Resistance ablative armor

[Sinner098]

The ablative armor rules seem inconsistently applied to ship stats. How are you playing heavy frigates? Do they have a 5+ save with ablative, meaning no armor save once crippled or do they have a 3+ save?
Grand cruiser and up have a 2+ save listed, I think that would be with ablative factored in.

[Lorn]

You are correct, I am very confident in stating that the armour is factored in for all ships except the Heavy Frigate, at least when it is non-optional.

I personally think it is mistakenly not factored in for the Heavy Frigate but rulewise that is based on nothing besides the fact that it would make the armour of the Heavy Frigate worse then that of the light one, since as you state it would be gone once it is crippled.

The rules do not clarify that matter.

[achiles625]

The Ablative Armor rule was changed from the Centurion experimental rules to BfE. Originally it decreased your armor by 2 points after being crippled. Now it increases your armor by 2 points until you are crippled. This change is necessary if you have a modular ship design where Ablative Armor is innate to some ships, but can be added to others as an upgrade. My guess is that the Grand Battleship, Battlecruiser, and Grand Cruiser stat blocks were originally laid out with first iteration in mind. However, when the second iteration was developed they forgot to adjust the values. If so, the armor save for those ships should, in all likelihood, be listed as "4+".

[kimek]

Our Russian community already asked about TTComabat about clarification of Ablative Armor Special Rule

That's what we get in response:

Ablative Armour works as you've stated for cruisers as it's an upgrade, but for anything that has it on its profile the bonus is taken into account. The Resistance Heavy Frigate should have 3+ armour due to Ablative Armour and will be part of a FAQ and Errata document we'll be releasing soon.