314 replies to this topic

[Zealix]

no.. thats just silly

[Ian]

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after watching the mech warrior revision trailer and seeing at the end how the pilot's mech went nuclear when it was destroyed, it got me thinking though having a mech go nuclear when destroyed is a very poor decision (you would have many nuclear explosions happening at once that would be a disaster) but the devs brought up how when mechs overheat they shut down and the pilot can override this at the risk of having his mech's reactor melting down, so should it be that when you override and that causes your mech the melt down should it go nuclear?

Your AMMO might explode, or your Mech may shut down temporarily. Your Mech never melts down from overheat. EVER. Mechs do not explode damaging the things around them.
Please use search, this topic has been brought up tons of times already.

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alright - suspension of disbelief engaged - ddisavowing any knowledge off dusion reaction and recalling (poorly) the TT games, it seems that you could self-destruct and cause a large explosion radius. If that is the case maybe it is not a 'nuclear' reaction, but the supercritical reactor whose shielding has been penetrated setting off several Tons of advanced explosives in the ammunition. That combination should result in a large AOE explosion with catastrophic damage potential to anything within a set radius....

Optional rule, used by very very few, and liked by even less.

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Fission is even less likely to result in any type of explosion/detonation. A huge amount of pressure is needed to maintain fission and as soon as the pressure vessel is ruptured the hydrogen is released and the fission reactor runs out of energy to burn and the pressure in which to convert it.

Fusion Sir.

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Maybe instead of an explosion(because that's not how it works) we could just get hit with a localized EMP.

Fusion does not produce an EMP effect.

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And If you have not been dealing with nuclear power for over 30 years
Things are not what you think about a RX
They are made to be safe and shut down but that is several thousand tons or steal and contrete to make power

Something made to power a mech
Stuff is going to be made to be border line

Except that we are talking Fusion not Fission. When the containment on a Fusion process is broken, the Fusion reaction dissipates.

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Did no one play Mech Assault in this thread?

A terrible travesty of a game that barely has anything to do with Battletech/Mechwarrior.

[Kael Tropheus]

Not just yes but OH YES!

[RenegadeMaster]

BDThumper, on 22 June 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

Remember that a reactor in melt down merely builds up heat in an uncontrollable fashion but does not result in a nuclear detonation. Radiation is not affected or effected by temperature, the elemental compounds may be but the radioactive particles; alpha, beta (now considered a ray instead of a particle) and fast or thermal neutrons, or radioactive rays; gamma, beta, positron, or x-ray, are not.

A nuclear detonation requires a modicum of knowledge of not only radioactive materials but also electronics and chemical explosives to construct. The possibility of this happening in the environment is not probable even in a combat environment. The worst that happens is the reactor goes into melt down and changes the material around it into a gaseous radioactive state, which is released into the environment and the reactor core melts into the ground.

It would be rare for a nuclear reactor to achieve the heat needed to burn to the core of the earth. This is due to the heat dispersion into the atmosphere and the ability of the core to disassociate from itself.

Fission is even less likely to result in any type of explosion/detonation. A huge amount of pressure is needed to maintain fission and as soon as the pressure vessel is ruptured the hydrogen is released and the fission reactor runs out of energy to burn and the pressure in which to convert it.

You can trust me..I'm a doctor, well not the kind that helps people, but a radiation health physicist.

I think everyone could use that nuclear lesson. Same thing with learning how to create a poll on the forum that uses radio buttons instead of check boxes.

[Lou Cypher]

I vote yes, because I wanna see all the suicide scouts out there ganging on the heavy/assault mechs to the point they take them down with them.

[Sylph GodDragon]

As fusion seems to work (or gonna work) is under an heavy electro magnetic field that contain a dense and super heated plasma... So if an AC 20 hit the reactor and break the field, that plasma should go out and make a pretty mess. Still if we talk about cold fusion or Sono fusion.. A cracker should make a bigger boom

[Baccus Membi]

i don't believe that the lore indicates what kind of fusion the reactors use - it could be a heavier material since it is fiction than hydrogen...

[BbadAK]

I find the "meltdowns" to be the most annoying part of MWLL at the moment. So many times they have gotten me killed or ruined shots because a raven got cored and exploded, whiting out my screen. I understand the drama that these mythical reactor meltdowns bring to the battletech universe. However, the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. I doubt very much that the battlemech would have become the predominate weapon of war if each one carried a nuke around inside it that would explode at the slightest tickle.

[StarSlayer40]

I'm personally more concerned about whether or not all of the 'mechs will always explode when destroyed like in recent mechwarrior games (such as MW4). This is because, as far as i recall, 'mechs don't always blow up. For example, in the intro video for MW3, when the Inner Sphere Mad Dog/Vulture destroys the Smoke Jaguar Summoner/Thor, the Summoner/Thor doesn't explode, it simply falls over.

In the same intro video, the Timber Wolf goes critical. I don't know just how large the blast was, although seeing it in the video makes it look pretty large. We have to assume however that the reactor's going critical wasn't too massive of an explosion or else the terrain in which the rest of the intro plays out would be drastically different.

