Super Nukes?

[Crazy Lou]

Hey, where are the super nukes the CS has explained/statted out. I've heard them mentioned a lot over the years but never bothered to actually look them up, and I haven't come across them in my reading either. What book(s) is/are they in?

Thanks so much!

[csbioborg]

rifts navy

basically a real nuke equals you are dead from the descripton

[Crazy Lou]

oh, that would explain why I never ran across them randomly. One of the books I don't have...

Thanks though. I've been meaning to get that anyway. I'll put it on my grab bag list this year and see what happens I guess.

[keir451]

I just checked them out. They're surprisingly weak unless it lands on your head.

Yah so you up ze damage to OMFG level that kills everyzing withzin a certain radius KA-BOOM You ALL dead. OK Lady I Love you bye bye!!!

[Nekira Sudacne]

I just checked them out. They're surprisingly weak unless it lands on your head.

Yah so you up ze damage to OMFG level that kills everyzing withzin a certain radius KA-BOOM You ALL dead. OK Lady I Love you bye bye!!!

I know that's from somewhere, I just can't remember where. However, I do like that anything at ground zero is gone.

One of the minor skits in animaiacs. The one with the oblivious toddler and a dog who routinely looses life and limb keeping her unharmed.

[glitterboy2098]

Hey, where are the super nukes the CS has explained/statted out. I've heard them mentioned a lot over the years but never bothered to actually look them up, and I haven't come across them in my reading either. What book(s) is/are they in?

Thanks so much!

Rifts Sourcebook 4: Coalition navy. the Tomahawk Cruise missile and Firefly rocket delivered nuclear Torpedo. these are 200 and 150 kiloton yeild atomic warheads respectively. they inflict increabile amounts of damage (4D6x100 or 3D6x100) to a multimile radius. and even better, they don't suffer the "full damage at impact point, half damage in radius" issue of normal explosive warheads. they inflict full damage to everything in the radius.
there is also a set of optional (but really should be manditory IMO) secondary effects, which inflicts additional, if weaker, damage out several more miles of radius, and adds the radiation and EMP effects.

the reason they're considered "super-nukes" is that compared to the "nuclear" warheads on the LRm table, they are extremely powerful. this is because the LRm nukes are tactical weapons, equivilent to the Davy Crockett W54 type warheads. subkiloton yeilds. because the canon rules make no distinction between a nuclear warhead an an HE one with the normal chart, the nuclear LRm's appear pretty wimpy by comparison.
an issue i avoid by applying the SB4 "full damage to everything in the radius" rule to them, and giving them the same secondary effects, albiet out to about a 10th of the SB4 distances (lower yeilds mean smaller footprints.)
this makes those micro-nukes extremely powerful weapons on a tactical scale, as well as something that renders a battlefeild dangerous well after use. which gives a reason to use the non-nuclear warheads.

[taalismn]

They're city-busters of the old fashioned Cold War sort...Even the Splugorth are likely to have trouble shrugging off that sort of damage...which is why the CS is keeping them in reserve for use against the Big Splugorth Invasion they're afraid will one day happen...

[Crazy Lou]

Does it explain at all why we can have nuclear multi-warhead LRMs that are produced in large quantities by normal arms dealers but nobody makes 100 kiloton nukes or even megaton ones (especially why the CS doesn't make megaton ones for vs stuff like the sploogs and the bugs? Or at least make more "reserves" of the citybusters?)

[taalismn]

Does it explain at all why we can have nuclear multi-warhead LRMs that are produced in large quantities by normal arms dealers but nobody makes 100 kiloton nukes or even megaton ones (especially why the CS doesn't make megaton ones for vs stuff like the sploogs and the bugs? Or at least make more "reserves" of the citybusters?)

Not a single idea...but it would make for a great campaign adventure!
"Orax the Mad has a plan....set off the fifty megaton 'truck bomb' he acquired after slaughtering that bunch of Tinkers he persuaded to build as an exercise....right in the heart of New Lazlo at the height of the Winter Solstice...he's confident his magic wards have prevented his intent from being scried....but he's neglected one little detail that may inconveniently come back to bite him in the..."

[glitterboy2098]

Does it explain at all why we can have nuclear multi-warhead LRMs that are produced in large quantities by normal arms dealers but nobody makes 100 kiloton nukes or even megaton ones (especially why the CS doesn't make megaton ones for vs stuff like the sploogs and the bugs? Or at least make more "reserves" of the citybusters?)

actually, there has never been anything stating the reletive rarity of the LRM nukes, nor who makes them.

and the CS is producing new 200kt nukes according to SB4. it's just that there are few targets that such city-killers are worth using on. most communities in RIFTS are too small or too comparitively harmless to merit their use. and there are few other kinds of targets they can be used on effectively.

[taalismn]

Does it explain at all why we can have nuclear multi-warhead LRMs that are produced in large quantities by normal arms dealers but nobody makes 100 kiloton nukes or even megaton ones (especially why the CS doesn't make megaton ones for vs stuff like the sploogs and the bugs? Or at least make more "reserves" of the citybusters?)

actually, there has never been anything stating the reletive rarity of the LRM nukes, nor who makes them.

and the CS is producing new 200kt nukes according to SB4. it's just that there are few targets that such city-killers are worth using on. most communities in RIFTS are too small or too comparitively harmless to merit their use. and there are few other kinds of targets they can be used on effectively.

..and hitting TinyTown with a city-buster every time some scared Lt screams for heavy fire support gets on the neighbors' nerves after a while...

[Nightmaster]

Hey, where are the super nukes the CS has explained/statted out. I've heard them mentioned a lot over the years but never bothered to actually look them up, and I haven't come across them in my reading either. What book(s) is/are they in?

Thanks so much!

