Hull
Hull can be thought of as the structural integrity of all ships and fighters, or simply as their "HP bar". When it reaches zero the ship is disabled or destroyed. Even if it's not, taking hull damage can cause crew losses.
Normally, hull is protected by armor. An impact by weapons fire, another ship or other object, or an explosion from a disabled/destroyed ship, will reduce armor HP in the area of impact after damage reduction from Armor Rating is factored in (the higher the Armor Rating is relative to the damage from an individual impact/shot, the greater the damage reduction, which maxes out at 90% with the Polarized Armor skill and at 85% without it). Once the armor is completely destroyed, the hull will be exposed to damage, with all the damage type consequences that entails.
Residual armor
Ships and fighters always retain 5% of their maximum armor, even after it's been completely stripped, which can significantly decrease performance of weapons(especially fragmentation damage weapons, as they suffer the harshest penalties against armor) against their hull. "Pure" hull with no armor generally only exists on missiles and torpedoes.
The damage formula against ship/fighter hull is as follows:
Where weaponDamage is affected by damage types; crucially, note that there are two damage types at play here: against armor in the first equation, and against hull in the second.
For example, a Locust SRM Launcher (200 damage fragmentation missiles) volley against an "armor-less" Enforcer (base armor rating of 900, now 45):
...multiplied by hovewer many missiles hit the Enforcer, up to 3,156 damage for all 30.
Crew losses
Information stated here is unverified.
When a ship takes Hull damage or is destroyed/disabled, and isn't an Automated Ship, it will suffer crew losses proportional to the % of hull loss. As ships of higher class size have higher skeleton crew requirements, they will also tend to suffer higher crew casualties from hull damage. Fighters lose their crew when destroyed, but can avoid full destruction if able to return back to their mothership (it might be possible for mult-crew fighters to suffer crew losses if damaged?).
Certain skills such as Damage Control on an Officer, Containment Procedures & Fighter Uplink reduces crew casualties during combat. Certain hullmods such as Blast Doors & Recovery Shuttles reduces crew casualties too, while certain other hullmods such as Energy Bolt Coherer or Special Modifications can increase crew casualties.
When a ship(s) or fighter(s) are lost in combat, in the post-combat report it will state an amount of crew recovered from pressurized parts of a ship hull or escape pods.
Changelog
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