I think their should be ship mounted flame throwers

[kevinTOC]

On the topic of burning stuff, all of this has given me an idea:
How about a missil head that create a large fire ball? And by this, I don't mean a large explosion, but a ball of spreading flames that, if hiting in the right place, would spread into the inside of a ship and hurt its crew.
This would allow pirate to take over a ship easily... Too easily perhaps?

I personally dislike the idea of flames in space. Mainly because it is simply too unrealistic. I can't think of any way you could make flames work in an environment without atmosphere. I don't care if the game is sci-fi fantasy, even scifi fantasy must have at least some way of explaining how something works. Whether that's with magic, or whatever. Otherwise, it's just ridiculous. Fantasy or not.

That's just my opinion, though.

 

[BadgerBadger]

Isn't a flame thrower in space just a thruster or cutting touch?!. Taking into the physics of being in a vacuum a flame thrower can not work the same way and in a pressured atmosphere, you need to provide an oxidizer with the fuel and it would disperse too quickly and thinly to do any real damage unless at point blank range.
A workaround could be using a solid fuel/oxide mix like thermite which can burn through steal but without gravity the gases it produces when burning would push it away from other objects (thermite could be used as rocket solid fuel, which takes me back to the point of isn't it just a thruster).

Saying that, if thrusters in game cause damage ingame like in other games that would be good starting point.

Now if to twist your idea a little, if you where to fill the hull of you enemies ship with a fuel/oxide gas mix and then light it, I think that would be a quick way of cleaning out the occupants but being machine and not flesh the damage would have to match the rest of the other internal system damage so might not be much left to salvage from inside the ship systems wise.

 

[MAXD]

I think there should be a close range weapon for ships.

 

[Mr.Silver]

I love how the conversation is turning darker by the post

 

[BadgerBadger]

How about instead of a flame thrower use a magnetron (microwave generator). This would fry any unshielded electronics and if fired into a ship via a window, the ships hull would act as a resonance chamber frying any unshieled inside the ship. So it is basically a directional EMP and something already existing today and most of us have in our kitchens to heat our food.

 

[Quinc]

I favor flamethrowers because 1. Space ship design already includes heat mechanics and the danger of over-heating. Having a weapon that deliberately overheats the enemy somehow would be an interesting option. 2. They have mentioned "corrosive" as an existing damage type, and real life corrosion is like burning but in slow motion, i.e. both are oxidation of the material 3. Hand held flamethrowers already exist.
Admittedly space flame throwers are hardly realistic, even in real life flamethrowers were only good when the enemy occupied a structure and somehow it was too difficult to get inside but easy to carry an 80 pound can of Napalm around to the front door. Though it might be justified by 1. Have the stream of burning fluid traveling at an extremely high speed 2. Thermite or another burning solid 3. Fire itself is made of plasma, so a magnetically confined beam of plasma would have the same affect.

 

[BadgerBadger]

I think Thermite could be fun if you magnetize it (iron oxide can be magnetized) so then it would be attracted other ferromagnetic metals (Exos + ships), can burn through almost anything and almost impossible to extinguish.

 

[five]

How the hell would fire work in a vacuum? You're in space. There is no air. How the hell are you going to get the fuel out, much less light the damn fuel in -200°C and no oxidizer.

There IS an infantry flamethrower so yeah