Thermite, do your Shadowrunners use it? Options

[Kesslan]

Well at least your better than one demo expert ork I used to have. He had an RV that eventually basically became one big FAE bomb. Not so much because he converted it into one, but because I wound up building so many of various strengths 'just incase' and storing them in the RV.

To this day, I am glad nothing ever happened to that RV to cause the FAEs to go off. That woulda been one hell of a mushroom cloud. (Not to mention the several sets of LAWs, claymores, spare grenades, and about 20lbs of various grades of Plastique, and about 10 cans of foam explosive also kept in said RV)

Thermite is oddly the one thing I almost never found use for. I think the ONLY time I ever used it was to setup a small can of it on the engine block of a target's vehicle before a run.

[KarmaInferno]

I ended a SR campaign that way.

Being the team demo expert (and rigger), my character's van was in much the same state as yours, chock full to the gills with explody things. At the end of the big climax firefight, the "bad guy" managed to get to his limo and hightail it out of the building.

As soon as his vehicle exited, it got rammed sideways into an alcove by a rather large van. My van. I took enough time to wave at the nice man though the windows, and calmly exited out the rear of the van, while he and his guards futilely tried to break out the bullet resistant glass as all his doors were jammed shut by the wall on one side and my van on the other

Grabbed a missile launcher on the way out, and deliberately walked away slow enough for my teammates to catch up to me, and handed the launcher off to the one guy who had a particular mad-on for the bad guy. This bad guy had been dogging us for the better part of two game years and had killed the aforementioned team-mate's sister.

The van went up in a very pretty set of explosions. From later reports the detonation was enough to set off seismometers all up and down the west coast. And after we picked ourselves up from getting knocked on our asses by the extended blast, we got to do the classic walk away into the sunset.

=)


-karma

[Kagetenshi]

[Kyoto Kid]

[Fix-it]

you COULD have problems if you ground up the rust on the same grinding wheel as the aluminum. a few specs of molten iron maybe. but nothing enourmous.

[KarmaInferno]

Bit more serious than that, actually.


-karma

[Kyoto Kid]

...that's why Leela would wear a fire retardant hood, coveralls, and gloves.

and why her workshop is on the other side of the Grande Estate from the manor.

...thank you for observing all safety precautions... and, have a nice day...

[Fix-it]

hence the reason you're not supposed to grind alumium anyway. you use a file, you lazy bum.

[Sir_Psycho]

M&M specifies that Thermite is 10D. I'm not sure if grinding iron reacting with aliminium residue would do the full 10D damage. M or S, maybe.

Also, I'd say that grinding aliminium with a kit (chemistry or standard tool kit?) would be using a file, so it's not gonna happen. Using a Shop would involve using a belt grinder, like that article, so it could happen. I'd say a Facility would have in built safety. You may not even have to touch the grinding apparatus yourself.

[Kagetenshi]

I have full faith that a wired, high-Quickness character could cause ignition with a file ;)

~J

[ShadowDragon8685]

Cybersammies with precisely one point into Craft (Chemistry) using machine-shop tools aside, you're probably safe enough while making thermite, unless you try to use the same belt grinder on both metals.

[Sir_Psycho]

So how about rules for this? : :D

[Mortax]

Thermite is way too easy to make...
Aluminum, yes, it is non-fe, but it is still somewhat toxic, and the powder is HIGHLY flammible. Not sure if I should point this out, but it's not a huge secret....

[ Spoiler ]

best place for aluminum? Etchi-sketch.

As far as using it, most of my teams havent. Mortax did a few times, usually in small quantities to weaken a hinge, wall, ect before "hey Koolaid"ing through it. it kept things realitively quite until he knocked down the wall. Never used it for interrogation, though that sounds like a good one. I was always more of popsicle and blowtorch kinda guy.

[Moon-Hawk]

OH YEAH!!

[Kyoto Kid]

[Kagetenshi]

[Fortune]

'Cause bomb-making is bad, don't ya know. ;)

[Mortax]

Covering my own hoop. :-) And I'm not sure somepeople on this board should have access to explosives. :-)

But as I said,it wouldn't take much to find this out on your own. Hell, I learned it in chem 101. (Man, that was a fun teacher....)

[Ryu]

I was more concerned with self-ignition than with small patches of thermite created due to doing both metals on the same set of tools. I´d assume someone doing small batches manually would be safe from the former, and the later happens on a glitch.

Someone in my game using "proper" tools without the necessary skills would suffer. AR handbooks are there for a reason.

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, I've only known one player to use thermite, and he was a physics major in real life. I think more runners should use thermite. I really do.

[ShadowDragon8685]

In some situations it might even be the "Stealthy" option for a forced entry. :)

[Mortax]

see my comment in the lockpicking thread. ;)

[yoippari]

Something that hasn't been brought up and isn't even in the book is that thermite leaves behind liquid iron. Thermite burns at about 5500 F and iron melts at 2900. Metal that hot takes a while to cool down. It also generates a lot of sparks and smoke along with a "roar" of boiling iron, definetly not a very stealth friendly door opener.

I found the video of a friend of mine using thermit to make alloy steel (iron melts down into a crucible with the other alloying elements). This is a 9 pound charge.
http://s63.photobucket.com/albums/h151/Bre...nt=MOV01705.flv

9 pounds is more than you need to destroy a door hinge but it gives you an idea of how noticeable thermit is. BTW, that video was taken in broad daylight, the camera has to compensate for how bright the reaction is by lowering the overall brightness.

[Kagetenshi]

Boiling? I rather doubt that.

Anyway, in addition to the liquid iron the thermite also probably leaves behind liquid whatever-you-were-thermiting, providing it didn't go gaseous.

~J

[ShadowDragon8685]