Ablative Armor

Ablative armor is an armor type for starfighters, allowing a ship to travel lighter and faster as to opposed to standard depleted uranium armor.

Function
With the development of plasma shields for high speed starships, research was conducted in adapting shielding technology to be more efficient during high speed combat. The constant draw of plasma shielding on a ship's power systems limited the amount of power that was available to to energy depleting weapons such as lasers, rail guns, and plasma guns.

Instead of maintaining a constant shield all around the ship, ablative armor only generates a protective shield at the point of impact with a projectile, such as space debris, or a laser shot. Sensors and range finders positioned on a ship's hull detect an incoming projectile and calculate the point of impact on the ship. Shield generators then apply the right amount of energy at the appropriate spot on the ship to either deflect or absorb the projectile as it strikes the ship.

The advantages are obvious. Since power will only be allocated to a potential impact instead of maintaining a constant field, more power is available to make energy expensive weapons more destructive, increasing weapons efficiency and effectiveness of a given ship by a factor of the available ship's power.

Disadvantages
While ablative armor does increase a ship's deficiency in combat, its not without its drawbacks.

Ablative armor cannot withstand sustained attacks all over the ship. This has the negative impact of drawing too much power to protect the ship in different locations, cutting back on weapon power, and in extreme cases, engine output. A ship using ablative armor cannot be expected to last long in an initial assault on the enemy. Instead, ships using ablative armor are usually found in support roles, such as close in fire support, light patrol duty, or scouting missions. If the ablative shield generators were to fail, the ship's light armor would be the pilot's only protection from enemy attack or collisons with space debris. It's often recommended ships electing to use ablative shielding to travel with another ship using standard shields and armor.