Q-Bomb should destroy stations.

[nijineko]

where does the station go, if sent off at great speed? does it ever come to a stop? will the game remember where it is for next time you enter the system? what if it bounced off the planet or sun? would it bounce?

[Captain Hesperus]

Usually, the station is propelled away from the planet at speeds that tend to exceed even the fastest OXP ships when Torus-driving (trust me, I tried to chase one in one of Charlie's Benulobiweed Inc. Swifts). As to whether the station would 'bounce' if they hit suns, I think it is most likely that it would be destroyed, since stations have no additional 'shielding' (like those used by SLAPUs and CZGFs in Dr, Nil's excellent Commies.oxp) and would be affected by the sun's energy.

Captain Hesperus

[Commander McLane]

...and as stated before the game does not remember its position. Next time it would be there as if nothing had happened.

[Killer Wolf]

But what I think would be more fun... imagine if the blast wave caused massive damage, but did not auto-destroy non-witchdrive ships. Then a means to beating certain missions could be to pilot in a non-witchspace capable ship, and take sufficiently little damage before you could drop a Q bomb so that the blast wouldn't kill you (but if you'd been careless and taken too much damage already, it would). But of course if there were any other non-WS capable ships there, you'd still have to high-tail it out before they recovered enough to hunt you down...

It could even be possible to script a mission where you follow another ship through their wormhole, destroy the target, then have to return back to the drop-point in time or wind up stranded in that system... until you could get close enough to another random ship that was jumping out. (Which might cause a penalty because it would take you longer to get back to the station where the mission was based from.) Or perhaps be carried there and back in a larger ship, like a Behemoth.

I bet there are lots of other clever strategic things you could do with it too...

Alas though, the ships which are not jump-capable are NPC only. The only way to get one is to use the illicit-unlock.oxp, but this adds a hyperdrive to the ship.

Captain Hesperus

hmm. was just wondering if using a Q-bomb should be more penalty intensive, give the WMD potential it has. give that it disrupts witch drives, i was wondering if a good trade-off would be this :
when you trigger the bomb, it's launch unit (or your ship puters) do something mechanical or software-related to disable your witch drive to a point where it will not be affected by the blast. this would allow you to survive the blast but be unable to jump system in an emergency ~ the drive would be repairable on docking as per other damaged equipment.

[Commander McLane]

Basically that would raise the q-bomb's cost, as you would have to pay the repair. So it would become even more cost-inefficient.

Don't know if I like the idea...

[Killer Wolf]

yeah, but mega weapons SHOULD be cost inefficient, i think. the better/more potent a weapon is, the bigger the trade-off should be. either the cost, the availability (say, only tech 12+ or something, make it hard to find) or a tech compliance tradeoff like, say, unable to fire while cloaked etc.

[Wiggy]

when you trigger the bomb, it's launch unit (or your ship puters) do something mechanical or software-related to disable your witch drive to a point where it will not be affected by the blast. this would allow you to survive the blast but be unable to jump system in an emergency ~ the drive would be repairable on docking as per other damaged equipment.

So when you blow up a space station with your Q-bomb, you need to get your ship repaired at the station -- Oh...