I undestand what you\'re saying. You would like to basically get a half-block of hardened hull, in the interest of at least halving mass you get from creating more well-armored ships. But hardened hull is just as massive as normal hull, so why not just build your ship out of it? Furthermore, the whole idea of \"armor\" is that it is denser and thus harder to break. Dense objects are more massive by nature. So if there was a half-slab of hardened hull, it would make sense for it to have the same mass as an entire block of normal hull.