Upper limit photon torpedoes...

[Lord Edam]

BUT, I'll play your game, so let's take your apparent desire for a bass-ackwards approach to the situation: Let's assume that photon torpedos ARE 64 megatons a pop. So now we're left with Riker's quote meaning, essentially, "It would take more than 17.5 gigatons to destroy that asteroid" (the yield of 275 photorps at 64 megatons a pop). That would mean that the asteroid is about 26 kilometers in diameter... and that's a low-end, considering that's the "Fragmentation" energy (I'm using Wong's asteroid destruction calculator, by the way).

10m chunks would not guarantee the destruction of the phase cloak which is only about a foot tall. Re-do the numbers so that you are guaranteed of what they had to achieve and you'd end probably up with an asteroid smaller than 26km, and closer to the 10km or smaller it actually was.
This is even more probable once you take into account the possiblity that the last time we know the E-d was at a starbase prior to Pegasus was a good few episodes earlier, so we can't say it still had the entire TM-given 275 torp complement, or what proportion of these Riker meant when he said most would be needed.

[Darth Wong]

10m chunks would not guarantee the destruction of the phase cloak which is only about a foot tall.

Irrelevant. It only takes one extra torp to blow up the Pegasus even if it survives the destruction of the asteroid somehow, which it probably wouldn't.

This is even more probable once you take into account the possiblity that the last time we know the E-d was at a starbase prior to Pegasus was a good few episodes earlier, so we can't say it still had the entire TM-given 275 torp complement, or what proportion of these Riker meant when he said most would be needed.

Unless it used up 100 torpedoes in 2-3 episodes, you are just vaguely employing imprecision as an excuse for wild speculation. Most of the ship's 275-torp loadout is undoubtedly more than 200, and they don't go through torpedoes so fast in peacetime that they be significantly down after a few episodes. In fact, I would be surprised if they'd fired 50 torpedoes in the entire 7-year run of TNG, even if we disregard starbase resupply.

[Lord Edam]

10m chunks would not guarantee the destruction of the phase cloak which is only about a foot tall.

Irrelevant. It only takes one extra torp to blow up the Pegasus even if it survives the destruction of the asteroid somehow, which it probably wouldn't.

So they hope their torpedoes act like theorised buried explosives (even though they are impacting and probably detonating so close to the surface that they might as well be surface explosions)...and then they have to hope the derelict pegasus destroys itself..and when that doesn't work they have to find which chunk the phase cloak was in.

All this whilst fighting off the romulans.

And Riker knows all of this, and plugs it into his personal asteroid destruction calculator in the space of a few seconds to decide it would take most of their torps?

That seems and awful stretch.

If you want to use the TM numbers use what is really needed and add in a small factor for Riker not having an asteroid destruction calculator handy and the asteroids come out not too far off what we know that one was
(and leave off the cratering and GPE numbers, because those won't even come close to achieving what we know was required)

Unless it used up 100 torpedoes in 2-3 episodes, you are just vaguely employing imprecision as an excuse for wild speculation.

Yep, so that someone can reply that I'm vaguely employing imprecision and I can point out they do exactly the same thing when they try to use Pegasus without TM numbers to arrive at a single torp power.

There's two ways to approach this.

1. - Accept the TM numbers - which aren't too hard to fit to the known goals (destruction of a 1 foot cylinder)

2. - Accept canon info, which means you don't know how many torps they are talking about, and after all that, you still have the problems of what the asteroid is actually composed of, since no common asteroid should have gravitational or magnetic fluctuations strong enough to affect shuttles or starship - yet this one did.

(or take the alternative - find an example with less unknowns)

[TheDarkling]

The idea that trek ships don't carry a full load out of antimatter in peace time does make a certain amount of sense, we know Vouyager which was diaspatched on a combat mission was only carrying 30 or so torps, while the roles of the ships do differ it seems a little odd one ship wuold carry so much more ammo than another (especially a ship on a combat mission compared to a ship not often assigned to such duties), prehaps the quote about a GCS carrying so many torps included torp casings which often double as probes, the Ent-D being more multifunctional than Voyager would require alot more probes (especially given the amount of science departments that are often competing for resources on the Ent-D).

[seanrobertson]

Riker said they would need all of the torps to destroy the asteroid, which was roughly 5-10km wide. If we assume solid nickel-iron, it would take 2 gigatons to do this (using 7500m width). Divide by 275 torps, and you have roughly 7 megatons per torp (let's just say 10).

