[Spaceships] Warhead system

[panton41]

Originally Posted by lexington

A explosive has the advantage of being able to cause some damage even if it misses. In a setting without superscience engines being able to deny a slightly larger area by using a a nuclear or antimatter weapon might be worth it.

In space there's nothing to propagate the shock wave, so explosives really wouldn't have that large of an effective blast radius. In real-live naval warfare if it's not a direct hit the ship isn't likely to suffer enough damage to sink it. (Unless, of course, the attack comes from below where the water effectively propagates the blast waves.)

Nuclear and antimatter weapons work in Spaceships because there are other effects (hard radiation, X-Rays, heat, etc.) that serve to deliver the energy. Most of an atom bomb's blast damage on Earth comes from (and this is freakin' awesome) the air literally burning from the amount of X-Rays generated.