Rifts Sourcebook 4: Coalition navy. the Tomahawk Cruise missile and Firefly rocket delivered nuclear Torpedo. these are 200 and 150 kiloton yeild atomic warheads respectively. they inflict increabile amounts of damage (4D6x100 or 3D6x100) to a multimile radius. and even better, they don't suffer the "full damage at impact point, half damage in radius" issue of normal explosive warheads. they inflict full damage to everything in the radius.
there is also a set of optional (but really should be manditory IMO) secondary effects, which inflicts additional, if weaker, damage out several more miles of radius, and adds the radiation and EMP effects.

the reason they're considered "super-nukes" is that compared to the "nuclear" warheads on the LRm table, they are extremely powerful. this is because the LRm nukes are tactical weapons, equivilent to the Davy Crockett W54 type warheads. subkiloton yeilds. because the canon rules make no distinction between a nuclear warhead an an HE one with the normal chart, the nuclear LRm's appear pretty wimpy by comparison.
an issue i avoid by applying the SB4 "full damage to everything in the radius" rule to them, and giving them the same secondary effects, albiet out to about a 10th of the SB4 distances (lower yeilds mean smaller footprints.)
this makes those micro-nukes extremely powerful weapons on a tactical scale, as well as something that renders a battlefeild dangerous well after use. which gives a reason to use the non-nuclear warheads.

Can you tell me where you got those stats for the nukes? I have the CS Navy book and there the nukes are 200 and 100 kiloton and they do 3D4x100 and 2D4x100 respectively.

The stats you have described are not canon as far I and the book is concerned.

[glitterboy2098]

i probably just misremembered the yeilds and damages. my book is a good 30 minutes away right now.

[Nightmaster]

i probably just misremembered the yeilds and damages. my book is a good 30 minutes away right now.

Ok that can happen to anyone

Just to remember.

Mk108 Firefly Air-To-Sea Torpedo, 100 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Anti-Ship
Secondary Purpose: Anti-Submarine/Anti-Sea Monster
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 2D4x100 M.D. (making it very likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive a nuclear blast!). Damage is 5D6x10 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 100 miles (160 km)

BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile, 200 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Strategic Deterrence
Secondary Purpose: Anti-City/Stronghold
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 3D4x100 M.D. (so it is likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive the blast — although wounded terribly)! Damage is 1D4x100 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 1000 miles (1608 km)

As you can see they are really weak for the purpose they are designed for.

[rat_bastard]

Tee-hee, we used a few to strike Cairo when we where stealing the millennium tree from the phoenix empire. Very effective even if they where not insta kills for everything.

[Crazy Lou]

Tee-hee, we used a few to strike Cairo when we where stealing the millennium tree from the phoenix empire. Very effective even if they where not insta kills for everything.

how'd you get them in the first place?

[glitterboy2098]

i probably just misremembered the yeilds and damages. my book is a good 30 minutes away right now.

Ok that can happen to anyone

Just to remember.

Mk108 Firefly Air-To-Sea Torpedo, 100 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Anti-Ship
Secondary Purpose: Anti-Submarine/Anti-Sea Monster
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 2D4x100 M.D. (making it very likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive a nuclear blast!). Damage is 5D6x10 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 100 miles (160 km)

BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile, 200 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Strategic Deterrence
Secondary Purpose: Anti-City/Stronghold
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 3D4x100 M.D. (so it is likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive the blast — although wounded terribly)! Damage is 1D4x100 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 1000 miles (1608 km)

As you can see they are really weak for the purpose they are designed for.

except that most modern cities are SDC structures, and while the amount of damage is not particulalry high by rifts standards (skewed as it is due to MDC), the utterly huge radius of effect makes up for it.

[Nightmaster]

i probably just misremembered the yeilds and damages. my book is a good 30 minutes away right now.

Ok that can happen to anyone

Just to remember.

Mk108 Firefly Air-To-Sea Torpedo, 100 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Anti-Ship
Secondary Purpose: Anti-Submarine/Anti-Sea Monster
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 2D4x100 M.D. (making it very likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive a nuclear blast!). Damage is 5D6x10 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 100 miles (160 km)

BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile, 200 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Strategic Deterrence
Secondary Purpose: Anti-City/Stronghold
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 3D4x100 M.D. (so it is likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive the blast — although wounded terribly)! Damage is 1D4x100 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 1000 miles (1608 km)

As you can see they are really weak for the purpose they are designed for.

except that most modern cities are SDC structures, and while the amount of damage is not particulalry high by rifts standards (skewed as it iss due ot MDC), the utterly huge radius of effect makes up for it.

I dont think so and let me ask you this:

Would a Glitterboy Power Armor be able to survive a 100 kiloton nuclear detonation if the missile manage a direct impact or if it detonates with a 30 feet or less distance from the Glitterboy?

This is not a question about ingame stats but about proportion.

[rat_bastard]

Tee-hee, we used a few to strike Cairo when we where stealing the millennium tree from the phoenix empire. Very effective even if they where not insta kills for everything.

how'd you get them in the first place?

Its a mid to late 20th century technology, we had late 21st century manufacturing techniques. Granted we did not develop the entire missile, just a couple of bombs we dropped using Naruni bombers.

[glitterboy2098]

i probably just misremembered the yeilds and damages. my book is a good 30 minutes away right now.

Ok that can happen to anyone

Just to remember.

Mk108 Firefly Air-To-Sea Torpedo, 100 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Anti-Ship
Secondary Purpose: Anti-Submarine/Anti-Sea Monster
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 2D4x100 M.D. (making it very likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive a nuclear blast!). Damage is 5D6x10 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 100 miles (160 km)

BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile, 200 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Strategic Deterrence
Secondary Purpose: Anti-City/Stronghold
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 3D4x100 M.D. (so it is likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive the blast — although wounded terribly)! Damage is 1D4x100 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 1000 miles (1608 km)

As you can see they are really weak for the purpose they are designed for.

except that most modern cities are SDC structures, and while the amount of damage is not particulalry high by rifts standards (skewed as it iss due ot MDC), the utterly huge radius of effect makes up for it.

I dont think so and let me ask you this:

Would a Glitterboy Power Armor be able to survive a 100 kiloton nuclear detonation if the missile manage a direct impact or if it detonates with a 30 feet or less distance from the Glitterboy?

