After our gaming session the other day, some of our group and I were out back having a drink on the Deck when one asked what i knew of the others using Photon and Photonis as well as Quantum and Spatial torpedo yeilds. I was thrown not knowing what to say.
We have been using percentage yeilds as predetermined yeild levels (divided down into 50 levels providing 4 damage increase per level).
A single torpedo could easily vaporize half of a size 1 shuttlecrafts.
Let me know what you do in your group. That's if your group even still uses Spacedock.
I wasn't aware that you can change the blast yields on photon torpedoes, as each carry a set amount of anti-matter which causes the damaging effect. Quantum Torpedoes work in a way, if I can remember correctly, where it causes that effect but at a zero point, thus focusing the damage and causing more damage thusly.
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I would have to look it up in the book my self but house rules you can do anything you want. The variable yield allows the destruction of just a deflecter array or communications array without destroying half the ship. There is a mention of this in TNG. That is why we have it.
I'm sure that it's possible . . . but imagine a botch roll while the torpedo-crew doesn't provide enough magnetic isolation fielding for the anti-matter which is being removed . . . explode a freaking photon torpedo inside the torpedo workshop that's what . . . man . . . the carnage . . . the F' over the PC rating on this one is enough to earn you the Evil GM badge. But then again, they're the ones who decided to tinker around with things that are made on isolated astroids . . . or that's where I would put the manufacturing plant.
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"The Federation needs men like you, doctor. Men of conscience. Men of principle. Men who can sleep at night... You're also the reason Section Thirty-one exists -- someone has to protect men like you from a universe that doesn't share your sense of right and wrong." Sloan, Section Thirty-One
Well it's of course possible to have variable yields to torpedoes, but I would say it depends on the era: IN TNG it's an automated function of the launcher, in Tos a technician would be required, and it could significantly slow down firing rates, and in dealing with anything Enterprise Era it's probably not possible, or again only possible with an engineer present, to actually physically remove explosive material. Most torpedoes are an explosion based on a reactant exploding, consuming the torpedo, so it's hard for the torpedo to occlude some of it's reactant from the explosion hehe.
I believe the technical specifications are that a typical Type VI Photon torpedo has a 25 Isoton yield and a Quantum torpedo has a 50+ Isoton yield: It's got about the same amount of reactant as a Photon torpedo but it's explosion triggers an event in the Zero point energy domain, doubling the standard explosions capability. Exactly what an Isoton is and how that relates to earlier weapons I guess you have to make that up, but that's the best I can do canonically. Beyond that just use percentages of your weapon damage and relate that to percentage based yields. That however doesn't really line up with Spacedock's weapon charts, but well, it's all guesswork, nothing is very specific on screen.
To be honest it's not really even what the yield of the weapon is so much as how effective it is against your hull/shield. In the rules it's massively simplified for the sake of gameplay but in the show 'advanced' weapons could often pierce right through shields/hulls and old fashioned weapons couldn't even pierce their navigational shields. All weapons contain an exotic component that isn't factored into the game (unless there are special rules for it in play) For example, the classic Chroniton torpedo, which can go straight through shields, yet is in all other ways pretty much similar to a basic Photon torpedo: it's more deadly because it can bypass your protection.
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