Mind you, this is a gross overestimate: the asteroid was not solid nickel-iron. For pulverizing igneous rock, you'd only need around 400 megatons, which means that a single photorp is more like 1 to 2 megatons. Worse yet, the asteroid was hollow, which would lower the estimate even further.

Indeed. That general range is more than fair, IMO (although
Riker did say "most of our photorps," and in the aired episode
of "Conundrum," they only had a complement of 250 torpedoes).
What's more, it's consistent, for the most part at least.

The point here is not necessarily that a precise figure can be estimated (Riker was undoubtedly speaking from experience involving torpedoes and rocky asteroids, rather than performing precise calculations), but just to show that the TM figure is likely about one order of magnitude too high, so we should be looking at the 1-10 MT range rather than the 10-100 MT range. A 64 MT buried nuclear explosion would pulverize a 2.4 km wide asteroid and while precise calculations do not come readily, the fact that a photorp can take out a multi-kilometre asteroid in a single hit would not be something that is too difficult to remember. It would have been inconceivable for Riker to look at an asteroid which is 2-3 times the width of one that can be destroyed with a single hit and conclude that they'd need to hit it more than 200 times.

Good point.

I also rather like Wayne's idea about VGR's entire payload
amounting to about 200 isotons. The scene itself seems to imply
that's each torpedoes' maximum yield, but this does not add
up with countless other examples of "isotonnage" in Trek; e.g.,

1--O'Brien's bomb for the ketracel base in "A Time To Stand"...
I don't have the scripts on this hard drive, but IIRC it was less
than 90 isotons.

2--"Living Witness" (? VGR episode): some guy in a museum
says a VGR photorp has a yield of ~20 isotons (maybe less?).

3--Double-digit isoton device in "The Omega Directive" was larger
than a standard photorp, provoking Harry Dimwit to talk about
blowing up a small moon.

As such, concluding that 7 of 9 was talking about the entire torpedo
inventory is logical. (Btw, I'm sure there are other examples.)

As far as a firm upper-limit on all photorps goes, GAT said it
all in pointing out the Cardassian "Dreadnought's" yield: one
metric ton of AM, or an upper-limit of 21 gigatons.

That thing has to have the yield of at least hundreds of photorps...otherwise, what would be the point of
the thing? A small fleet of Cardassian warships could do
the job instead (even though, oddly enough, we've *never*
seen them use photon torpedoes).

Additional note:
Dreadnought did have warp engines, weapons, shields, and a
kind of control center with accomodations for at least
one person, but it was also BIG--like 100 meters long.
That's a lot bigger than any photon torpedo.

Irrelevant note:
VGR had a real hard time battling the missile. Without
Torres' intervention, VGR had planned to get between the missile
and its target, triggering a self-destruct op to take it out IIRC.

So, why in the HELL didn't the Cardassians field more of these
things? Granted, they're only useful against stationary targets,
but I would've lobbed a dozen of those things at Bajor and
DS9 prior to the fleet engagements of "Call To Arms."
Or at least used them in the Dominion War.

All it goes to show is that AM is hard to come by/expensive,
I guess. It might also indicate more of those elusive rules
of engagement we hear about from time to time.

[Darth Servo]

[quote="Lord Edam"]So they hope their torpedoes act like theorised buried explosives (even though they are impacting and probably detonating so close to the surface that they might as well be surface explosions)...
Photon Torpedos do have the ability to tunnel underground.

[Darth Wong]

So they hope their torpedoes act like theorised buried explosives (even though they are impacting and probably detonating so close to the surface that they might as well be surface explosions)...and then they have to hope the derelict pegasus destroys itself..and when that doesn't work they have to find which chunk the phase cloak was in.

Hardly. They set their torpedoes to burrow underground (you do remember that they can do that, right?). At 64 MT, they can pulverize the entire asteroid with just 6 torps, using figures for igneous rock (the figure is higher for nickel-iron but lower for hard granite). Their vaunted scanners should have little difficulty identifying the engineering section, and they can blast it with a 7th torp. Problem solved.

Alternatively, they could blast their way to the Pegasus with just two torps rather than destroying the whole rock, and then either destroy the Pegasus with a third torp or try to beam in.

All this whilst fighting off the romulans.

The Romulans are well out of sensor range, and you figure they'll have to fight them off during the time it takes to launch 7 torps? Puh-lease.

