Reworking the Warp Core Breaches
In Spacedock the Total Catastrophic Failure of the Warp Core breaches (page 98 of the first Spacedock book) has never fully satisfied me. I just did not liked the way it was set up. So here is my solution to the new warp core breach and it is the final evolution of the rules over the years. Our group has almost unanimously agreed to institute the option one and the optional part below as part of our House rules.
(For record; there was one opposition just to be opposed to it believing that nothing should go without opposition, (my girlfriend can be a pain in the butt sometimes) and yes that got me a head slap and a kiss… I guess I will keep her around anyways).
This also works the same in ICON as it does in Spacedock. This is what I came up with, let me know if you like it or not, use it if you want. This can be used in the Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate and Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda for they all have similar power systems.
There is also optional version to this intended changes. This also has a version of the self destruct system that Kirk planned to use to destroy V’ger in the Motion Picture. I hope that I covered that in depth.
Option… one
A starship that is running it’s warp core at a certain level let’s say it is an ageing Miranda class that is just running between planets and not in any combat, the core is running at around 27 percent 106 power. A sudden warp core breach generates twenty times the damage so the 106 power would convert into a destructive explosion of 2110 damage there would be 551 damage to any ship caught in the blast wave of one MU of the explosion. The same Miranda running at full power would cause an even greater explosion of 7800 damage and after the destruction of the ship there would be 6241 to inflict damage to any ship in the same MU.
Now a galaxy class running at 25 percent 156 power just out for a cruise like the Miranda above would cause a blast that is 3120 and then at full power the ship would cause 12,600 damage.
The using a hand phaser or disruptor against the warp core can cause a warp core breach on the highest levels. Use the above calculations and then multiplying them by two. The Miranda class with the destructive level of 2110 would be 4220 of damage and a max power would be 15,600 damage. And this was done on a Renegade Klingon Battle Cruiser by one of the characters in an alternate universe where he was a trapped prisoner and the only way back was to blow the ship up with the hand phaser.
Option… two
The other option was that the power being generated multiplied by ten and the damage would be just as dangerous. The blast of a galaxy class above at 25 percent would be 1560 damage. That would destroy more than half the ship. This would leave under half the ship as deep space wreckage. This debris would have the same percentage of damage to each and every component that the ship has a whole would have after the explosion. As an example each part would have nearly fifty percent damage to it.
Option three…
This version was never completely finished. It took either the ships size or the warp engine class such a class 1 or 3 to generate the power of the explosion of the warp core breach. The class three would generate a blast three times as much as the power generated. So our friendly Miranda traveling along generating 106 power with a Class 7/M core would detonate at 742 damage and at maximum power would cause 2730 damage. Our Galaxy class at 156 power with a class 12/R would cause 1872 and at maximum power would cause 7560.
Option… as a self-destruct system
The Matter and Anti-matter are allowed to mix uncontrolled resulting in a massive explosion. This result causes an explosion one hundred fifty times the power normally generated. The uncontrolled Matter and Anti-matter mix would cause a Galaxy class 94,500 damage clearly destroying the ship and killing all that is within the same MU that the ship exploding happens in. There are few shields that can prevent such an offensive assault. The eruption of the Warp core within the V’ger spacecraft would have had devastating results. The V’ger ship would have suffered 67.9 percent damage from this explosion listed here on a version of V’ger that I have generated and likely destroyed the Voyager 6 Probe in the explosion. Such an explosion in the atmosphere or under the surface could cause catastrophic damage to the surface of the planet and poison the atmosphere making it difficult to live on the surface. There would be anti-matter radiation fall out causing d1 damage to the survivors exposed to the radiation. Long term exposure to the radiation would shorten the life span of the subject and cause the survivor to weaken and become susceptible to wounds and sickness. Starfleet medical treatments are effective in the short term but in the long term they lose their effect on the life forms physiology.
This part is optional to the above…
Janeway ran Voyager at least once above one hundred percent when they collapsed an ancient space station being used by the Hirogen species. I generated this from that. For each one percent over 105 percent the difficulty to maintain a warp core integrity difficulty increases by 1 until warp core failure.
There are times when the ship is running its warp core at 110 percent above normal and a this would cause the breach to be thirty time the destructive levels. The core would be producing 693 power per round and the breach would cause a new destruction of 20,790 damage in the MU. Higher a core runs past one hundred percent causes greater damage. At 101 to 110 percent causes thirty times as much damage and 111 to 120 percent causes forty times as much damage and 121 to 125 percent damage cause fifty time the damage and it the core can handle it 126 to 130 percent will cause sixty time the damage. Anything above 130 percent causes an automatic explosion of one hundred times the destruction.
This running the warp core above the normal also can affect the warp factors a Miranda running at maximum warp would normally be warp factor 9.2 and at 110 percent or better would add .2 of a warp factor increasing the speed to 9.4. This would be the same in The Original Series era as The Next Generation Era and the Enterprise era. For each 5 percent above the 100 percent the ship is capable of adding one 0.1 of a warp factor to its maximum speed. If the warp core is damaged the difficulty starts at five regardless of the percentage being generated in the round and will continue till the core is repaired.
There is an adventure option where the core is somehow automatically increasing power and threatens a Total Catastrophic Warp Core Breach happens. The engineering crew must make repairs to prevent the core breach and shut down the core or at least stabilize it before the breach happens. The one time that we did this the ship was lost however the majority of our ship’s crew escaped in escape pods and was clear of the blast zone.
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Originally Posted by Omega1967
