Build:Ablative Armor
4.4 Ablative Armor
Cost: 2 SUs per 10 points (750 points maximum for Size 4 and smaller; 1500 maximum for Size 5 or greater).
Power Requirement: none
Available: 2368
Ablative armor disperses the energy from a beam or missile strike via its radiative/conducting components. It behaves as regular Resistance, but has damage subtracted from it until its gone. Once the armor has been completely destroyed, damage passes on to the Outer Hull Resistance.
(Cardassian: The Obsidian Order stole the technological secrets needed to construct starship ablative armor from Starfleet in the early 2370s. However, the advent of the Klingon-Cardassian War, followed by a civilian government and then the Dominion War, has prevented the Central Command from taking advantage of this information. Almost no Cardassian ships have ablative armor.)
(Klingon: The Klingons obtained ablative armor technology from their Federation allies shortly before the beginning of the Dominion War, but have not yet had time to introduce it into the fleet as a whole. IKDF engineers have equipped only a few ships with it as a test project. Once the Klingons determine how best to employ this new defensive technology, they will undoubtedly install it on as many ships as possible, since extra protection makes victory that much more likely.)
(Romulan: The Romulans have access to ablative armor as of 2371, though they have not yet introduced it widely. Unfortunately, they cannot make it compatible with cloak-enhancing hulls (see below); a ship with one cannot have the other.)