And Riker knows all of this, and plugs it into his personal asteroid destruction calculator in the space of a few seconds to decide it would take most of their torps?

He doesn't need to calculate it. If a single torp could pulverize a 2.4km wide asteroid, he should already have enough of a "feel" for their abilities to know that it shouldn't take too many torps to destroy one that's only two or three times bigger than that. And if he was grossly wrong, somebody else could have easily pointed it out. I made this point earlier; please learn to read.

If you want to use the TM numbers use what is really needed and add in a small factor for Riker not having an asteroid destruction calculator handy and the asteroids come out not too far off what we know that one was (and leave off the cratering and GPE numbers, because those won't even come close to achieving what we know was required)

Bullshit. All they need to do is break apart the asteroid and then blow up the ship. They don't need to vapourize it.

Yep, so that someone can reply that I'm vaguely employing imprecision and I can point out they do exactly the same thing when they try to use Pegasus without TM numbers to arrive at a single torp power.

We can scale the asteroid, Edam. This is analysis of canon data. Don't act like a baby and whine that it's not as good as Pocket Books' "speculation".

1. - Accept the TM numbers - which aren't too hard to fit to the known goals (destruction of a 1 foot cylinder)

The known goal is to get at the Pegasus, Edam. They don't need to vapourize the whole asteroid. Moreover, the Pegasus is not solid like the rest of the asteroid; the forces released by these huge explosions would easily smash the ship and destroy anything valuable inside.

2. - Accept canon info, which means you don't know how many torps they are talking about, and after all that, you still have the problems of what the asteroid is actually composed of, since no common asteroid should have gravitational or magnetic fluctuations strong enough to affect shuttles or starship - yet this one did.

Thank you. This means that the asteroid is partly fluid, so that material can be in motion and generate magnetic/grav field fluctuations, which means that it will be even easier to destroy. Or perhaps you thought it's degenerate matter and ultra-dense, in which case you'd have to explain why it can maintain its craggy, hollow shape against its own gravity.

(or take the alternative - find an example with less unknowns)

What unknowns? We have a ~5-6 km wide asteroid, a ship with 275 torpedoes, and the XO saying they can't blast their way into the ship because it would take most of those torpedoes. Your attempt to muddy the water (not to mention the strawman accusation that I'm claiming more precision than I really am) is nothing more than an evasion.

[TheDarkling]

Wong: They weren't certain where the ship was exactly (subspace blah from the warp core was tipping them off it was somewhere inside the asteroid) and the Romulans were in sensor range.



PICARD
Mister Data, how long will it take
to determine the exact location of
the Pegasus?

DATA
At least another six hours,
Captain.



RIKER
Sir, the Romulan warbird has
altered course again... they are
heading toward our position

So you can see that Riker is talking about taking out the entire asteroid, especially when he says.

RIKER
(to Picard)
I recommend we destroy the
asteroid. It would take almost
all our photon torpedoes, but it
would preclude any possibility of
the Pegasus falling into Romulan
hands.

What he means by destroy is in question here - turn it into sub 1m fragments like Edam says or cratering as has been mentioned (or somewhere in between).

We have an asteroid of know size (I assume no one disputes the scaling although I dont know for sure), an unknown amount of torps (due to not having enough antimatter or not having a full and not knowing what constitutes "almost" - its not fully unknown but it is a bit hazy), a somewhat weird asteroid and an in dispute amount of damage that needs to be done to said asteroid, its not exactly iron clad but then again that would elimate the fun from it.

[Darth PhysBod]

Well I'm not sure which 'other' canon events Galaxy is referring too, but here’s a couple:

TNG "Genesis" The Enterprise is testing new tactical systems including improved torpedoes (11% increase in explosive yield). There are 3 torpedoes fired at asteroids, one of which misses and we get chance to scale the torpedoes at launch.

My own rough estimates;
Asteroid 1: 13m x 8m
Asteroid 2: 15m x 14m

Both asteroids were broken into large, relatively slow moving (I estimate <140m/s) pieces. Just for the sake of argument I assumed the explosion represented total vaporisation of ~50% of the asteroid, for ~15-25KT yields (assuming the asteroids only absorbed half the blast I might add).I suppose strictly speaking we should really just consider the requirements for fragmenting an asteroid ~a dozen metres or so in diameter, but that would be mean...

