Set the controls for the black hole

[ericphillips]

So, I,m in a saquadron battle around a black hole. All the enemies ships are damage, and I am down to two. One in good shape, one hurt badly.

As a last ditch effort, can I evacuate the damaged ship, set it to fly into the black hole, and let the radiation fly.

Is this legal in Fed Com?

[mjwest]

You cannot "set it to fly" anywhere.

However, once you evacuate the crew (via (5E7)) you may set the abandoned ship to self destruct.

Or, you can maneuver it reasonably close to the black hole and just let it get sucked down.

But, you cannot set a pre-programmed course that a crew-less ship will fly. Once it is abandoned it is dead in space (or exploding).

[Scoutdad]

And a saavy player, seeing an evacuated ship that will soon be sucked into the black hole... will fire several weapons at it (even if it's long range) in an attempt to destroy the unshielded ship before the Black Hole eats it.

[Kang]

Once it is abandoned it is dead in space (or exploding).

That's an interesting point. Would an abandoned ship that's not set to self-destruct still have its systems (like Shields, tractors in place) operating?

...in an attempt to destroy the unshielded ship before the Black Hole eats it.

...so would it necessarily be unshielded or would the shields still be operating? (those that are not knocked down, anyway)

[Scoutdad]

In SFB... you have to pay energy to power the shields every turn. If you don't - there are no shields and if no one is on board to monitor the power sequence and applysaid pawer to shielding; there would be no shielding.

I can only assume (and it's only an assumption) that there are some type of built in safety devices [most likely constructed of hand'wavium] that will prevent the generation of power to an abandoned ship and that with no power [i.e., engine shut down]; there will be no shields.

OK... that's enough techno-babble for me, my brain hurts.

[terryoc]

I don't think there's any actual rule in FC that says the shields are dropped. So the shields would stay up I think. Most abandoned ships self-destruct at the end of hte turn anyway, so it's something that hardly ever comes up that you'd want to fire on an abandoned ship...

[m1a1dat]

In any case, even a destroyed ship is still on the map and gets sucked into the black hole and you get the radiation burst (6D2e). You just have to wait for it to get pulled in and can't speed up the process by actively flying into it.