"Passive" Self Destruct

posted on June 30th, 2011, 1:19 pm

I had an idea that a ship could auto-destruct once it's been captured.  It would fire a trigger "weapon" at itself that gives it a passive self-destruct.  The only problem is, I'm not sure if the self-destruct can be passive.  Can it be passive if the button slot is set to 0?

posted on June 30th, 2011, 1:22 pm

It won't work like that, but I realy like the idea.  It would make a great weapon against the borg taking all your smaller ships.    Give certain ships with the passive like a 30% chance of autodestructing once captured by other races.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 1:42 pm

That's the general idea of the weapon.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 2:03 pm

Or having it so mining ships explode, since they are carrying heavy material. The shockwave spreading out would do damage to anything close enough to it.

Borg miners would explode with increased damage to surrounding ships due to the borgs higher amounts of material on board the mining vessel.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 3:11 pm

even stronger borg miners?

and should all the stuff on board not more stop the explosion from expanding?

posted on June 30th, 2011, 4:21 pm

you can make ability to use self destruct if your ships cruw is in red zone , to prevent unnesesery loss of ships   

posted on June 30th, 2011, 4:58 pm

It would be better as an active weapon like in stock, so that it only goes off if you're fast enough. The crew wouldn't always have a chance to set it, or be able to if weapons are down.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 5:03 pm

It would be better as an active weapon like in stock, so that it only goes off if you're fast enough. The crew wouldn't always have a chance to set it, or be able to if weapons are down.

the only way i could see that working is if pushing the self destruct button caused a timer, which would be cancelled by capture. so you would have to push it really early. but then it would need to be cancellable by the original owner, in which case you would just trigger anyway and cancel if you didnt get captured. which would be too easy.

i dont like the idea of self destructs in general as it gets rid of capturing almost completely.

weapons fire couldnt disable all ability to blow the ship either. granted the computers responsible for setting the auto destruct could be knocked out, but a captain could order someone to turn off warp core containment, or phaser the warp core etc.

i just guess we have to ignore some realism and have it so that ships can be captured the way they are.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 5:18 pm

You could always have self destruct available on some very rare or special ships as well, preserving uniqueness and the 'fun' of self-destruct

[Tyler]

posted on June 30th, 2011, 5:24 pm

Last edited by Tyler on June 30th, 2011, 5:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Like battleships, support or mixed-tech ships? Probably would keep it unique, though personally I don't like it as a rare ability.

the only way i could see that working is if pushing the self destruct button caused a timer, which would be cancelled by capture. so you would have to push it really early. but then it would need to be cancellable by the original owner, in which case you would just trigger anyway and cancel if you didnt get captured. which would be too easy.

That's how stock did it, as a timed bomb that could be cancelled. FO could probably make it so it isn't possible to cancel past a certain time, though. Being tied to the weapons also worked well, considering they're what seems to be damaged most for me in FO.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 5:30 pm

surely the bor when assimilating would cancel self destruct there not that dumb (only reason they never in first contact was due to datas encryption)

posted on June 30th, 2011, 11:20 pm

What if the ship is programmed to self-destruct when assimilated?  The Borg would have a hard time disabling that.  Especially if it's on a separate system and won't accept any commands or reprogramming.

posted on June 30th, 2011, 11:30 pm

and how often has that been seen feds cnt even stop there latest tech ships from being captured by romulans never alone by the borg

posted on July 1st, 2011, 2:12 am

surely the bor when assimilating would cancel self destruct there not that dumb (only reason they never in first contact was due to datas encryption)

But its possible that they were not able to in time.  Look at the Ent E.  The only way the borg could cancel its self destruct was by forcing data to give the code up. I supose humans would be easier to get codes from, but its possible that the only ones who had the code died and therefore the borg couldn't deactivate the self destruct.

Make it a small number like 1% for small ships, and 30% for larger ones.

posted on July 1st, 2011, 2:15 am

I think it would be a great passive for special ships...definitely not on everything...  And no need for the extra rules..just a 50% chance etc.