Damage to Planets

[jpm]

I was looking for a rule about damage to planets in FC? Are there any and how much damage can a Class M planet take? Do the different weapons inflict different damages? I have FC Klingon Border with rev 4 of the rule book.

[m1a1dat]

I feel safe in saying that you can not do a Death Star and blow up an entire planet. You can, however, devastate the surface and bomb them back to the stone age. There are some scenarios out there where this is the objective. I don't have any books with me right now, so i can't say any specifics (and they probably vary by scenario) but usually you have to do several hundred or more damage to a hexside to devastate it. In some cases you actually have to roll "to hit" the planet. Yes a planet takes up the whole hex and how can that photon torpedo possibly miss, but if it is a sparsely populated planet then that photon doesn't have much affect if it hits a a few thousand Km away from any population center. The different weapons would all have the same affect and just do their damage points to the planet.

[mjwest]

You can't "kill" a planet (or a moon, or even a large asteroid). All you can do is cause damage to its surface. If it matters to the scenario, the scenario will list the amount of damage you need to cause to the planet's surface to fulfill the victory conditions. But you cannot blow up a planet, nor can you "sterilize" it. A planet is just too big and there is just too much stuff on the planet for a ship (or even an entire fleet) to have that big of an effect.

[Dal Downing]

Physically destroying a planet is outside of the rules. In Federation and Empire you can Deviastate a planet which is basically is doing your best to bomb it to a point that make a catagory 5 tornado or hurricane looks tame.

The Feds even managed to drop a Heavy Carrier aka Heavy Dreadnaught on Remus ticking off the Romulans for a couple of decides. The MacArthur despite killing millions of people when her reactors went off did not destroy the planet. The ecological and economic consequences were catastrophic but the planet did survive.

[Mike]

It does depend on the scenario, but all of them I've seen where planet damage is a factor say something like 200 points of damage for each hexside of a planet is enough to devastate its surface.

[Kang]

I don't know why, in a military scenario, it would ever make sense to destroy a planet a la Death Star, except perhaps for the reason they did that to Alderaan in the film. Alternatively, to blow up a planet which is only important because of the base on it - like the Yavin IV moon base in Star Wars A New Hope - but in a single shot, to a) save time and effort and b) as an example. A terror weapon, if you will. But apart from that....

In the SFU, military struggles are about possessions - cargo, resources, an area of space, a planet, a system, a station, a ship, some scientific information, whatever. You fight so that you have the thing the other guy wants and therefore he doesn't have it.

In our games, planets are often the 'real estate' that is being fought over. In most cases, the idea is to either possess the planet - for which you would also need to control the space around it - or you want to do something on/to the surface: destroy a base or other enemy presence; or rescue your own people/ship/relic/dilithium crystals or whatever.

In none of these cases does completely destroying the planet make sense; in the SFU it would be waste of energy, and therefore a waste of fuel, and in the end money. There's just no need.

That said, if ever we do get an empire in the SFU that holds to the same principles as the Galactic Empire from that galaxy a long time ago and far, far away, we might need that sort of weapon. Even if just to set an example.....

[Wolverin61]

But what about when you need to change the trajectory of the Nexus?

[Kang]

Then a Death Star is exactly what you need. Good catch, Andy

[trynda1701]

Pfff, in the SFU, we don't need no Death Star...we've got the Black Hole Gun!!!

[Wolverin61]

Then a Death Star is exactly what you need. Good catch, Andy

Does it have Aegis, Tony?

[Kang]

Ha (Everyone else: Private joke, there....)

[Targ]

i want mud it builds ships

[PallidaMors]

I thought the DOOMS DAY machine was star treks answer for the Death Star.
the Planet killer should get an optional rule for planet destruction, I remember Commodore Decker indicating that the thing was hover over the planet carving out chunks with a beam of pure anti protons.

LOL

[archon96]

just remember that the episode with the doomsday weapon air years before star wars.

[PallidaMors]

oh I do, I actually saw that episode while I was a kid and Startrek was in it's second season.