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Hypothetical question:

If a large (size class 2 or larger) asteroid ship Jindarians say, were struck by a sufficiently powerful laser or other energy weapon that could generate significant heat during a star fleet battles game turn/impulse, would the vapor generated as multiple tons of rock get incinerated, be sufficient to move the ship one star fleet battles tactical hex back, in the direction opposite of the shield facing where aforementioned energy weapon beam struck?

This could be the basis for a previously unknown (and unpublished) new empire primary weapon…one that does both damage AND causes an (involuntary) retrograde movement on the targeted ship.

Wow.
what a concept.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, June 30, 2025 - 07:40 am: Edit

Not if we're using anything like real physics.

Remember, a hex in SFB is 10,000 km and turns are short. Deposit enough energy for that level of recoil, and the entire ship is vapor and we're looking at vapor from the exploding ship recoiling that fast.

That said: You could probably technobabble about warp field interactions with the vaporized material providing a pseudo-force which causes the ship to move.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Monday, June 30, 2025 - 07:49 am: Edit

Douglas, thank you.

Just an idle thought.

I was thinking that such a game mechanism might for a different kind of special scenario rule.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Monday, June 30, 2025 - 08:05 am: Edit

You can technobabble it easily enough if you want such a mechanism for something, it's certainly no worse physics-wise than most of the rest of the setting and weapons.

Is it a good game rule/scenario/mechanism strikes me as a lot more important to SFB than plausible physics.

By Mike Curtis (Nashvillen) on Monday, June 30, 2025 - 08:55 am: Edit

Not to mention if you laser the Jindo ship enough you might produce enough handwavium to make it work.