[ACTA:SF] Question about ship explosions

[billclo]

I have a question about ship explosions. When rolling dice for damage, a 4-6 on a d6 causes one hit. What I would like to have clarified is this: Can ship explosions cause burnthrough on a '6'? Or do they just hit on a 4-6, but are applied to shields until they run out, then to hull, just like plasmas and drones?

I've been playing it as roll 4-6, a '6' burns through, but I wanted to get a official opinion.

 

[archon96]

I would assume they burn thru, thats the way we've been playing.

 

[Rambler]

This came up before and iirc the answer was it was a Attack so Burn Through on a 6 as well as -1 for range on any ships more than 2" away both apply to the explosion.

 

[McKinstry]

We've always treated a 6 as a shield burn through. We have messed with a -1 for over 2" since this is essentially unguided debris.

 

[Greg Smith]

Anything that rolls attack dice will burn through - explosions and asteroids included.

We have never used a -1 penalty. Which I think has never occurred to us because of playing previous versions of ACTA.

However looking at the rules: the -1 penalty applies to weapons. Nothing in the section on explosions indicates they are reduced by range.

 

[billclo]

Hmm... Okay, good to know that I've been doing it right.

It never occurred to me to apply a -1. That seems strange. I'll skip the -1 until we hear something official.

 

[bcantwell]

I have not applied burn through on the basis that the other explosions in the game - namely drones and plasmas - specifically do not burn through. I think of burn through as being the result of point attacks. A ship detonating next door is much more like a giant drone than a giant phaser.

No burn through would be much more logically consistent. Burn through is currently more rules-lawyer consistent. I choose logic every time.

 

[billclo]

I have not applied burn through on the basis that the other explosions in the game - namely drones and plasmas - specifically do not burn through. I think of burn through as being the result of point attacks. A ship detonating next door is much more like a giant drone than a giant phaser.

No burn through would be much more logically consistent. Burn through is currently more rules-lawyer consistent. I choose logic every time.

I agree that a ship explosion is more like a drone or plasma explosion than an energy weapon. But of course the rules don't address this issue. I don't want a 498 page rulebook like SFB, but there are certainly areas where the rules could be clarified some more.

 

[Greg Smith]

Ship explosions may also include big hunks of wreckage which would impact on the shields.

 

[McKinstry]

We've always ascribed burn through damage as large chunks of debris which ships exploding contain a ship sized volume of rather than drones or plasmas which do not.

 

[bladestalker]

well even a ship sized mass exploding will produce little chance of an actual impact in the vast amounts of space we are talking about here. Now if that mass was acclerated to say 1% of light speed even a pebble sized mass hitting a ship would be catasrophic. Who's to say a warp core explosion couldn't do this. I'm good either way.