Voy "Rise"
Well I'm sure you all know of the asteroid in this one and Darkstars scaling thereof (which requires the Deflector to be wider than the main 'saucer' section of the hull!). Anyway my estimates:

Torpedo width at launch 2.2m (based on the Deflector)
Asteroid at torpedo impact: 44x29m
Yield of ~190KT assuming the 'missing' volume (~45%) was totally vaporised.

There is also TNG "Booby trap", the asteroids next to the torpedo's at impact are ~similar in size to those in Genesis, but I would need to get some decent screencap's of that for a reasonable estimate.

[TheDarkling]

I can tell you the off the self rebuttals right now - those torps were testing guidance putting them at full yield in such a test would be amazingly dumb.

Darkstar scaling is based upon the fact that a torps "glow" gets bigger as it leaves the ship, I did ask him for evidence of this which he provided and the "glow" did seem to increase although I'm not sure I would say to the degree he put forth.

The booby trap scaling is in dispute (I have seen that battle cruiser placed at around 600m(rough memory guess)) so that would place the torps much higher - I personally leave scaling to those who want to do it so I couldn't give you an opinion one way or another.

[Darth PhysBod]

I can tell you the off the self rebuttals right now - those torps were testing guidance putting them at full yield in such a test would be amazingly dumb..

Do you have any evidence for that?[Testing only guidance system]

Worf states: "The next test will involve the new torpedoes, explosive yield has been increased by 11% and I, have modifed the guidance system for increased accuracy".

This would be somewhat analogous to a Live fire test of a new ATGM, against say, a clapped out tank.

Darkstar scaling is based upon the fact that a torps "glow" gets bigger as it leaves the ship, I did ask him for evidence of this which he provided and the "glow" did seem to increase although I'm not sure I would say to the degree he put forth..

Hmm.."The all new magically expanding photon torpedo, just add vacuum"...

Darkstars scaling as far as it appears on his site is based on a 10m torpedo (glow), then comparing this to the asteroid at impact. This requires the lower part of the hull to be wider than the saucer...oops

The booby trap scaling is in dispute (I have seen that battle cruiser placed at around 600m(rough memory guess)) so that would place the torps much higher - I personally leave scaling to those who want to do it so I couldn't give you an opinion one way or another.

Like I said I need better screenshots, but where preytell does 600m come into it (I've heard that 'someone' scaled it as such but how?, and which dimension does this refer to?). The visuals from the episode would still reign supreme (again we have chance to scale the asteroids from the torpedo impacts).

[TheDarkling]

Yes but as Worf says hes upgraded the guidance system, it would make sense to do a low yield test first (especially given that the torp does turn around and head straight for the ship) - thats just the standard response to that incident being used (there seems to be one for every incident both high and low, for example TDiC has an atmospheric shockwave which would require GT's to create however the shockwave moves too fast and thus must be some subspace stuff (from my limited reading on that particular incident))

Well as I said I dont bother with scaling so I can't comment on the figure you arrived at.

Well its here although the scaling isn't present (I suppose you could email the webmaster and ask).

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... -chart.jpg

[Darth PhysBod]

Yes but as Worf says hes upgraded the guidance system, it would make sense to do a low yield test first (especially given that the torp does turn around and head straight for the ship) - thats just the standard response to that incident being used (there seems to be one for every incident both high and low, for example TDiC has an atmospheric shockwave which would require GT's to create however the shockwave moves too fast and thus must be some subspace stuff (from my limited reading on that particular incident))

I'm not going to get drawn into to long-winded semantics bullshit about a piece of dialogue.
Worf states "the next Test (singular) will involve the new photon torpedoes". Nothing about a series of tests, nothing about testing only the guidance or only the yield. They had shiny new torpedoes and what do they do? They fired the things at stationary rocks for fucks sake! That is NOT the test of a guidance system.

TDiC again...
Do you see a single fireball even remotly comparable to that of a GT explosion?
no.... ,
Do you see thousands of square Km's of crust turned into an ocean of boiling rock?
no....

Well as I said I dont bother with scaling so I can't comment on the figure you arrived at.

Well its here although the scaling isn't present (I suppose you could email the webmaster and ask).

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... -chart.jpg

So 600m is the length, which is of no use as we see the battlecruiser head on w.r.t the asteroids (and we dont have adequate exterior shots to deduce the width).

