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After having purchased the core rules and ran the Sky Machine, my table is quite underwhelmed or unclear on explosives. Explosives all seem to have extremely low blast power and damage for apparently obstacle destroying tools. In most cases, PCs looking to break down a door are better served using a long sword than a breach charge. That's crazy!

At blast power 9 and damage 3, assuming the placed explosives get a +1 to damage on hit for being "engaged" with the door there is only a 45.74% chance the 1,500 rukh bomb breaches a door. And that assumes the door rolls no sixes on its armor roll.

A breach charge has a similar chance of dealing 5 damage (the given hp of a door in the book) at 42.13% without any success on the armor roll.

A shaped charge (what is this even supposed to represent?) has a <.5% chance of breaking down the same door assuming no armor roll successes.

Blast power rolls cannot be pushed.

This simply does not make any sense to my table. What are these explosives for if not breaching obstacles? It is especially incongruitous with the crew maneuver that allows players to breach an obstacle automatically with a single demolition charge (This is not an item in the book? What is that supposed to be?), but only in combat! Thus, a group outside of combat with the biggest explosive charges have a harder time of breaching an obstacle than a group in combat.

What have we missed with regards to explosives? It seems to us you could duct tape a shaped charge to a person's chest and expect them to survive with how pitiful their damage output is.

An explosion can be in a zone with blocked borders which is when a charge explodes in a specific direction, most often means a shaped charge (at a door for example) but could be other explosives sometimes if the explosion is blocked (i.e. in a room, a corridor, etc.). Against more heavy duty targets you man need more than one charge.

As far as I can tell, that only applies to attacks with explosive weapons. I'm referring to placed explosives. Placed explosives have a blast power roll rather than a ranged attack roll.

As far as I can tell, that only applies to attacks with explosive weapons. I'm referring to placed explosives. Placed explosives have a blast power roll rather than a ranged attack roll.

I agree with you that they probably need to explain a bit here, for example what a shaped charge is. A shaped charge is a charge that explodes in one direction, similar to a ranged attack with a grenade. This was the reason I assumed that it would get the bonus as well. I was wrong, sorry about that (I have played this wrong in my games, so live and learn).

They also need to explain that you can have bigger explosions. In Alien RPG they mention that a placed charge has a damage stat equal to 1/3 (rounded up) of the Blast Power. So this means that you still only roll for one explosion but you increase the damage, so a bomb with 9 BP would have a damage stat of 3 and a bomb with 18 BP would have a damage stat of 6.
In Coriolis you have more types of explosives but the same concept can be used. My take here is that this is missing from the rulebook. Even if not using the Alien RPG rule for bigger bomb you can still use multiple charges if the target is heavy duty you just roll for each explosion at a time.

or for short

• This game doesn't mention how to combine explosives so here you just simply roll for each explosion one at a time.

• In Alien RPG, which uses a similar system when it comes to explosions, you combine the BP of the explosives and increases the damage stat instead.

The two version will have, more or less, the same result.

Another thing to consider here is what does a crit means for objects or even if it will have an effect on objects. My take on this is that, a crit for a shaped charge will have blown the hinges or the lock but the door is more or less intact. This is my personal take on it anyway.

I had interpreted the rules differently so I may be mistaken here. My interpretation is that the placed charge does full damage or destroys whatever it was placed on without needing to make a roll. The placed charges section on page 72 of the core rule book describes rolling the dice for the blast damage to any PCs and NPCs to determine if they are damaged in the blast as well, but it never states that you need to roll for damage for the door itself. I think, beyond exceptional circumstances, it’s reasonable to conclude that a placed explosive or breach charge should just automatically destroy the door. Does that make sense?

I have only glanced over the rules and campaign, but that may be the case actually.

I had interpreted the rules differently so I may be mistaken here. My interpretation is that the placed charge does full damage or destroys whatever it was placed on without needing to make a roll. The placed charges section on page 72 of the core rule book describes rolling the dice for the blast damage to any PCs and NPCs to determine if they are damaged in the blast as well, but it never states that you need to roll for damage for the door itself. I think, beyond exceptional circumstances, it’s reasonable to conclude that a placed explosive or breach charge should just automatically destroy the door. Does that make sense?

I anticipate this is the real answer, but it's definitely one of those things that should be in a core rulebook.

However, I also looked into the Alien system again (which I also own). They are equally as unclear about how explosives work against objects rather than players with the exception of indicating they work against vehicles the same way. The Year Zero Engine SRD also lacks this information. Breach charges in alien have blast 9, damage 1, and get +1 for engaged and +2 for immediate in addition to the armor-piercing ability. On a standard door this makes them roughly analogous to a breach charge in the Great Dark requiring 2 successes on 9 dice for 45.73% chance to blow open the door in one go.

So, I consider maybe you need to use two breach charges on a door? In TGD this becomes a ~66% chance - still very inconsistent for a roll that cannot be pushed. In Alien it's far more consistent at ~96.24% chance of breaching the door with 2 charges.

Ultimately, I'd like to see some clarification from the game designer on how explosives are supposed to work in TGD. Given every crew is expected to have a designated burrower responsible for explosives and digging, it seems a crass oversight to not actually explain how explosives work in the core rulebook. Maybe they intend for explosives to suck so they aren't used often, but I really doubt that given the theme and demo-focused crew maneuvers. It would also be great to find out what exactly a demolition charge is; they're used for the explosive crew maneuvers but do not exist in the book.