Spaceships: Engines as weapons

[PTTG]

Is there a resource for the amount of damage done by the engine wash of various types of spaceships?

I'd imagine that it scales all the way up from a 1d decade Cr attack if you somehow get struck with SM+5 mass driver pellets all the way up to a SM+18 Conversion Torch Drive doing radioactive burning damage in effectively thousands of decade dice. Of course, there's a difference between aiming a mass driver shot at juuuust the right target and a complicated fighter maneuver to spray exhaust at an oncoming enemy carrier.

[Humabout]

Did you check the designers notes? I recall something about engine exhaust in there. It might have had to do with legalities though

[Celti]

Spaceships 4, p.33 — Reaction Drives as Weapons

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Celti

Spaceships 4, p.33 — Reaction Drives as Weapons

Thanks! I had a feeling there may already be published information on the topic.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

It makes sense to me that with the sheer energy needed to run a starship, that every starship engine would basically double as a weapon of some kind.

What about warp drives? I read that some physicists have calculated, that if we could build warp drives and control them well enough to steer and start and stop, that there would be a massive flux of interstellar particles accumulated in the "wave-front" in the compressed space in front of the ship. Then when it reaches its destination and the warp bubble drops, the pseudo-bow-shock would destroy whatever happened to be in front of the ship. My impression was that a warp ship would be a weapon of mass destruction.

[schmeelke]

The Kzinti lesson: "A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." (Larry Niven)

Jon's Law: "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction. It only matters how long you want to wait for maximum damage. Interesting is equal to 'whatever keeps the [players] from getting bored.'" (Jon Souza)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

What about warp drives? I read that some physicists have calculated, that if we could build warp drives and control them well enough to steer and start and stop, that there would be a massive flux of interstellar particles accumulated in the "wave-front" in the compressed space in front of the ship.

Most warp drive type schemes involve energy levels that make a supernova look small. You sort of have to assume that a practical warp drive does it in a way we haven't thought of, in which case you can pretty much make up numbers.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Most warp drive type schemes involve energy levels that make a supernova look small. You sort of have to assume that a practical warp drive does it in a way we haven't thought of, in which case you can pretty much make up numbers.

I heard that recent propositions "merely" require the equivalent energy of 400 kilos of antimatter. Enormous, but nowhere near star destroying size.