This is not a question about ingame stats but about proportion.

when you consider that said glitterboy uses armor 300x stronger than a modern main battletank's, i don't think it's too hard to accept. mega damage weapons are powerful. a C-40 railgun is hitting roughly as hard as a modern tank cannon. the MDC missiles inflict damages we currently see with things like the MOAB, but at vastly smaller sizes.

pre-rifts, since MDC armor and weapons was not widespread, but nuclear technologies were, it makes sense that them ajor powers would build their hardware to withstand attack by nuclear weapons. for most nations, that would be the only way to stop invasions by MDC equipped armies.. the GB is just an extreme case.

[azazel1024]

Except that a nuclear weapon produces temperatures on the order of MILLIONS of degrees C. Frankly I think they need two damages.

One for a point blank hit and anything within a small radius and another for a further radius. When temperatures and overpressures are more 'resonable' at say 100-300ft out, then 2d4x100 and 3d4x100 sound like resonable damages, even when we are talking something 100x stronger then S.D.C materials.

Within that 100-300ft radius really damages should be more like 2d4x1,000 and 3d4x1,000 at the very least. There are few things in the world that can take a direct hit from even a kiloton yield nuclear weapon.

Don't forget, kiloton means thousands of tons of TNT. So quick math means that if way a 1lb TNT stick does 2d4x10 SDC simple scaling means 1 kiloton does 4d4x20 million SDC, since I always assume that damage goes up with the square root (IE quadruple explosive yield to get double damage) that is still 3d4x10,000 SDC or 3d4x100 from 1 kiloton explosive yield.

100 kilotons is 10 times more destructive then 1 kiloton (bigger blast radius, etc, etc means it doesn't actually do 100x more damage)...so that is 3d4x1,000MD from a 100 kiloton weapon. A 200 kiloton weapon would actually be almost spot on 3d6x1,000MD.

So my numbers make quite a bit of sense, and for game balance to. If you are throwing something that amazingly massive stuff DIES!

A micro nuke is probably more like a 1/10th kt nuke, though damage would be to a large area then stated in the game, but I can live with stated damage radius. Maybe some special type of micro nuke in the RPG setting.
-Matt

[Nightmaster]

when you consider that said glitterboy uses armor 300x stronger than a modern main battletank's, i don't think it's too hard to accept. mega damage weapons are powerful. a C-40 railgun is hitting roughly as hard as a modern tank cannon. the MDC missiles inflict damages we currently see with things like the MOAB, but at vastly smaller sizes.

pre-rifts, since MDC armor and weapons was not widespread, but nuclear technologies were, it makes sense that them ajor powers would build their hardware to withstand attack by nuclear weapons. for most nations, that would be the only way to stop invasions by MDC equipped armies.. the GB is just an extreme case.

Sorry if I disagree but by the amount of energy liberated by a nuclear explosion in a milisecond (comparable to the core of a star) I think that nothing build by man could survived a ground zero/direct impact from a 100 kiloton nuclear device. Just take a look at the descriptions of what is like when a nuclear explosion takes place to see what I am saying.

If a glitterboy can really stand that sort of detonation then you could send it to the sun and it would survive (sorry but I dont think so).

[Elthbert]

i probably just misremembered the yeilds and damages. my book is a good 30 minutes away right now.

Ok that can happen to anyone

Just to remember.

Mk108 Firefly Air-To-Sea Torpedo, 100 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Anti-Ship
Secondary Purpose: Anti-Submarine/Anti-Sea Monster
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 2D4x100 M.D. (making it very likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive a nuclear blast!). Damage is 5D6x10 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 100 miles (160 km)

BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile, 200 kiloton yeild
Primary Purpose: Strategic Deterrence
Secondary Purpose: Anti-City/Stronghold
Mega-Damage: Everything within a 1000 foot (305 m) radius of ground zero suffers 3D4x100 M.D. (so it is likely that gods and alien intelligences would survive the blast — although wounded terribly)! Damage is 1D4x100 M.D. to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius immediately surrounding ground zero.
Effective Range: 1000 miles (1608 km)

As you can see they are really weak for the purpose they are designed for.

HHow exactly do you see 3d4 x 10000 SDC as weak for a Nuke of 200Kt I mean that is up to 120000 SDC damage without the secondary effects, and up to 40000 sdc to everything in 3 miles! I think concidering the SDC ratings of most stuff in Rifts that is probably too powerful. What I think the problem is is realizing just how awesomly tough MDC materials are suppose to be.

During the Bikini Island test there were plenty of ships that took the hit from a atomic bomb right on top of them and they didn't sink, then they got hit again and then, still some of the Test ships didn't sink, while these bombs were in the 20 to 30 kt range, they where also WWII technology.
Nukes are survivale if you build to survive them. I think this is reasonable damage, however I think the seconday effects are virtually required.

[Elthbert]

when you consider that said glitterboy uses armor 300x stronger than a modern main battletank's, i don't think it's too hard to accept. mega damage weapons are powerful. a C-40 railgun is hitting roughly as hard as a modern tank cannon. the MDC missiles inflict damages we currently see with things like the MOAB, but at vastly smaller sizes.

pre-rifts, since MDC armor and weapons was not widespread, but nuclear technologies were, it makes sense that them ajor powers would build their hardware to withstand attack by nuclear weapons. for most nations, that would be the only way to stop invasions by MDC equipped armies.. the GB is just an extreme case.

Sorry if I disagree but by the amount of energy liberated by a nuclear explosion in a milisecond (comparable to the core of a star) I think that nothing build by man could survived a ground zero/direct impact from a 100 kiloton nuclear device. Just take a look at the descriptions of what is like when a nuclear explosion takes place to see what I am saying.

If a glitterboy can really stand that sort of detonation then you could send it to the sun and it would survive (sorry but I
dont think so).

Except, that indeed, we have. See my above post. Further, many bunkers and missile silos were built to take a direct nuke hit.


A glitterboy could indeed withstand a trip to the sun, For a second or 2

[Elthbert]

Except that a nuclear weapon produces temperatures on the order of MILLIONS of degrees C. Frankly I think they need two damages.

One for a point blank hit and anything within a small radius and another for a further radius. When temperatures and overpressures are more 'resonable' at say 100-300ft out, then 2d4x100 and 3d4x100 sound like resonable damages, even when we are talking something 100x stronger then S.D.C materials.