[TheDarkling]

Hey I have been told that a shockwave of that magnitude would require GT to produce(someone over at spacebattle consulted a meterologist I believe - it was a while since I read about it), you say TDiC again why don't I say Pegasus again .

The event did happen however much you would like to forget it (although the weapons were plasma torps and not photon torps).

Yes but as I recall we see the ship from an angle and it seems to wider than it is long(hazy memory).

I will repeat my oft said statement - Trek firepowr isn't consistent and alot of incidents will be needed to try and get a proper figure.

[Darth Wong]

Wong: They weren't certain where the ship was exactly (subspace blah from the warp core was tipping them off it was somewhere inside the asteroid) and the Romulans were in sensor range.

Doesn't matter. If they can blow the whole asteroid apart with a half-dozen torps, it should take them all of about 10 seconds to get the job done. Then, locate the engineering section if it survives, and vape it just for good measure.

What he means by destroy is in question here - turn it into sub 1m fragments like Edam says or cratering as has been mentioned (or somewhere in between).

Classic Trek evasion tactic: exaggerate semantic uncertainty. Who gives a fuck what he meant by "destroy"? We know their objective; to destroy the ship. I just explained how much energy it would take to get the job done. You're just trying to exaggerate their objective.

We have an asteroid of know size (I assume no one disputes the scaling although I dont know for sure), an unknown amount of torps (due to not having enough antimatter or not having a full and not knowing what constitutes "almost" - its not fully unknown but it is a bit hazy), a somewhat weird asteroid and an in dispute amount of damage that needs to be done to said asteroid, its not exactly iron clad but then again that would elimate the fun from it.

You are talking about imprecision. Since I stated quite clearly in my earlier post that I was only establishing the 1-10MT order of magnitude, the onus is on you to show that this imprecision exceeds an order of magnitude. They may not have had 275 torps, but they undoubtedly had more than 27, for example, so don't waste your time making mountains out of molehills.

[TheDarkling]

I'm not trying to make firepower calcs here I just corrected your errors and sumed up what we know, I don't really care one way or the other so don't imply what im saying has any conclusions mixed in.

I will also restate even if you can get calcs from this incident there are many others it doesn't fit in with.

[seanrobertson]

Well I'm not sure which 'other' canon events Galaxy is referring too, but here’s a couple:

TNG "Genesis" The Enterprise is testing new tactical systems including improved torpedoes (11% increase in explosive yield). There are 3 torpedoes fired at asteroids, one of which misses and we get chance to scale the torpedoes at launch.

My own rough estimates;
Asteroid 1: 13m x 8m
Asteroid 2: 15m x 14m

Both asteroids were broken into large, relatively slow moving (I estimate <140m/s) pieces. Just for the sake of argument I assumed the explosion represented total vaporisation of ~50% of the asteroid, for ~15-25KT yields (assuming the asteroids only absorbed half the blast I might add).I suppose strictly speaking we should really just consider the requirements for fragmenting an asteroid ~a dozen metres or so in diameter, but that would be mean...

I remember this, Stan--good observations btw. I'd love to
see some vidcaps of this event.

With all respect to Darkling, I don't see what good it'd
do to test a weapon with greater yield at anything other
than maximum.

WRT consistency, we could assume Riker was on the
right track for order of magnitude estimates, and we
said that the asteroid in question had a volume equivalent of
a rock half its dimensions (approx. 2.5-3 km), AND if I'm
reading the Dark Lord's asteroid calculator correctly,
we're looking at about 15-27 megatons to fragment the thing.

That's a bit crude, since the volume of a 2.5 km wide rock
is somewhat less than simply half the volume of a 5 km wide
rock (1.41E10m^3 vs. 5.65E10m^3 if my math is correct).
With all of their torpedoes used, each would have a 60-108 kiloton
yield. With, say, 200 torpedoes used (dunno if that could
mean "most"?), and the higher fragmentation figure, that's
still only 150 kilotons/torpedo.

Voy "Rise"
Well I'm sure you all know of the asteroid in this one and Darkstars scaling thereof (which requires the Deflector to be wider than the main 'saucer' section of the hull!). Anyway my estimates:

Torpedo width at launch 2.2m (based on the Deflector)
Asteroid at torpedo impact: 44x29m
Yield of ~190KT assuming the 'missing' volume (~45%) was totally vaporised.

Interestingly, that's very much in line with Riker's expectations
in "Pegasus": 100-200 kiloton torpedoes. In fairness, however,
the crew was very surprised that the rock wasn't reduced
to centimeter-wide debris.

