Ships. Insulated against lightning bolts??

[garhkal]

Is the inside of a ship sufficiently insulated that if it DID get hit by a lightning bolt, those inside would only have to worry about the circuits/engines being fried, or would they also have to worry about arcing lightning.???

Also, would you say a lightning bolt is regular damage or Ion?
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[Kehlin Yew]

I actually couldn't say wether or not it is insulated, but the insides of ships are insulated against so many other things, why not lightning? those ships travel faster than the speed of light, why could they not be shielded against lightnin?

and i would have to say it would be both Regular and Ionic damage.

[Hellcat]

It's been some time since I read it last, but if I remember the final battle scene in Wedge's Gamble, the Rogues flying in the scene were rather nervous about flying through a thunder storm with all that lightning going off all around them. And I think that one or two TIEs may have been struck and destroyed by lightning. If I'm remembering right, then maybe starfighters might not be insulated, but freights and cap ships probably are. Although lightning guns can be added to starships and they do do damage to other ships.
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[netjedi]

I do not see why they would not be protected. Our airplanes now a days have some form of protection from lightning.

I would group lightning as energy damage like a laser or blaster bolt.
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[Volar the Healer]

[jmanski]

The ship can take damage from the lightning, but those inside should remain safe. Take an airplane or car. Lightning can damage the vehicle, but the metal exterior conducts the lightning away from those inside.
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[Kehlin Yew]

The reason i say both Ionic and Phys damage= Ionic damage because, what happens to a car when it gets struck? everything is dead, same affect as Ion weapons, no?
Physical because, it would leave burn marks, and melt metal, even the power we use everyday in our houses can melt a pair of plyers. (watched a guy wiring a breaker box, and hit the players in the wrong spots. melted one whole side of the plyers OFF, O. F. F., off.

[netjedi]

[Phalanks Balas]

Lightning bolt is an large amount of electricity flowing though ionnized air.
I consider it as both laser and ion weapon.

I propose :

Lightning bolt
scale : speeder
damage : 4D to 6D (laser) and 2D to 4D (ion)
capsule : Lightning bolt can be deflected by shields. if the target have shields up, roll first laser dmg. If the target is damaged then roll ion damage.
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[Kehlin Yew]

Ahh good point Netjedi, i think i mentioned that somewhere about the radiation and head and whatnot... then completely forgot about it... I believe your correct. my appologies

[garhkal]

That damage rating seems lowl. Especially going by what they had in the fall of coruscant. Several shyhooks went down to the lightning storm the rogues brewed up....
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[Kehlin Yew]

what damage were they using?

[Orgaloth]

Actually when a car is struck by lightning, it continues to run. It'll only cop some damage if there is, say a nail in the tire, grounding the vehicle. I have seen a car struck by lightning and continue to drive, and under experimental conditions, a car was struck 12 times with no damage. In fact, the driver rarely knows that the car has been hit.
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[Kehlin Yew]

when i worked with my stepdad, we would get cars in that had been struck by lightning

the bushings to the frame wear out- grounding the body to the frame, and then when its struck it will melt the rubber off of the tires.
so i have seen the result first hand

[entropy]

Having some experience with this, I'll throw some information out there. You can draw your own conclusions.

There are two (or perhaps 3) types of lightning strikes to deal with here. Cloud to ground are fairly rare, but generally more powerful. I would expect a starship on the ground could sustain damage from one, particularly the landing struts or any open hatches. A starship on open ground is both large and a good conducter, and therefore a good target should an electrical storm occur (and the GM needs a good plot device).

Cloud to cloud are the most common, but significantly lower power. I've been in a commercial aircraft near to or struck by this type and, other than the brief glow outside, you wouldn't even notice it as a passenger. Smaller planes usually (95% of those I have seen) have static discharge tubes to reduce the charge you build up, and therefore your susceptibility to these.

The reason I said perhaps 3, is there is another phenomenon that I have witnessed once while a group of us were out in small planes. One of the aircraft in our group, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, did not have discharge tubes, and while passing through a cloud his electronics went weird briefly, and his gyro compass was knocked off by 100 degrees. He didn't know anything was wrong until he realized he had no clue where he was ~15 minutes later and tried to get us on the radio.

No one saw or heard anything, and we were fairly close to one another, so I don't really know what to make of this. Perhaps lightning arced within the gloud, or perhaps it went from the plane back to the cloud as he was exiting it? In any case, I would say this did ionization damage.