I like those answers because they seem reasonable from an explanatory perspective while being very simple in play (you can ignore it).I suppose if you had different thruster technologies (like some sort of plasma ejection), you might well have a vulnerability. But that would require a difference from the normal rules.TomOn Sat, May 9, 2020 at 7:58 PM Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 2:35 PM <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:--I install armour on my ship (hull). But then I have this non-hull area which constitutes the rear - my engine exhausts.If you use reactionless thrusters, then your armor covers your "exhausts" - since these are really heat emitters, not rocket nozzles. Logically, your heat management should suffer with the emitters covered, but Traveller has never worried about heat emission for any other reason, so you're okay.IMTU, I use fusion rockets, so the problem doesn't exist. The exhaust is basically a defuse but constant fusion cannon blast. Any incoming damage or rocket intersecting it is taken care of *long* before it can reach the exhaust itself. Missiles which get even close to the exhaust will have their sensors fried. so they're going to steer will clear.If you have more than one pursuer and one or more of these are sufficiently off-axis from the main vector of the chase, you are at some risk of someone tagging the exhaust port with a beam weapon from an obtuse angle (outside the drive thrust cone). But that's not going matter, as a practical concern. Even the nozzle leaves (the bits that expand/retract to change vectoring and focus) are armored to the same level as the rest of the hull . . . especially their inner surfaces, which must handle the fusion exhaust at it's very hottest/intensest . . . which hottest/intensest exhaust the incoming bolt must traverse before it gets to hit anything material.Richard Aiken
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