Ship explosions

[Silvereye]

I just don't understand how an explosion from a little tiny mine can't be avoided and an explosion from a HUGE honkin' ship can be. They both are pretty much the same thing.

The narn e-mine is a mostly unstable nuclear explosion. Lots of burny radioactrive death expanding to fill a sphere the size of a medium planet (3" radius / 6" diameter).

A space ship exploding also include chunks of debries (large and small bits of ship, bodies of crew, exploding munitions, stray shuttles, spiralling engines) randomly flung out even further (4" radius / 8" diameter) though a much less powerful chemical explosion as stuff in the ship explodes or just drifting apart if a beam cut the ship in half (missing anything potentially explosive). Basically the large chuncks of debris (AD determined by the size of the ship exploding) can be evaded by a skilfull/lucky enough pilot of a nimble ship or fighter.

To me at least (and this is how we've house ruled it for our group) both events are basically the same, and should have dodge treated the same for both.

Though I disagree as both events are different, use whatever works for you.

 

[Arch Lector Petrovski]

I can see how people see them as the same, after all both use an explosion with a radius that has the potential to damage everything in its area. Also, if I remember, the similarity doesn't stop there as both the E-mines and the ship explosions ignore stealth and ignore interceptors. Infact about the only difference between the two area effect blasts is that of the Dodge trait.

 

[David Anla Shok']

All;
There must be a differance between ships blowing up and energy mines since the book rules that Dodge can't be used on the one but not the other. Also, one never quite knows when the e-mine will detonate since the fragging Narn can toss them just anywhere. Ships on the way to detonation can be detected as such, per the episodes. How many times have WS and fighters uttered the magic words, "we've hit their primarys, everyone haul ass" or some such? So I see no problems with Dodging some (hopefully all) hits.
Sadly, after three games with 2nd ed has led me to feel that e-mines are still broken. With the unchanged burst radius, the AP and TD are excessive. We, the local B5 mob, have thought that the e-mine not targeted on a specific ship, should have had a random dice attached to it so that it would not always hit on that random spot in space. Well, all of us save the Narn player
Regards,

 

[Niemand]

I just don't understand how an explosion from a little tiny mine can't be avoided and an explosion from a HUGE honkin' ship can be. They both are pretty much the same thing.

The narn e-mine is a mostly unstable nuclear explosion. Lots of burny radioactrive death expanding to fill a sphere the size of a medium planet (3" radius / 6" diameter).

A space ship exploding also include chunks of debries (large and small bits of ship, bodies of crew, exploding munitions, stray shuttles, spiralling engines) randomly flung out even further (4" radius / 8" diameter) though a much less powerful chemical explosion as stuff in the ship explodes or just drifting apart if a beam cut the ship in half (missing anything potentially explosive). Basically the large chuncks of debris (AD determined by the size of the ship exploding) can be evaded by a skilfull/lucky enough pilot of a nimble ship or fighter.

And the ships engines/reactor going up in an explosion wouldn't yield an unstable nuclear reaction? The powerplant of something that big would be massive. And to power weaponry that advanced they would have to have something bigger than current nuclear devices. When that goes, that's got to be one very large/powerful explosion. I just see it as the same thing as energy mines. But from what I figure the rules ignore the explosion aspect of a destroyed ship and just take into consideration the flying debris.

 

[Silvereye]

The ships engines and reactor and weaponry might have safety systems and emergency shutdowns to help any crew in lifeboats to escape by preventing them going critical most of the time.

The large chunks of debris may act as shields and stop a lot of the explosive energy radiating in their direction. It may also accelerate the smaller chunks to make them a lot more dangerous.

What might make exploding ships more "fun" is to place a debris cloud where the ship exploded as a navigational hazard much like a dense asteroid field. We see in many of the big battles on B5 spinning debris hit other vessels.

 

[Niemand]

Now that is a great idea.

 

[darknight]

or we could fill em all with gas and a small or long fuse depending on damage, and just watch the bits fly :lol: :lol: :lol:
sorry just got the giggles

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

I just don't understand how an explosion from a little tiny mine can't be avoided and an explosion from a HUGE honkin' ship can be. They both are pretty much the same thing.

The narn e-mine is a mostly unstable nuclear explosion. Lots of burny radioactrive death expanding to fill a sphere the size of a medium planet (3" radius / 6" diameter).

A space ship exploding also include chunks of debries (large and small bits of ship, bodies of crew, exploding munitions, stray shuttles, spiralling engines) randomly flung out even further (4" radius / 8" diameter) though a much less powerful chemical explosion as stuff in the ship explodes or just drifting apart if a beam cut the ship in half (missing anything potentially explosive). Basically the large chuncks of debris (AD determined by the size of the ship exploding) can be evaded by a skilfull/lucky enough pilot of a nimble ship or fighter.

And the ships engines/reactor going up in an explosion wouldn't yield an unstable nuclear reaction? The powerplant of something that big would be massive. And to power weaponry that advanced they would have to have something bigger than current nuclear devices. When that goes, that's got to be one very large/powerful explosion. I just see it as the same thing as energy mines. But from what I figure the rules ignore the explosion aspect of a destroyed ship and just take into consideration the flying debris.

Fusion reactors don't explode the same way fission ones do. and even the Drazi are stated as using fusion for their power plants.

 

[lastbesthope]

One reason that a E_Mine is less dodgeable than a hip explosion. Ship explosions have, relatively, more matter in them than an E-mine explosion.

Also, a ship will explode in an approximately spherical front, whereas it might be possible that E-mines could be developed to explode within a certain plane, generally on or parallel to the local system ecliptic that most of the ships seem to end up fighting in ( though less limited by this than Star Trek)

LBH