Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 11:28:35 +0100 (MET)
From: URBAN LUNDQVIST <MASULU@bebop.tt.luth.se>
Subject: Re: Doomsday missile
To: jae+sw-rpg@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Errors-to: jae+sw-rpg-errors@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Reply-to: jae+sw-rpg@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Message-id: <1143AF7E77CA@bebop.tt.luth.se>
Organization: SKERIA Utveckling/HLu
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Priority: normal

Lovejoy wanted some answers to the following questions regarding nukes
in star wars.

> 1. what about ionization damage from the emp.
> 2. what are the long term radition effects, ie the pcs come across a
>    blast crater 2 weeks after the strike how much radition is there.

Question 1:
My nuke had a blast radius of: 600/1200/1800 m, and damage: 10D/9D/8D.
The nuke was in capital scale.
Ionization damage from the emp blast would be half the maximum damage,
rounded up, but with doubled blast radius.
In this case, blast radius: 1200/2400/3600 m, damage: 5D/4D+2/4D.
This is what i think would be a simple system, but since my knowledge in
how nukes behave in space is somewhat limited, it cannot be considered
scientifically proven.:)

A curious note is that the SW Technical Journal 3 says that a proton
torpedo has a nuclear warhead rated at just under 1 kiloton.
Since a proton torpedo in the rpg has a damage of 9D, starfighter scale,
this would seem to suggest that 1D is 0.1 KT.


Question 2:
Regarding long term radiation effects, take the maximum damage value of the
warhead, Convert it to character scale and consider that to be the number
of radiation dice to roll against the characters strength.
Armor and spacesuits can protect against radiation but must be completely
sealed to be of any use. Take the armor's strength code to resist physical
attacks and add it to the character's strength.
How much radiation that remains after some time is up to the gamemaster,
since that depends on local conditions such as terrain, climate, if the nuke
detonated in the air or on the ground and so on.

Regarding how weapons handle radiation, se the following quotes from page27,
Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the rim.
"While most modern weapons are quite resistant to radiation, there are
limits, and all radiation zones above grade four causes continuous
malfunctions in most powered weapons."

"Thermal detonators are almost never used, as their already notorious
volatility is made much worse by strong radiation"

The first quote suggest the following table:
Radiation Zone, Grade 1: 1D radiation damage, character scale.
Radiation Zone, Grade 2: 2D radiation damage, character scale.
and so on.

Using some source materials from my time in the armed forces here in sweden
i managed to collect the following facts:
A detonating nuke of 10 KT gives un-protected humans an initial dose of
100 rad within a blast radius of 1.5 km, and 400 rad within a blast
radius of 1.3 km.
A 1 MT nuke gives corresponding doses within 2.5 and 2.1 km.
Between 300 to 400 rad is how much a human can take and survive in the
short term, but even doses around 100 rad gives radiation sickness.
A dose of 300 rad has a lethality of 50% within 6 weeks, while 400 rad has
a lethality of 90% within 3 weeks.

I suggest that 1D rad damage, character scale, is about 100 rad. This gives
us the following system for radiation sickness:

Radiation sickness means that the character womits, loses hair, suffers from burns.

Radiation sickness occurs only if the character has been damaged, in other words
if radiation damage is higher than strength+armor use the following table:

Rad damage      Symptoms                        Fully healed
1D               within 6 hours, lasts 1 day     within 1 month
2D              within 6 hours, lasts 1 day     within 2 months
3D              within 6 hours, lasts 1 day     within 3 months
4D              Within 2 to 4 hours             Never, needs treatment

Notes: Fully healed means that the character has naturally recovered from
radiation sickness, but could in the future suffer from ill effects such
as cancer.
Never, needs treatment means that the character must have medical help to 
recover from radiation sickness.

Use the normal damage table found in the rule book to find any penalty dice, example
stunned suffers -1D to all actions.

Any comments or suggestions?

Wing Commander Luna, Renegade Squadron