There is also TNG "Booby trap", the asteroids next to the torpedo's at impact are ~similar in size to those in Genesis, but I would need to get some decent screencap's of that for a reasonable estimate.

Yeah. We also have no idea how big the Promellian battlecruiser
is (the only reasonable scaling referent in the scene IIRC).
Star Trek Fact Files pegged it as 600m long, as someone else
noted, but that's a non-canon source (and is often pretty
out of whack from what I've seen).

Maybe if we saw the E-D near the battlecruiser, we could have
some ideas.

I also don't recall what sort of damage was done to the asteroids.
I do know we saw a vapor flash, but IIRC, we also saw some debris...
it might've been from the Promellian ship though.

Speaking of vapor flash, is there any way to directly apply that
to something like "Rise"?

And it seems as if there were a couple of other instances in
which photorps were used against asteroids. The scene in
TMP, and some other TNG episode of which I have no
recollection.

I'm also interested in how torpedo yields and shields are
related. We know a Galaxy can absorb a lot of
energy over the course of hours; furthermore, they also
seem to have a pretty high burst capacity, given Worf's
ability to quickly reassemble the shields in "Survivors"
(call me on this if I'm misremembering or distorting
something).

How, then, do mid-ranged kiloton torpedoes
layeth so much smackdown on these shields? Is
it the rate at which they deliver their energy (maybe
a frame of video?)? Could it be that shields'
long-term "strength" as such IS much lower than
their burst capacity, contrary to what I sorta loosely
suggested above?; i.e., 100,000 TJ shields are only
good for a few thousand or ten thousand TW in one heaping
serving?

I'm also interested in knowing just how many torpedoes
are required to drop a starship's shields--and on top of
that come up with a rough spread (pun intended) for
the photorp/shield failure ratio for several *different*
kinds of ships; e.g., GCSs, Mirandas, Klingon
warships, Borg ships, etc. I realize that, in particular,
requires a huge amount of guesswork, but at the
very least we should be able to figure out how many
the "hero" ships have taken in various battles (VGR
and Equinox in "Equinox" for instance, E-A
from Trek VI, and so on).

[Ted C]

With all respect to Darkling, I don't see what good it'd
do to test a weapon with greater yield at anything other
than maximum.

It makes particularly little sense for Worf to mention the 11% yield increase at this time if the extra yield itself isn't being demonstrated in the test.

My 2 cents worth...

[TheDarkling]

I personally would test the torps with a low yield setting first then once I knew they weren't going to turn around and blow me up I would see how high the yield was.

Thats just me personally its not like the TNG era trek always do the sensible thing (or even often).

[SirNitram]

I personally would test the torps with a low yield setting first then once I knew they weren't going to turn around and blow me up I would see how high the yield was.

Thats just me personally its not like the TNG era trek always do the sensible thing (or even often).

If their Guidance system is that fucking pathetic, do I really need to paint a picture. Here's a hint: No one live-tests a missile under the presumption it'll swing around and paint a tone on it's launcher.

[Darth Servo]

I personally would test the torps with a low yield setting first then once I knew they weren't going to turn around and blow me up I would see how high the yield was.

Thats just me personally its not like the TNG era trek always do the sensible thing (or even often).

IF the thing wasn't armed then why bother retrieving it?

[Ted C]

I personally would test the torps with a low yield setting first then once I knew they weren't going to turn around and blow me up I would see how high the yield was.

Thats just me personally its not like the TNG era trek always do the sensible thing (or even often).

Indeed. We are talking about people who test-fire experimental warp propulsion systems directly at inhabited planets ("New Ground") and use the entire ship as a test rig for Wesley's experiments ("Remember Me"). I have no doubt that the Federation would conduct their first test at maximum yield.

[TheDarkling]

SirNitram: The Torp did malfunction and go off on a three day joy ride around the asteroid field.


Darth Servo:OK I tire of this - point to the place where where I say it wasn't armed.

[SirNitram]

SirNitram: The Torp did malfunction and go off on a three day joy ride around the asteroid field.

The possibility of loss of guidance is always accepted. However, a loss of guidance means a projectile will continue on it's merry way, NOT pull a hard 180 and return to sender! Are you seriously not realizing what's wrong here?

[TheDarkling]

I understand but the torp didn't just carry on its merry way it did change course therefore if it altered its course by that much it could have altered it by more.