Within that 100-300ft radius really damages should be more like 2d4x1,000 and 3d4x1,000 at the very least. There are few things in the world that can take a direct hit from even a kiloton yield nuclear weapon.

Don't forget, kiloton means thousands of tons of TNT. So quick math means that if way a 1lb TNT stick does 2d4x10 SDC simple scaling means 1 kiloton does 4d4x20 million SDC, since I always assume that damage goes up with the square root (IE quadruple explosive yield to get double damage) that is still 3d4x10,000 SDC or 3d4x100 from 1 kiloton explosive yield.

100 kilotons is 10 times more destructive then 1 kiloton (bigger blast radius, etc, etc means it doesn't actually do 100x more damage)...so that is 3d4x1,000MD from a 100 kiloton weapon. A 200 kiloton weapon would actually be almost spot on 3d6x1,000MD.

So my numbers make quite a bit of sense, and for game balance to. If you are throwing something that amazingly massive stuff DIES!

A micro nuke is probably more like a 1/10th kt nuke, though damage would be to a large area then stated in the game, but I can live with stated damage radius. Maybe some special type of micro nuke in the RPG setting.
-Matt

I think ppart of this problem is the lack of consistancy in RIfts damage as related to energy. ANFO has about 91% of the energy of TNT and 10 pounds of it ( according to CWC) does 1d4 md this means that 1pd should do 1d4x10 sdc which means further that to be statisticly fair a stick of tnt should do 1d4x10+4 sdc. which means that Your damage values ould be twice as big as they should be. Not that that accounts for the discrepency, it simply is an observation of the problems in RIFTS with damge as it relates to total energy.



As an aside, I interprete " to everything within the blast radius" as exactly that and do full listed damage to all secondary targets, guns, pylons of a Splugorth slave mother ship etc, etc. I think this is a valid interpretation of the rules since it specifically mentions that as an exception to the normal blast radius runs.

[Crazy Lou]

Except that a nuclear weapon produces temperatures on the order of MILLIONS of degrees C. Frankly I think they need two damages.

One for a point blank hit and anything within a small radius and another for a further radius. When temperatures and overpressures are more 'resonable' at say 100-300ft out, then 2d4x100 and 3d4x100 sound like resonable damages, even when we are talking something 100x stronger then S.D.C materials.

Within that 100-300ft radius really damages should be more like 2d4x1,000 and 3d4x1,000 at the very least. There are few things in the world that can take a direct hit from even a kiloton yield nuclear weapon.

Don't forget, kiloton means thousands of tons of TNT. So quick math means that if way a 1lb TNT stick does 2d4x10 SDC simple scaling means 1 kiloton does 4d4x20 million SDC, since I always assume that damage goes up with the square root (IE quadruple explosive yield to get double damage) that is still 3d4x10,000 SDC or 3d4x100 from 1 kiloton explosive yield.

100 kilotons is 10 times more destructive then 1 kiloton (bigger blast radius, etc, etc means it doesn't actually do 100x more damage)...so that is 3d4x1,000MD from a 100 kiloton weapon. A 200 kiloton weapon would actually be almost spot on 3d6x1,000MD.

So my numbers make quite a bit of sense, and for game balance to. If you are throwing something that amazingly massive stuff DIES!

A micro nuke is probably more like a 1/10th kt nuke, though damage would be to a large area then stated in the game, but I can live with stated damage radius. Maybe some special type of micro nuke in the RPG setting.
-Matt

I think ppart of this problem is the lack of consistancy in RIfts damage as related to energy. ANFO has about 91% of the energy of TNT and 10 pounds of it ( according to CWC) does 1d4 md this means that 1pd should do 1d4x10 sdc which means further that to be statisticly fair a stick of tnt should do 1d4x10+4 sdc. which means that Your damage values ould be twice as big as they should be. Not that that accounts for the discrepency, it simply is an observation of the problems in RIFTS with damge as it relates to total energy.



As an aside, I interprete " to everything within the blast radius" as exactly that and do full listed damage to all secondary targets, guns, pylons of a Splugorth slave mother ship etc, etc. I think this is a valid interpretation of the rules since it specifically mentions that as an exception to the normal blast radius runs.

I thought the whole point of blast radius rules was that it hits secondary components of a target. That's what makes missiles (especially volleys) so dangerous.

[rat_bastard]

on the survivability of those near the blast radius of a nuke:

Survival of some structures
Small-scale recreation of the Nakajima area around ground zero.

Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima had been very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the blast center. Eizo Nomura (野村 英三, Nomura Eizō?) was the closest known survivor, who was in the basement of a modern "Rest House" only 100 m (330 ft) from ground-zero at the time of the attack.[40] Akiko Takakura (高蔵 信子, Takakura Akiko?) was among the closest survivors to the hypocenter of the blast. She had been in the solidly built Bank of Hiroshima only 300 meters (980 ft) from ground-zero at the time of the attack.[41] Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was directed more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the Genbaku, or A-bomb Dome. This building was designed and built by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, and was only 150 m (490 ft) from ground zero (the hypocenter). The ruin was named Hiroshima Peace Memorial and was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 over the objections of the U.S. and China.[42]

[Elthbert]

Except that a nuclear weapon produces temperatures on the order of MILLIONS of degrees C. Frankly I think they need two damages.

One for a point blank hit and anything within a small radius and another for a further radius. When temperatures and overpressures are more 'resonable' at say 100-300ft out, then 2d4x100 and 3d4x100 sound like resonable damages, even when we are talking something 100x stronger then S.D.C materials.

Within that 100-300ft radius really damages should be more like 2d4x1,000 and 3d4x1,000 at the very least. There are few things in the world that can take a direct hit from even a kiloton yield nuclear weapon.

Don't forget, kiloton means thousands of tons of TNT. So quick math means that if way a 1lb TNT stick does 2d4x10 SDC simple scaling means 1 kiloton does 4d4x20 million SDC, since I always assume that damage goes up with the square root (IE quadruple explosive yield to get double damage) that is still 3d4x10,000 SDC or 3d4x100 from 1 kiloton explosive yield.

100 kilotons is 10 times more destructive then 1 kiloton (bigger blast radius, etc, etc means it doesn't actually do 100x more damage)...so that is 3d4x1,000MD from a 100 kiloton weapon. A 200 kiloton weapon would actually be almost spot on 3d6x1,000MD.

