[Jetmech Jr.]

I've Heard 11+ Gigatons based on it doing over twice the Damage of a 5 Gigaton Harbinger. However, I'm now confused. IIRC, to achieve twice the Effect of 5 Gigatons with a Nuke or similar, you'd need something around 27 Gigatons.

Am I missing something? Can some of the more informed members of the board help me out here?

[Flipside]

Personally, I think it's because the weapons in FS2 are so vastly over-rated it's a bit silly I would have thought that a single 11 Gigaton hit would snap even a 9km long ship in half.

[StratComm]

I don't think the Helios is Nuclear, though the power rating your stating sounds right (it's the same no matter what explosive method you use, as "ton" refers to an energy output rather than an actual weight).  Though be careful when using comparisons based on real Nuke data; it works differently in space.  If all damage is applied to the surface rather than through a shockwave, then 10 or 11 gigatons is about right.

Originally posted by Flipside
Personally, I think it's because the weapons in FS2 are so vastly over-rated it's a bit silly I would have thought that a single 11 Gigaton hit would snap even a 9km long ship in half.

If that rating is for force, then it should.  Though I am pretty sure that rating actually refers to thermal output, which is only going to melt the hull plating around the point of impact.

[Ghost]

That, and the Helios is an antimatter weapon. Straight up antimatter does ridiculous amounts of damage... That's what I thought was too unrealistic... It didn't do enough damage.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Truthfully, it SHOULD. A 5 Gig Nuke would make a Fireball 19 Km in diameter, large enough to engulf a Sathanas 3 times over with space to spare. Than again, I'm not entirely sure the Fireball would retain that same size in Vacuum.

EDIT: This was at Flipside.

[StratComm]

EDIT: Nevermind.

Ghost: Though antimatter would produce an insane amount of energy if as much of it were detonated as there is fuel in a Nuke, the containment apparatus for such a large amount of the stuff would be cruiser-sized, at least.  The raw energy discharge from a few grams of AM isn't that much more than a few gigatons IIRC.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Well, looking around, I found this: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/conghand/nuclear.htm

It makes no mention of a smaller Fireball, but does state that the Blast/Shockwave and Thermal Radiation would utterly disappear.

[StratComm]

Translation: no fireball.  All you'd have is a bright flash and a small but extremely hot (and expanding) ball of plasma from the material in immediate contact with the Nuke as it went off.

[Flipside]

Yep, Shockwaves depend on Air to superheat and expand/contract. I read it as the equivalent of strapping 5 Million Tonnes of TNT onto a single point on the ship and detonating. I don't think the tonnage rating even on terrestrial nukes take fireball/radiation into account, purely blast.

So I think it is as Stratcomm says a very small but powerful blast area. So it would depend, at least partially, on the heat dissipation capabilities of the armour?

[Jetmech Jr.]

But in order to achieve double the effect of 5GT, wouldn't it still need a far higher yield then 11GT

[Flipside]

I think it's about direct applied force, so, no, I don't think so, but we get onto an area of physics I'm by no means confident on, so you would be well advised to question the wisd... sorry, to get a second opinion

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by Flipside
I don't think the tonnage rating even on terrestrial nukes take fireball/radiation into account, purely blast.

Well, if I'm reading this right, they take into account Blast, Thermal Rad., and Ionizing Rad.

[Flipside]

Hmmmmmmmm but that's not for working out the initial tonnage of the bomb, that just seems to be an overview of the effects?

[StratComm]

All of which is still released in a vacuum, it just doesn't have a means to propogate.  That's why I said bright flash; I'm not sure that a nuke actually releases any radiation in the visible spectrum, but it does release a ton of energy in the form of radiation.  Most thermal, which is why I say it would melt the hull, but also a good bit of RF as well as the nastier kinds that tend to kill people.  The damage dealt in a space sim would be more a factor of heat dissipation in the armor than specific characteristics of the warhead.

[Ghost]

Strat: Not necessarily. This is 330 years in the future, after all. There's no telling how big an antimatter containment box would be. And if a 'few grams' equals a 'few gigatons,' then we're talking Boop-there-goes-the-Sath kind of boom here.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by Flipside
Hmmmmmmmm but that's not for working out the initial tonnage of the bomb, that just seems to be an overview of the effects?

Somewhere in there they measure out the Energy Distribution between those 3 as 50%, 45%, and 5%, respectively, for a >1Mt Warhead.

[StratComm]

No, because we're getting back into the gigaton =/= massive destruction in space issue.  And AM containment won't get much better than a strict containment field that, even if Star-Trek like in its strength (and we're talking about something not feasable in the FS universe) it would still be relatively large compared to the amount of antimatter that it would contain.  Remember that if it comes in to contact with any matter, it goes boom.  And that includes the containment unit.  

The other issue is that the radiation released by matter/antimatter reaction isn't necessarily of the form that's going to incur massive damage on armor plating.  As I recall, it's mostly high-energy radiation in the form of X-rays and gamma rays, neither of which will have a huge impact on the hull itself.  On the crews inside, however, the effects would be pretty substantial if the radiation shielding wasn't adequate.

[NGTM-1R]

The Harbinger, as Karajorma once point out, is only 2.5 gigatons.

The 5 gigaton figure given is for the maximum number a GTVA ship is allowed to haul around without special permisssions and such, and that number is 2.

[Jetmech Jr.]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
The Harbinger, as Karajorma once point out, is only 2.5 gigatons.

The 5 gigaton figure given is for the maximum number a GTVA ship is allowed to haul around without special permisssions and such, and that number is 2.

And WHERE, praytell, did you derive this from? I disagree.

[aldo_14]

The Helios has a yield of somewhere between stupid and ludicrous.

Incidentally, this partly answers RE: 5 gt limit

[q]GTM - N1 HARBINGER
Fusion bomb surrounded by 3 salted fission bombs; propulsion unit is a half-size version of a regulation GTA fighter thruster (Class II); given the weight of the payloads, the missile is slow despite the power of the thruster; as the Harbinger is exceptionally large, GTA fighters and bombers are limited to carrying 2 of these weapons at any given time; the resultant shock wave from this weapon is potentially deadly, due to the size of the payloads (5000 Mt in total); use near allied installations or allied ship groupings is strongly discouraged by the GTA; most effective when used in preemptive defensive strike against non-military installations.
[/q]