Nuclear Reaction Weapons

Nuclear reaction weapons are the most powerful weapons that can be mounted on a variable fighter, as is also the case with most classes of small warships. Like conventional nuclear weapons of the 20th century, these weapons are powered by nuclear chain reactions in supercritical masses to release huge amounts of energy converted directly from mass. Unlike conventional atomic weapons, reaction weapons are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain. Though in some cases not quite as powerful as a standard atomic device, reaction weapons are far more useful in space due to the larger radius of the initial fireball. This difference is moot in an atmosphere, where most of the damage is caused by the powerful shockwaves produced by these weapons in either case.

Reaction missiles can be deployed by a variety of delivery systems, ranging from traditional unguided free-fall bombs (UFBs), guided tactical weapons (GTBs), medium-range missiles (MRMs), long-range missiles (LRMs), or the larger anti-warship missiles used by some capital ships. (ASMs)

Reaction weapons do not do as much damage in space as they would in an atmosphere, mainly due to the vacuum of space that limits the damages of the weapon strictly to the energy release of the warhead itself. The effective damage of these weapons does approximately half the damage in space as it normally would on the ground and to a much smaller area (closer to 1/3rd in the case of the larger weapons), unless of course the warhead is detonated INSIDE of a target vessel, in which case full damages would occur as indicated above. At the same time, without atmospheric drag to take into account, the maximum speed of these weapons is effectively unlimited.

Below are specifications of common reaction weapons when used in space.