So my numbers make quite a bit of sense, and for game balance to. If you are throwing something that amazingly massive stuff DIES!

A micro nuke is probably more like a 1/10th kt nuke, though damage would be to a large area then stated in the game, but I can live with stated damage radius. Maybe some special type of micro nuke in the RPG setting.
-Matt

I think ppart of this problem is the lack of consistancy in RIfts damage as related to energy. ANFO has about 91% of the energy of TNT and 10 pounds of it ( according to CWC) does 1d4 md this means that 1pd should do 1d4x10 sdc which means further that to be statisticly fair a stick of tnt should do 1d4x10+4 sdc. which means that Your damage values ould be twice as big as they should be. Not that that accounts for the discrepency, it simply is an observation of the problems in RIFTS with damge as it relates to total energy.



As an aside, I interprete " to everything within the blast radius" as exactly that and do full listed damage to all secondary targets, guns, pylons of a Splugorth slave mother ship etc, etc. I think this is a valid interpretation of the rules since it specifically mentions that as an exception to the normal blast radius runs.

I thought the whole point of blast radius rules was that it hits secondary components of a target. That's what makes missiles (especially volleys) so dangerous.

Not how I understand them. Missle do damage to the main body of a target. I think doing have damage to secondary componants is certianl fairthough. However stratigic nukes i think should do full damage to everything in their radius.

[azazel1024]

In regards to survivability, the Nuke went off several hundred feet in the air, not within a few feet. The temperature of millions of degrees along with the blast over pressure decreases with distance. A temperature of 10 million C and hundreds of thousands of PSI of overpressure might occur at say 10ft, but at 100ft it might be down to 100,000 C and tens of thousands of PSI and at 1,000ft it might be 5,000 C and hundreds of PSI of over pressure.

The structures were still serious damaged and were heavily reinforced concrete.

The very few structures in the world that can surive a direct, and small, nuke hit are hundreds of feet undreground with walls dozens of feet thick of reinforced concrete and steel with many, many feet thick steel blast doors (ususally several).
-Matt

[Elthbert]

In regards to survivability, the Nuke went off several hundred feet in the air, not within a few feet. The temperature of millions of degrees along with the blast over pressure decreases with distance. A temperature of 10 million C and hundreds of thousands of PSI of overpressure might occur at say 10ft, but at 100ft it might be down to 100,000 C and tens of thousands of PSI and at 1,000ft it might be 5,000 C and hundreds of PSI of over pressure.

The structures were still serious damaged and were heavily reinforced concrete.

The very few structures in the world that can surive a direct, and small, nuke hit are hundreds of feet undreground with walls dozens of feet thick of reinforced concrete and steel with many, many feet thick steel blast doors (ususally several).
-Matt

Well that is not entirly true but even if it were, you of course realize that MDC materials would be equal to that. Several dozen feet of SDC reinforced concrete is just not that impressive compared to MDC materials.

As I said, many ships survived the atomic test at bikini, multiple strikes. Even the ones that sank were recognizable as ships, they were just damaged enough to sink. The Prince Eugene ( I think that was the name) took something like 9 months to sink, it was totally fixable but after 3 strikes it was too radioactive to risk working on.

[azazel1024]

Again, damage decreases with distance from any explosion.

At a distance of 50ft, nothing would survive a nuke strike unless literally hundreds of feet thick (think a mountain side). At 500ft really, really hard targets might survive, at thousands armored targets will survive.

Most of the ships that survived were thousands of feet from the Bikini Test nukes, not within a few feet.

My argument is that what the nuke actually hits is going to take horrendous damage, but outside of the impact and maybe very immediate vicinity (within a couple of hundred feet) the damage reduces dramatically.

Maybe 2d4x1,000 to everything within 100ft, 3d4x100 damage to everything out to 2,000ft and 3d6x10 damage to everything within 2 miles.

For dozens of feet of steel reinforced concrete surviving a direct nuclear strike, that is if it is buried under hundreds of feet of bedrock.

Cheyenne mountain is one of the few hardened 'bunkers' in the world that would likely survive a direct nuclear strike in the high kiloton or low megaton range, but even then a direct hit on the main door is still likely to destroy most/all of the structure as it is a weak point.

Basically nothing exists that could take the direct impact of a nuclear explosion, something truely massive, again a mountain would only survive because it is so thick the force of the explosion has diminished by the point it can 'penetrate' through the structure and much less because the structure itself held up to it. A nuke would vaporize dozens of feet of ANYTHING it hit no matter what it was.

Even if you ignore all of the reallife stuff, the long range missile with a nuclear warhead is supposed to have some kind of sub-kiloton yield possibly subcritical nuke on it. Even if you simply just scale it up, a 4d6x10MD long range missile at say 1/4 kiloton scales up to 20 times more damage for a 100 kiloton weapon using the sqrt rule...so you come up with something doing 8d6x100 damage, or a little more then 1d4x1,000, still significantly more powerful then 2d4x100
-Matt

[Crazy Lou]

Basically nothing exists that could take the direct impact of a nuclear explosion, something truely massive, again a mountain would only survive because it is so thick the force of the explosion has diminished by the point it can 'penetrate' through the structure and much less because the structure itself held up to it. A nuke would vaporize dozens of feet of ANYTHING it hit no matter what it was.

Actually... there are prototype light gas guns that fire a single projectile so fast that the impacts in testing were of equivalent energy to a direct hit by a nuke. An in that case ALL of the energy was focused into a single point of impact only a few inches wide. The material being struck in the testing was still there afterward, and it wasn't hundreds of feet thick, or ultra high tech reinforced, or whatever.

[azazel1024]

Hmmm, never heard of a light gas gun. I thought I was up on all of the latest and greatest.

And an impact point of milimeters with the force of a nuke, doesn't mean it can transfer that energy to a huge area.

1 billion pascals of force focused on a 1mm target ends up being a few kilopascals over an entire meter (IE atmospheric pressure at 1mm with the energy that put millions of atmospheres on 1mm).

