On 25 Feb 2018 at 23:09, Richard Aiken wrote:

>
> On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 11:02 PM, Kurt Feltenberger <xxxxxx@thepaw.org>
> wrote:
>     Has Traveller begun modeling EMP effects and time on target
>     attacks?  Or is everything still lumped into one abstract turn?
>
> No idea. The only space combat system that I ever used was CT. There
> were EMP effects there, since you could buy hardened computers to
> protect against them. There was that nuke-blasted ship in TTA which
> was still intact enough for the characters to explore, which I always
> assumed meant it had been torched mostly through EMP.

Actually, it's *possible* that a nuke going off "close" enough would
"scorch" the ship a bit, but kill everybody (and some gear) from
X-ray flux.

Mind you, to deal with solar flares (and gas giant skimming) ships
have to be pretty darn hardened against high energy particles and
fairly hardened against X-rays, but a nuke within a few km in a
vacuum is exposed you to an insane amount of x-rays.

Lethal range for an unshielded human (say some poor sap out on the
hull in a vacc suit) is hundreds to thousands of km depending on the
size of the nuke.

Of course, you've got a large difference between "lethal dose" and
"prompt lethal". "Lethal" dose could take weeks to kill you. "Prompt
lethal" will incapacitate you almost instantly ("fry" your nervous
system) and you'll die messily in hours.

Giving a ship a merely "lethal" dose is a *bad* idea. The crew will
be quite capable of continuing to ight while at the same time knowing
they are going to die. Not something you want in the folks fighting
you. :-)

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com