Edited by StarSlayer40, 23 June 2012 - 06:49 AM.

[Blizzard36]

Harabec Weathers, on 22 June 2012 - 06:27 PM, said:

Oh Stackpole you annoying, mediocre writer, look what you've done to battletech in the name of "Cool".

Actually, if you'll recall from reading his books, reactors still didn't go critical very often. He never described a scenario like MechAssault where every dead 'mech ever blew up, they only blew up when the reactor lost containment in certain situations. Usually when catastrophically damaged or because safety shutdowns had been overridden. You just see it in trailers and intro movies a lot because it's dramatic.

"Go critical for every death" is a much different scenario than what Stackpole described in his many books or even what the OP polled on. I was all set to vote no until I reread the question.

Also, before bashing Stackpole you may want to remember that he was the prime writer for all of FASA's time owning the brand. He IS the canon for the world setting, there was only one novel writen before his taking over and it was a blatant rip off of "The Man in the Iron Mask." (Where the security code to start up the 'mech was introduced as the means to reveal the imposter.) The only other early writer that could be said to have a similar canon power for thier work was William Kieth, who then wrote about a specifically non-standard unit - the Grey Death Legion.

Edited by Blizzard36, 22 June 2012 - 07:26 PM.

[Baccus Membi]

I would hardly rate X gigajoules of energy from a beam weapon penetrating an active nuclear reaction a 'tickle' but I agree with the posters that have expressed disbelief at the physics behind a nuclear explosion. Please rememberr that many mechs carry alot of ammo - the amount of heat an unshielded and uncooled reaction can put off could potentially set them off simultaneously - that amount of explosive could certainly collapse a building and do significant damage in a block-sized radius...

[Blizzard36]

Baccus Membi, on 22 June 2012 - 07:16 PM, said:

i don't believe that the lore indicates what kind of fusion the reactors use - it could be a heavier material since it is fiction than hydrogen...

Water, they burn water. (You can get enegry from separating hte molecule, and then from burning both the elements it is made out of.) It's one of many reasons that the ice trade is so important.

[Heldar1]

I do not wish to participate in this conversation at all, simply because I know too little about fission or fusion to be of any help. However, I did see two check boxes that were unchecked, and a button that says "vote". So I took the liberty of checking them both and hitting said button. Have a nice day.

[ThunderHorse]

As I say to all of these sorts of threads, keep it canon. In the novels it seemed that whenever a fusion reactor's shielding was breached with enough force or quickness the chance of a reactor meltdown was increased. There's a simple way of determining that in-game. Exceed the damage needed to core the engine by x amount and you get "boom," for example. Or the devs could make it a fairly random occurrence, modified by certain values such as how much strain is being placed on the engine at the time of death, hoe much damage it took at the time of death, etc.

In the novels all mech deaths did not occur in the same fashion.

[Datum]

No. It's gratuitous. First thing that would happen would be any ammo would explode, swiftly disassembling the mech in a particularly non-nuclear fashion. Why does everyone expect a reactor to cause a nuclear explosion? Nukes are pretty hard to set off, as in "it took years of research and the brightest minds this side of the planet to get to work" hard. Expecting a nuclear reactor to detonate as soon as it's breached is like expecting your flashlight to turn into a Taser because you've thrown the batteries at the ground a couple of times.

[Hexenhammer]

Coring a mech just ain't right man.

[Freyar]

There really isn't going to be any winning with this argument based on physics here.

[BenEEeees VAT GROWN BACON]

OP, this poll doesn't work if you can vote both "yes" and "no".



Also, I voted No. This has been discussed many times before, Mechs shouldn't go nuclear because the mechanisms behind fusion doesn't allow it to. A huge explosion might occur but it won't but a nuclear one.

[CaveMan]

It won't let me vote "No" more than once.

Nuclear reactors are NOT nuclear bombs, in the same way that a car is not a Saturn V rocket. Different technology, different principles, ne'er the twain shall meet. Can't happen.

It's not just dumb, it's deliberately appealing to drooling idiots who only want more 'splosions and don't care why. Go watch a Michael Bay movie if you want pointless explosions.

[trycksh0t]

As has been stated, many many times, but still seems to need reiteration is: Fusion reactors do not "melt down" and explode. Heck, a nucler fission reactor doesn't cause a thermonuclear detonation (read: nuclear weapon) like explosion when it fails.

Does a fission reactor make a big boom when things get screwy? Yes, because it continues to function for up to several days after being shut down, uncontrolled, causing a massive release of energy.

Does a cold-fusion reactor do the same thing? No. Because cold-fusion relies on extreme pressure and a precisely controlled environment to function, as soon as there is an interruption of the containment or fuel supply, it stops. No extra energy is created, it simply stops functioning almost instantly. There is no energy to release in a big explosion. (I'm using cold-fusion because, I suspect, 'Mechs wouldn't be able to handle the roughly 8 million kelvin necessary for hot-fusion of hydrogen.)

Edited by trycksh0t, 22 June 2012 - 08:05 PM.