That energy on 1mm might uterly vaporize that itty bitty target, it might even put an itty bitty hole in something thin, but in something thick it is going to at worse give it a bad day.

*edit* I forgot to add, just because something is completely destroyed by say a nuke or anything else doesn't mean it ceases to exist. 100lbs of C4 in a refirdgerator would completely destroy it as just about anyone would agree, but there is still going to be some small fragments of it scattered around, even if you have to look hard for it.
-Matt

[Crazy Lou]

Hmmm, never heard of a light gas gun. I thought I was up on all of the latest and greatest.

And an impact point of milimeters with the force of a nuke, doesn't mean it can transfer that energy to a huge area.

1 billion pascals of force focused on a 1mm target ends up being a few kilopascals over an entire meter (IE atmospheric pressure at 1mm with the energy that put millions of atmospheres on 1mm).

That energy on 1mm might uterly vaporize that itty bitty target, it might even put an itty bitty hole in something thin, but in something thick it is going to at worse give it a bad day.

*edit* I forgot to add, just because something is completely destroyed by say a nuke or anything else doesn't mean it ceases to exist. 100lbs of C4 in a refirdgerator would completely destroy it as just about anyone would agree, but there is still going to be some small fragments of it scattered around, even if you have to look hard for it.
-Matt

But I'm not talking about the force a nuke exerts over a large area (aka it's pressure), I'm talking about the total energy of a nuke. Emphasis on the word total. The area is irrelevant to the fact of equivalence. I mentioned the impact point b/c all the energy is focused on that small area vs being distributed over a city, which means for the target to survive a hit by the light gas gun it must more easily be able to survive a nuke strike, since not all the energy of the nuke is hitting that one target.

[Subjugator]

Except that a nuclear weapon produces temperatures on the order of MILLIONS of degrees C. Frankly I think they need two damages.

One for a point blank hit and anything within a small radius and another for a further radius. When temperatures and overpressures are more 'resonable' at say 100-300ft out, then 2d4x100 and 3d4x100 sound like resonable damages, even when we are talking something 100x stronger then S.D.C materials.

Within that 100-300ft radius really damages should be more like 2d4x1,000 and 3d4x1,000 at the very least. There are few things in the world that can take a direct hit from even a kiloton yield nuclear weapon.

Don't forget, kiloton means thousands of tons of TNT. So quick math means that if way a 1lb TNT stick does 2d4x10 SDC simple scaling means 1 kiloton does 4d4x20 million SDC, since I always assume that damage goes up with the square root (IE quadruple explosive yield to get double damage) that is still 3d4x10,000 SDC or 3d4x100 from 1 kiloton explosive yield.

100 kilotons is 10 times more destructive then 1 kiloton (bigger blast radius, etc, etc means it doesn't actually do 100x more damage)...so that is 3d4x1,000MD from a 100 kiloton weapon. A 200 kiloton weapon would actually be almost spot on 3d6x1,000MD.

So my numbers make quite a bit of sense, and for game balance to. If you are throwing something that amazingly massive stuff DIES!

A micro nuke is probably more like a 1/10th kt nuke, though damage would be to a large area then stated in the game, but I can live with stated damage radius. Maybe some special type of micro nuke in the RPG setting.
-Matt

If a navy ship could survive, so could a (tougher) Glitterboy.

/Sub

[azazel1024]

There are no weapons that have equivelent energy to a nuclear weapon that are either fielded or in development stages. Same total force at the point of impact, maybe, but a nuclear weapon releases 4.2 terajoules of energy per kiloton of yield, IE 4.2 trillion joules. That will heat the volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool (all 2.5 million liters of water) by 400 C. So a 100 kiloton weapon would release enough energy to heat an entire Olympic swimming pool to 40,000C or about 300 Olympus sized swiming pools to steam.

Another better comparison maybe a very large hydroelectic dam might put out 4,000mw or 4,000,000kw of power. To make the same energy as a 100 kiloton nuclear weapon that would take nearly a month of power output to yeild the same energy, or the power of a city of about a million people for a month. Short of nuclear weapons there is nothing with even a fraction of the same energy output.

A navy ship has significantly thicker armor then a Glitter boy. Also the damage system is broken. Assuming even 1 inch thick armor on a Glitter boy a Cruiser is likely to have 3-4 inches of armor...so it would take a lot more just to dent the armor then on a glitter boy and then to actually destroy the large ship, considering the mass, flotation redundancy, etc would take a lot more.

If you look at a modern main battle tank a good solid hit from an APFSDS 120mm round will likely kill it, on a guided missile cruiser, or better yet a battleship it would likely take thousands of such rounds to sink the ship if they could even penetrate the armor. That is a real Glitter boy VS naval ship comparison. Even a tin can destroyer could take dozens of those hits to the 1 or 2 likely to blast apart an MBT.

Also still look at the damage, in the books it is claimed that 1 stick of SDC TNT does 2d4x10 damage. Lets be generous and say that stick weighs 1kg (probably more like .5-.75kg), that means that a 100 kiloton weapon is equal to 200,000,000 SDC sticks of TNT. If you do the straight conversion that Palladium uses you'd have it doing around 180,000,00 MD (about 1 point of MD from that single stick of TNT). If you use the square root function you'd get around my 2d4x1,000 at the point of impact and much less further away.

Also when it boils down to it, the full scale nukes are supposed to be a last resort 'game changer'. The way they are presented wouldn't make them even close to a game changer. You could blanket Atlantis with them and you might kill a small fraction of the MDC supernatural beings on the island (admitedly anyone SDC is gone if not in body armor, and even a lot in body armor would be). Hell you could target Splincryths palace itself with him in it and it would take hundreds of nukes to even have a chance of killing him. Hell even with my 2d4x1,000MD that still means that a really powerful MDC creature is likely to survive the blast (example, Elder dragon, Alien Intelligence, God, etc). It would still take a couple of dozen to take out an AI or God.
-Matt

[Crazy Lou]

I don't really know how the target survived, but I read the whole bit in Popular Science a couple years ago. It was the one with the cover about the fastest things in the world, and the light gas gun was in the article as the fastest projectile.

