[X] My Assistant

[Saint Sithney]

And now they hold corporate death match war games there!

Speaking of Desert Wars, I'm still seriously hoping to get some "Sports of the 6th world" write-ups for that and Urban Brawl and other totally cyberpunk style things in either an upcoming book, or in one of the PDF-only supplements. 4th ed has made the whole setting far too reasonable. Death games FTW.

[Minchandre]

Yes, they nuked Libya. Pre-Awakening.

I was actually referring to the Jihad in 2036/7.

[Delta]

There is a theory that they aren't as powerful as they used to be, and there have been hints that nuclear reactions interact with mana in some way, the Bug City Cermak Blast should have shredded that part of Chicago, but only toasted the hive there.

Actually, IIRC, there was at least some kind of explanation for this in Burning Bright (might be wrong there, it's been a decade since I last read it and GM'ed my Bug City campaign...),

[ Spoiler ]

the bugs tried to cover their hive with a pretty strong magical barrier before their mass hatching began, but as the Damocles drone had already been inside the perimeter when they put up the barrier, it actually reflected much of the sub-tactical blast inside, so that the radiation and destruction inside the barrier was a whole lot stronger than expected, while there was a lot less of both outside

[Sengir]

I was actually referring to the Jihad in 2036/7.

That was aimed towards Europe and not Israel (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Israel only nuked Lybia in reasponse to a chemical weapons attack...which seemingly caused very little damage (given that Israel is still around), so maybe C weapons also are no longer what they used to be.

[hobgoblin]

Dunkelzahn's Secrets includes a drop in about funding a thesis on the relationship between mana and nuclear energy.

Hmm, now i find myself pondering magic as a star trek replicator. Sir clarke would have had fun with that...

[Xahn Borealis]

IMO, if a nuke goes off, you don't roll Armour, you roll Edge.

[Sengir]

You roll over and die

[hobgoblin]

IMO, if a nuke goes off, you don't roll Armour, you roll Edge.

more like burn edge, hand of god style.

(and pray that there is a refrigerator nearby)

[TomDowd]

Actually, IIRC, there was at least some kind of explanation for this in Burning Bright (might be wrong there, it's been a decade since I last read it and GM'ed my Bug City campaign...),

[ Spoiler ]

the bugs tried to cover their hive with a pretty strong magical barrier before their mass hatching began, but as the Damocles drone had already been inside the perimeter when they put up the barrier, it actually reflected much of the sub-tactical blast inside, so that the radiation and destruction inside the barrier was a whole lot stronger than expected, while there was a lot less of both outside

I actually worked up the numbers back when I wrote Burning Bright, based on the publicly available information on the yields of sub-tactical nuclear weapons and even had a map at one point of ground zero and the various effect radii for both the expected blast and what actually occurred. I remember being surprised at the time at how limited the destruction really would have been for that class of weapon. (A bit of trivia for those who do not know - ground zero for the blast was across the street from the FASA Corp offices at the time, and the final stages of the op were controlled out of that building... see here... so, yea, I kinda nuked FASA...)

TomD

[TomDowd]

BTW, for what it is worth... I cannot think of any reason for rolling any kind of damage tests for a nuclear weapon. Nukes are storytelling devices. Edge, perhaps, damage dice no.

TD

[Method]

That was aimed towards Europe and not Israel

Israel was also involved. Their ability to hold out and threaten the invaders from the rear caused the Great Jihad to stall in the Balkins allowing time for Europe to organize their defense.

[hobgoblin]

I actually worked up the numbers back when I wrote Burning Bright, based on the publicly available information on the yields of sub-tactical nuclear weapons and even had a map at one point of ground zero and the various effect radii for both the expected blast and what actually occurred. I remember being surprised at the time at how limited the destruction really would have been for that class of weapon. (A bit of trivia for those who do not know - ground zero for the blast was across the street from the FASA Corp offices at the time, and the final stages of the op were controlled out of that building... see here... so, yea, I kinda nuked FASA...)

TomD

well heck, of all the people to show up on this forum...

[Sengir]

Israel was also involved. Their ability to hold out and threaten the invaders from the rear caused the Great Jihad to stall in the Balkins allowing time for Europe to organize their defense.

Yeah, Israel got shoehorned in with Shadows of Asia, because the guys at [which company had the licence at that time?] probably realized that a giant invasion force which nearly rolled over Europe should have had some effect on Israel. So the creative heads got together and after long and careful determination these professionals came up with a good story to explain Israel's survival...they used magic.
And if you add "they used nukes" it does not get any better - right, we just had WW III and people got this close to pushing the Red Button, let's just fling a few nukes left and right and no superpower is going to think the missiles are aimed at them.

[hobgoblin]

aircraft and non-icbm delivery? Heck, the tomahawk can be used to deliver a nuke, iirc.

[Godwyn]

Also, TNT is a rating 4 explosive according to Arsenal, so the original proposed DV is conservative.

Yeah, I started out using rating 4 initially, and the DV was way too high. So I dropped it to rating 3 to try and approximate it more accurately.

There have been some good ideas in here, and some interesting stuff. Thinking using -3 per meter for a spherical explosion, which follows the SR linear extrapolation nicely. -1 for planar which drops off equal to radius, -2 for circular which drops off based on r^2, and -3/m for a spherical wave.

Using -3, leaves a DV of 2016 at 3.2 km. Which is still a bit high, but gives the closest, simplest, approach so far.

@ Tom D, I am interested to know what calculations you used, as I ignored most of the real world mechanics and did purely SR mechanics (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) .

