle Slope Table Type of Slope Cost Volume DR Increase 18-degree $3 1% 5% 25-degree $5 2% 10% 30-degree $5 3% 15% 34-degree $6 4% 21% 37-degree $7 5% 25% 40-degree $7 6% 31% 42-degree $7 7% 35% 44-degree $8 8% 39% 46-degree $8 9% 44% 48-degree $8 10% 49% 50-degree $9 11% 56% 51-degree $9 12% 59% 53-degree $9 13% 66% 54-degree $9 14% 70% 55-degree $10 15% 74% 56-degree $10 16% 79% 57-degree $10 17% 84% 58-degree $10 18% 89% 59-degree $10 19% 94% 60-degree $10 20% 100% 61-degree $11 21% 106% 62-degree $11 23% 113% 63-degree $11 24% 120% 64-degree $11 26% 128% 65-degree $11 27% 137% 66-degree $11 29% 146% 67-degree $12 31% 156% 68-degree $12 33% 167% 69-degree $12 36% 179% 70-degree $12 38% 192% Cost is per cf of volume per side sloped. Volume is a percentage of body volume per side sloped. If the vehicle has "fair" or better aerodynamic streamlining, the cost to slope the front and top is halved, and the volume requirement of the front and top and is reduced by the volume requirement of the streamlining or half, whichever is less. Optional Complications: Multiple Sloped Sides: Adjacent sloped sides are actually "sharing" the lost volume. So on a vehicle with adjacent sloped sides find the side with the highest degree of slope and apply its volume percentage to the volume required of any sloping on any adjacent side. This is applied after any streamlining reduction. Go down the list and continue applying this to any remaining sides that have not already applied their percentage to the adjacent sides. Multiple sides affecting the sloping volume of the same side add their percentages together. Example: The Soviet T-34 is a 600 cf vehicle (AF 500) that has sloped front sides and back. The front is sloped at 60-degrees (20% body volume), the sides are sloped at 46-degrees (9% body volume) and the back is sloped at 50-degrees (11% body volume, +56% DR). The front and back together take up 31% of the body (186 cf). The sides each take up 54 cf, which is reduced 31% to 37.26 cf each. This leaves 339.48 cf for the internal components. Size Modifier: The volume taken up by sloped armor and streamlining is an accounting illusion to generate the extra body cost needed for the special body structure, and the increased surface area of the body. Deduct the volume used by sloping and streamlining before figureing the Size Modifier. Alternate Sloping Rules: The above rules are really a holdover from Car Wars. If you aren't concerned about your vehicles using different rules than the standard, use the following in place of the volume rules: When sloped, a side has more surface area. To reflect this, increase the cost and mass of the armor on that side by the amount given in the Volume column of the Vehicle Slope Table. Example: The German Jagdpanzer 'Hetzer' is a 260 cf vehicle (AF 250) that has 180 points front armor, 60 points on each side and the back, all bought as TL 6 expensive. The front and back are sloped at 70-degrees (+38% cost and mass) and the sides are sloped at 40-degrees (+6% cost and mass) (note: this 'breaks' the normal rules as there is not enough volume left for the tracks). Normally the 240 points on the front and back would cost $12,000 and masses 6,000 lbs. Using the alternate rules, it would instead cost $18,380 and mass 8,190 lbs. The 120 points on the sides normally costs $6,000 and masses 3,000 lbs. The alternate rules gives them a cost of $6,360 and a mass of 3,180 lbs.