[Crazy Lou]

No. Anything that a nuke lands on will be destroyed, short of a mountain. In other words, a Glitterboy would be obliterated. If a nuke landed on a Glitterboy's head, he'd vaporize instantly. So would a dragon.

Question: would you maintain that stance if the dragon had cast invincible armor? (note: This isn't to be a smart alec or anything)

[Crazy Lou]

Actually the normal GI Joe rule isn't even needed in this case since the invincible armor spell description specifies that effect as part of the spell. I just wanted to check to see if you were saying that a nuke just ought to kill everything b/c it's a nuke, w/o sounding rude/argumentative. I see that you're not though, so it's all good.

[Crazy Lou]

Actually the normal GI Joe rule isn't even needed in this case since the invincible armor spell description specifies that effect as part of the spell. I just wanted to check to see if you were saying that a nuke just ought to kill everything b/c it's a nuke, w/o sounding rude/argumentative. I see that you're not though, so it's all good.

But it's the same principle. Why would this armor be any different? Because it's magical?

Actually yeah. If I got rid of the GI Joe rule in my games I would still keep that as part of the spell function. The point of removing or modifying that rule is for the sake of realism/common sense, but since it's magic, it is allowed to ignore both of those things. Plus, it's a pretty high level spell, so I don't see why it shouldn't keep that function.

[Subjugator]

A navy ship has significantly thicker armor then a Glitter boy.

Irrelevant.

Also the damage system is broken.

Or your understanding of it is.

Assuming even 1 inch thick armor on a Glitter boy a Cruiser is likely to have 3-4 inches of armor...so it would take a lot more just to dent the armor then on a glitter boy and then to actually destroy the large ship, considering the mass, flotation redundancy, etc would take a lot more.

Your assumption is that the armors are exactly equal. They are not.

Also still look at the damage, in the books it is claimed that 1 stick of SDC TNT does 2d4x10 damage. Lets be generous and say that stick weighs 1kg (probably more like .5-.75kg), that means that a 100 kiloton weapon is equal to 200,000,000 SDC sticks of TNT. If you do the straight conversion that Palladium uses you'd have it doing around 180,000,00 MD (about 1 point of MD from that single stick of TNT). If you use the square root function you'd get around my 2d4x1,000 at the point of impact and much less further away.

Wrong. Damage from an explosive does not increase linearly when compared to the amount of energy expended.

/Sub

[Subjugator]

No. Anything that a nuke lands on will be destroyed, short of a mountain. In other words, a Glitterboy would be obliterated. If a nuke landed on a Glitterboy's head, he'd vaporize instantly. So would a dragon.

Wrong. If that were the case, then the earth would be obliterated. Again, not all materials are equal.

/Sub

[Crazy Lou]

Actually dragons ARE NOT made of organic materials. They are made of MAGIC materials because they are creatures of magic. Also, because we don't have quantified data on MD and MDC, "MD fire" could be equivalent to 10s of millions of degrees -- we don't know, because it's a qualitative determination which functions as a game mechanic. Similarly with MDC metals their melting points could be in the trillions of degrees once they're finished being mixed and cool initially (think admantium in the Marvel universe as an example of what I mean -- it's possible to make it, but once it's actually finished being made and cooled, it's indestructible, able to survive 1000 direct hits from a nuke w/o even being discolored).

[Crazy Lou]

Actually yeah. If I got rid of the GI Joe rule in my games I would still keep that as part of the spell function. The point of removing or modifying that rule is for the sake of realism/common sense, but since it's magic, it is allowed to ignore both of those things. Plus, it's a pretty high level spell, so I don't see why it shouldn't keep that function.

Ok, I get that. But then wouldn't ALL magic armor have that same principle? And why not?

Well, technically w/ the GI joe rule all armor works like that. But assuming that you are modifying the GI joe rule it would be reasonable to leave magic armors functioning like that imo, even if you were virtually eliminating it with mundane armors. However if one was explicitly REMOVING the GI Joe rule all together, then all other magic armors would not function like that -- only Invincible armor would, with the reasoning being that it is explicitly stated within the spell description, and it is reasonable for that to be a power of the armor because it is such a high level armor spell.

[Shark_Force]

Actually yeah. If I got rid of the GI Joe rule in my games I would still keep that as part of the spell function. The point of removing or modifying that rule is for the sake of realism/common sense, but since it's magic, it is allowed to ignore both of those things. Plus, it's a pretty high level spell, so I don't see why it shouldn't keep that function.

Ok, I get that. But then wouldn't ALL magic armor have that same principle? And why not?

the invincible armor spell actually says right in the description that it has a specific effect when destroyed. as i recall, that effect is to convert all mega-damage to regular damage.

[Crazy Lou]

Actually yeah. If I got rid of the GI Joe rule in my games I would still keep that as part of the spell function. The point of removing or modifying that rule is for the sake of realism/common sense, but since it's magic, it is allowed to ignore both of those things. Plus, it's a pretty high level spell, so I don't see why it shouldn't keep that function.

Ok, I get that. But then wouldn't ALL magic armor have that same principle? And why not?

the invincible armor spell actually says right in the description that it has a specific effect when destroyed. as i recall, that effect is to convert all mega-damage to regular damage.

nope, it absorbs all the extra damage.

[Crazy Lou]

Actually dragons ARE NOT made of organic materials. They are made of MAGIC materials because they are creatures of magic.

Actually, it's stated in the books that dragons have DNA. DNA is something that only appears in organic materials. Vampires are creatures of magic, yet are they made of magic materials? No. They are animated corpses. Dragons are not AI/Godswith have magic for blood, they are living things that reproduce.

Also, because we don't have quantified data on MD and MDC, "MD fire" could be equivalent to 10s of millions of degrees -- we don't know, because it's a qualitative determination which functions as a game mechanic. Similarly with MDC metals their melting points could be in the trillions of degrees once they're finished being mixed and cool initially (think admantium in the Marvel universe as an example of what I mean -- it's possible to make it, but once it's actually finished being made and cooled, it's indestructible, able to survive 1000 direct hits from a nuke w/o even being discolored).

