Core detonation/breach effects on nearby Mechs/Tanks

[Urishima }12thVR{]

Making crits even more dangerous than they already are?

[Romeox]

So, will the nukes be changed  ?

[DFDelta]

I think if something like this happens we should replace all the fusion engines in ranger mechs with ICE engines.

[Taemien]

I think it should only ever inflict heat, because canonically:

There have been a number of cases of fusion engines being "over revved" and exploding with devestating force, but this is more akin to a boiler explosion than a true nuclear explosion. More often a destroyed engine will be punctured by weapons fire. Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion" that is only a risk for unarmored infantry close to the destroyed 'Mech.

Doesn't even sound like a catastrophic explosion, just a burst of hot air.

Why are we getting EMP effects from these things?

[Ressk [CSF]]

I think it should only ever inflict heat, because canonically:

There have been a number of cases of fusion engines being "over revved" and exploding with devestating force, but this is more akin to a boiler explosion than a true nuclear explosion. More often a destroyed engine will be punctured by weapons fire. Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion" that is only a risk for unarmored infantry close to the destroyed 'Mech.

Doesn't even sound like a catastrophic explosion, just a burst of hot air.

Why are we getting EMP effects from these things?

because its f**king awesome thats why.

[Waffnuffly]

I think it should only ever inflict heat, because canonically:

There have been a number of cases of fusion engines being "over revved" and exploding with devestating force, but this is more akin to a boiler explosion than a true nuclear explosion. More often a destroyed engine will be punctured by weapons fire. Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion" that is only a risk for unarmored infantry close to the destroyed 'Mech.

Doesn't even sound like a catastrophic explosion, just a burst of hot air.

Why are we getting EMP effects from these things?

Going by this, why does the explosion even have a delay? If your reactor is breached, seems like it would be an instantaneous explosion.

But I know the answer:

because its f**king awesome thats why.

[Brainwright]

Doesn't even sound like a catastrophic explosion, just a burst of hot air.

Why are we getting EMP effects from these things?

Hot air heated to near-plasma temperatures.  At that point, they begin to emit all kinds of nifty high-energy radiation.  That's why it's a threat to unarmored infantry.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if strict damage from nukes was removed, with heat and EMP effects taking its place.

[Romeox]

Going by this, why does the explosion even have a delay? If your reactor is breached, seems like it would be an instantaneous explosion.

This would be F**KING AWESOME ! The delay is lame, it gives you a chance to run away XD

But seriously, I would love to see nukes with a shorter delay, more damage, giving heat to the targets around it. AND this should depend on the nuked ´mech. A nuked Atlas shouldn´t make the same damage and heat as an Osiris . . .  [But of course there are other priorities now  ]

[Freeborn_Toad]

I wish fusion powered tanks could go crit too. 

The tanks all sound like they are powered by 2-cycle lawnmower engines, so this could explain why they don't go crit.

I think it should only ever inflict heat, because canonically:

There have been a number of cases of fusion engines being "over revved" and exploding with devestating force, but this is more akin to a boiler explosion than a true nuclear explosion. More often a destroyed engine will be punctured by weapons fire. Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion" that is only a risk for unarmored infantry close to the destroyed 'Mech.

Doesn't even sound like a catastrophic explosion, just a burst of hot air.

Why are we getting EMP effects from these things?

Even a real thermonuclear explosion would do most of it's damage to large metal objects by heat, but this is a good point regardless.

I also think the blast should inflict only heat damage, but that it should dump so much heat on nearby vehicles that they stand a good chance of taking considerable damage from it. Half the stuff in the current blast radius should be near certain to shut down, those already near overheat should probably pop, and if you have a direct line of sight to the blast, you should receive at least a small amount of heat.

Going by this, why does the explosion even have a delay? If your reactor is breached, seems like it would be an instantaneous explosion.

This would be F**KING AWESOME ! The delay is lame, it gives you a chance to run away XD

But seriously, I would love to see nukes with a shorter delay, more damage, giving heat to the targets around it. AND this should depend on the nuked ´mech. A nuked Atlas shouldn´t make the same damage and heat as an Osiris . . .  [But of course there are other priorities now  ]

I think the delay should be variable. There are plenty of reasons why a delay might exist, and plenty of situations where I could see it as being near instantaneous.

[AXEL]

In the books , if the reactor took damage the plasma would poke through the armor like fingers through paper, and the mech would be consumed for fuel as the atomic reaction rose into the air,  eventually consuming the mech and dying out. This of course would only damage the optical sensors of a mech.

[General_Armchair]

In the books , if the reactor took damage the plasma would poke through the armor like fingers through paper, and the mech would be consumed for fuel as the atomic reaction rose into the air,  eventually consuming the mech and dying out. This of course would only damage the optical sensors of a mech.

That entirely depends on the author.

If Stackpole was writing the book, reactor breach caused terrible explosions (which is why some of us call core detonations Stackpoling).

Stackpole also had a habit of describing PPCs as "man made lightning" several hundred times.

[Kelmola]

Ahhh. Stackpole. Who writes very entertaining pulp, until you realize that he uses the same tropes again and again in all of his fiction, whether original or in a licenced universe. You can rest assured that if a character apparently dies but no body is found, he or she most certainly survives and returns later on. I lost the count on how many times this happened in his BT and Star Wars books, and his supposedly "first" book (only published after he got famous), Talion: Revenant (which is otherwise a pretty interesting fantasy tale, it actually somewhat resembles The Witcher universe even though it was published earlier than the English translations and I don't believe Stackpole is fluent in Polish).

[SmoesHammer]

May have been suggested but where is the nuclear in these fusion cores exactly? Shouldn't the area of explosion be irradiated and remain irradiated for a while? It could be 10 min as even the infantry have protection from it so it would have to be high to affect them. I know certain passes that got nuked repeatedly during a game which would have been glowing It could only affect BA and could add a rad counter like in Stalker.

[Urishima }12thVR{]

May have been suggested but where is the nuclear in these fusion cores exactly? Shouldn't the area of explosion be irradiated and remain irradiated for a while? It could be 10 min as even the infantry have protection from it so it would have to be high to affect them. I know certain passes that got nuked repeatedly during a game which would have been glowing It could only affect BA and could add a rad counter like in Stalker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion_power#Safety_and_the_environment

[SmoesHammer]

The section you refer to is about heat not radioactivity (heat is radiated but not what i mean), below in the same article is this; "The radioactive inventory at shut-down may be comparable to that of a fission reactor, but there are important differences." It goes on to say the waste would be both more radioactive than fission waste but for a shorter period. Which fits with what i suggested.