Personally, I am not sure if even burning edge should be enough to survive at ground zero. In the end, if you screwed up bad enough to be at ground zero for a nuke in SR, you got whats coming to you.

But, now that the general DV is worked out, even if it is still under discussion for specifics, what is the AP of a nuke?

[Kronk2]

Couldn't the blast attenuate at a rate greater than -2 per meters of radius? Also those rules assume small (sane?) explosions. The attenuation IRL is probably not linear. When you're dealling with relatively short ranges (grenades, rockets, etc) a linear function gives a rough approximation but when you start talking about blast radii measured in KM you probably need a log function or something (I suck at math so I'll let somebody smarter take it from here).

Otherwise I got two words for you: radioactive orichalcum. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Attenuation by wave action in any system is geometric. Referencing acoustics on this one.

[kzt]

A couple of real world figures

fireball radius for a ground burst is approximately 145 feet * ((yield in kilotons) ^ 0.4)

Blast damage scales according to the cube root of the yield, pretty much as SR shows.

99% of people die at 55-65 PSI of overpressure. That's at about 400 feet from a 1kt ground burst.
50% of people die at 45-55 PSI of overpressure. That's at about 500 feet from a 1kt ground burst.
1% of people die at 35-45 PSI of overpressure. That's at about 600 feet from a 1kt ground burst.
These are direct injuries, ignoring minor issues like getting thrown into a concrete wall or ripped to shreds by a plate glass window....

At 1/2 mile you'll get whole body 2nd degree burns from a 1kt burst, in the first 1/10 of a second or so. Being completely covered in blistered burns seems like it would suck... This doesn't exactly scale like blast.

At about 3750 feet you get a 100 rem radiation dose. At 2250 feet you'll get 1000 rems and are going to die. again, this doesn't exactly scale like blast.

[Rasumichin]

Oh and as for who has them, Lofwyr through Saeder Krupp, and also Mitsuhama.

Atztlan Sourcebook mentioned in the shadowtalk that all of the big 8 corps have nukes, but most only own a very small stockpile (Ares and SK being the main exceptions).

I could imagine that nuclear weapons are extremely widespread in SR.
In fact, the unclear interactions between magic and nuclear weapons would be about the only thing to keep proliferation in check.

This is WWII technology we are talking about.
Nukes aren't that hard to make, there'd be a whole lot more nuclear powers around nowadays if it wasn't for the political repercussions.

I'd also add the CAS as the other main successor of the USA to the list of nuclear powers and i'd definitely count the Japanese empire in.
They've completely abandoned their pacifist doctrines in SR, they've got the know how, they have been surrounded by more or less hostile nuclear powers for decades (PrC, North Korea, Russia), the USA have stopped to protect them long ago and do not even exist anymore, they have become openly imperialist in the SR fluff- it's a good guess they have their collection of nukes.
I don't think they'd have invaded San Francisco without a nuclear option to back up their position.

I also don't think that CFS has nuclear weapons, otherwise the Japanese wouldn't have dared to start their invasion.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I also don't think that CFS has nuclear weapons, otherwise the Japanese wouldn't have dared to start their invasion.

Or perhaps they could have the few nukes deployed there by the old USA government before they declaring independence, but lack the resources and funds to make new ones?

[Dumori]

Pre 6th world nukes/longrage nukes don't seam to work any more. For all we know there could be some pro world free spirit that eats ICBMs. I'm having a hard time working out all the nuking and types + did they secuseed for fail in SR off the top of my skull.

[Sengir]

aircraft and non-icbm delivery?

Cruise missiles are slow and (in comparison) short-ranged, and freefall nukes are sooo last century (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[hobgoblin]

Cruise missiles are slow and (in comparison) short-ranged, and freefall nukes are sooo last century (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

maybe so. but if it works, use it.

[MJBurrage]

Burning Edge/Hand of God always works. Standing at ground zero when a multi-warhead missile takes out the entire Metroplex.

If your the only one around with edge than a free spirit with the necessary powers pulls you bodily into the astral just in time.

If enough people burn edge all at the same then maybe it makes more sense to gremlin the warheads so that they do not go off, or do not go critical. Surviving in a zone hit by a dirty bomb may not be the players definition of survival (radiation still sucks), but fate may consider it good enough.

I guess it's a good thing for all those setting off bombs that only PCs and a very small minority of NPCs have Edge.

[MJBurrage]

Pre 6th world nukes/longrange nukes don't seem to work any more. For all we know there could be some pro world free spirit that eats ICBMs. I'm having a hard time working out all the nuking and types + did they succeed or fail in SR off the top of my skull.

Nukes manufactured before the Awakening not working any more matches my recollection as well; but I do not recall the source.

[Nath]

"Nuclear energy no longer work in the Sixth World" was a theory pushed around ten years ago or so, based only on the Lone Eagle story (two years before the Awakening), several nuclear power plants failure in Seattle, Great Britain and France, and the limited effect of the Cermak Blast. SOTA:2064 and Shadows of Asia told us since India and Pakistan managed to nuke Kahsmir in the 2020ies, while France still conduct underground testing off the coast of French Guiana. SOTA actually gives a more or less complete list of nuclear powers by 2063.
It seems like the meme evolved to survive, and no only concerns ICBM.

I was never given the opportunity to read the elusive and secret Line Developers' Book of Real Truth, but as far as I know, at least Tom Dowd, Mike Mulvihill, Steve Kenson, Jon Szeto and Peter Taylor, wrote or helped wrote materials that involved the more or less successful detonation of nuclear weapons. If one of SR author ever intended nuke to no longer work, I could safely claim such idea was anyway dropped a long time ago.