Ah... No. MD fire is NOT in the millions of degrees. I'll give you a few tens of thousands of degrees, but not millions let alone tens of millions. And MDC metals can't have a melting point of trillions of degrees. Why? It's been shown that MDC materials can burn up upon reentery of the atmosphere unless designed for it. And meteors only get heated to a few thousand degrees. It's also shown that they can't withstand a dip in molten magma and don't even try to tell me that lava is millions of degrees, most lavas are only in the two to five thousand degree range. Oh! And BTW, Adamantium has been shown to be ALMOST indestructable since examples have been destroyed in Marvel comics with enough damage.

Signed,
Harry Leferts

Actually I'm pretty sure vampires are actually supernatural creatures, not creatures of magic. Also, because they are creatures of magic, the point is that they don't have to follow all the rules of normal organic, mortal beings. The DNA could be infused with or derrived from life-force embodied magic or such. Demons are living things that reproduce too, as are gods, but I wouldn't call them organic.

On the MD fire note: I wasn't actually suggesting that the MDC stuff melted at trillions of degrees, the point was that we don't know their melting points. I don't know about MDC stuff being shown to melt in lava (I know it takes damage but don't know where it says it straight up melts). Also, since the REAL damage for the nukes aparently for a 100 kT bomb is 2D4x100 MD or for a 200 kT one is 3D4x100 MD, that means that ON AVERAGE, a glitterboy WILL survive a direct hit from the nuke, and best of all, still have outside armor left, and not just be reduced immediately to the reinforced cockpit. So obviously it doesn't all just instantly melt. I was just saying that because we don't know how the special molecularly bonded armor of the GB works (b/c it's not actually real), we have to just assume that somehow some property of it in quantities of a glitterboy, is sufficient to withstand, on average, a direct hit by a super-nuke the CS has in reserve. Some innate sci-fi quality of the armor and MDC material causes it to be so.

Finally on the adamantium note: I know it's technically not indestructible, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that it might as well be, since nothing short of some crazy magic circle Thoth spent 1000 years developing could actually hurt it/melt it/w/e it. This is something that'd be with gigadamage or maybe more in a RIFTS setting.

[Crazy Lou]

Actually dragons ARE NOT made of organic materials. They are made of MAGIC materials because they are creatures of magic. Also, because we don't have quantified data on MD and MDC, "MD fire" could be equivalent to 10s of millions of degrees -- we don't know, because it's a qualitative determination which functions as a game mechanic. Similarly with MDC metals their melting points could be in the trillions of degrees once they're finished being mixed and cool initially (think admantium in the Marvel universe as an example of what I mean -- it's possible to make it, but once it's actually finished being made and cooled, it's indestructible, able to survive 1000 direct hits from a nuke w/o even being discolored).

But it's not fire, it's fusion/fission. And the comparison doesn't work because MDC doesn't mean indestructible.

The point wasn't to directly equate MD fire to the heat induced by energies released in a controlled chain reaction of nuclear fission. It was just to point out that MD fire is something that isn't uncommon for players to be confronted with and to have damage their MDC armor or glitterboy, but it damages it. I noted that we don't know how hot average MD fire is though. This will come up again at the end of this paragraph. A nuke IS uncommon. But we know that a direct hit with a nuke will on average be survivable by a glitterboy because a 2D4x100 MD 100 kiloton nuke will average hit for 500 MD, which is less than it's damage capacity. Similarly, even a 200 kT nuke will hit for an average of 750 MD, which is still just under the glitterboy's damage capacity. It is also radiation shielded, so regardless of how you want to look at "surviving," a glitterboy will on average survive a direct nuke strike. Now, if this is the case, then SOMEHOW, we don't have any actual explanation for it, but SOMEHOW, this is possible in the game, regardless of how hot it is at the direct center of a nuclear blast, whether it's a few million degrees, or a few billion degrees, it's still possible. Thinking MD fire is around the same temperature of a nuke blast is silly, but even if we knew the temperature of the MD fire and the nuke was a billion times hotter, it doesn't automatically wipe out whatever is at the center of the blast, or do directly proportionally more damage.

The point of mentioning MD fire was that we don't know how hot it is, but that doesn't matter really, because we know how much damage it does, regardless of temperature. So maybe mentioning the MD fire was more confusing than clarifying for the discussion, but basically I was trying to boil it down to regardless of a source or means of damage, or the explanation of how that damage is dealt, we're told how much damage something does, and it does that damage.

Physics doesn't often make sense in RIFTS when you're looking at stuff like weapons, armor, damage capacities, and damages from sources, and especially when you're comparing similar sources for these things. The only damage I've seen for lava for instance is from the warlock spell, which could have its high damage explained by the fact it's actually a DoT compressed into a single instance of damage combined with the fact that it's magically created and damaging. And while I agree that compared to a nuke lava is very cold, the fact remains that getting hit directly by a nuke will do the same average damage as standing in a river of lava for 1 minute 47.143 seconds. Which just doesn't make any sense. But that's still how it works.

(also, sorry if that was redundant, it's around 4:30 in the morning, and I'm not at my peak exactly, but I think I've clarified what I was saying)

The comparison with adamantium wasn't to say that MDC stuff can take nukes the same way adamantium can just b/c they're both super tech alloys. That would be silly, and was not how I was comparing them. I was comparing them in the sense that we don't know actual quantitative heats of fusion or vaporization for either them, because they're not real and simply "work" a certain qualitative way within the confines of their defining fictional universe. In that sense the comparison DOES work because it's the same case for both materials.

[Subjugator]

Actually, it's stated in the books that dragons have DNA. DNA is something that only appears in organic materials. Vampires are creatures of magic, yet are they made of magic materials? No. They are animated corpses. Dragons are not AI/Godswith have magic for blood, they are living things that reproduce.

They might have DNA, but they don't require food to live...just magic. They are not organic in nature. There is no carbon in their makeup.

/Sub

[Subjugator]

Notice how I said anything "short of a mountain" surviving the blast. That would include the earth.

Point taken.

When will you concede the point that you don't know what quantifies MDC versus SDC? Stating as fact that a Glitterboy would be destroyed by a nuke also states that you know the temperatures and duration of said temperatures necessary to 'destroy' a Glitterboy. However, since a canonical reference merely said that a Glitterboy MIGHT be destroyed by said nuke, you are clearly wrong.

/Sub