Lore nerds: can a Sword frigate destroy a planet?

[pyremind]

Spoiler-ish: There's a point in the story where I have an option to destroy a planet. Since I believe the Sword is a fairly small ship relative to others in the fleet, does it really have the ability to wipe out a planet?

[DOOM THE PRIME EVIL]

yes if it hits something that powers a whole plaint

[Werdna]

With enough bio-weapon rounds. Tho it takes several hours or even days for 1 ship to do.
Basically ship shoots certain shells that start spreading a specific gas. After gas spreads wide enough another shot incinerates entire planet with domino-like effect.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by DOOM THE PRIME EVIL:

yes if it hits something that powers a whole plaint

Ignoring the unique method provided in game.

The most common method of executing Exterminatus is with a Cyclonic Torpedo. While I don't know details like the size of said munition or what ships are usually tasked with delivering it, I highly doubt that ANY imperial ship would be fully incapable of deploying such a weapon.

Originally posted by Inquisitor:

With enough bio-weapon rounds. Tho it takes several hours or even days for 1 ship to do.
Basically ship shoots certain shells that start spreading a specific gas. After gas spreads wide enough another shot incinerates entire planet with domino-like effect.

From what I can find, a single Virus Bomb can eliminate all life on the surface of a planet in minutes. That would be the other popular method of doing it.

[Khryst]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Originally posted by DOOM THE PRIME EVIL:

yes if it hits something that powers a whole plaint

Ignoring the unique method provided in game.

The most common method of executing Exterminatus is with a Cyclonic Torpedo. While I don't know details like the size of said munition or what ships are usually tasked with delivering it, I highly doubt that ANY imperial ship would be fully incapable of deploying such a weapon.

"A wide variety of weapons fit the definition of cyclonic torpedoes, and employ varying means of scouring the world's surface, from nucleonic fire to raw plasma"

from the Tactica Imperialis

basically anything "big enough" to cause massive damage and kill all life on a planet.

Edit: with that said, it's not a "one shot" typically either as it takes hours/days/weeks sometimes to execute Exterminatus depending on the ships involved.

[Sagranda]

Theoretically, every ship with macro cannons a planet. It just takes way longer.

With exterminatus weapons: Every ship that has torpedo tubes can deploy those. But as far as I remember, the Sworrd Class Frigate doesn't come with tubes. Ingame we can modify it that way, but it isn't the standard.

Space Marine Battlebarges and certain Imperial Navy Battleships do carry exterminatus weapons as standard. Outside of it they are usually only given to those ships who are on a "exterminatus mission".
Contrary to the popular meme, an exterminatus isn't as common as one might think after all.

[corisai]

And our ship is not a Sword-class frigate. Sword-class frigate have only 2 slots for weak weapons. Our ships armament (5 slots) is very close to full-sized cruiser (plus we're able to use gear limited only to grand cruisers and battleships).

Look on it as a von Valancious quirk to call that jewel of archeotech as "frigate" :)

[Balekai]

Originally posted by corisai:

And our ship is not a Sword-class frigate. Sword-class frigate have only 2 slots for weak weapons. Our ships armament (5 slots) is very close to full-sized cruiser (plus we're able to use gear limited only to grand cruisers and battleships).

Look on it as a von Valancious quirk to call that jewel of archeotech as "frigate" :)

What always comes to mind for me is Mass Effect. Our flagship in this game is as much of a "Frigate" as the Normandy was in that game. (Or like in Star Trek Discovery and what the Discovery ended up becoming after a few retrofits over the course of say a one thousand year time span. Time travelling and meta physics has its perks!) :p :P

"Yeah the Normandy it's just a frigate. Wait what was that? I didn't hear you. Yeah sure it's full stealth cloaking, super next gen tech, can now one shot most anything, takes on small fleets even a Reaper or two, and has a super cool AI, but it's still technically just a frigate!"

[Aluvard]

Originally posted by corisai:

And our ship is not a Sword-class frigate. Sword-class frigate have only 2 slots for weak weapons. Our ships armament (5 slots) is very close to full-sized cruiser (plus we're able to use gear limited only to grand cruisers and battleships).

Look on it as a von Valancious quirk to call that jewel of archeotech as "frigate" :)

Cruiser, or some version of star galleon considering how atypical it is.

[Atzel]

Depends on the planet and depends on your definition of "destroy". Any ship with torpedo tubes, such as our modified Sword-class, could launch cyclonic torpedos. Cyclonic torpedoes however don't destroy planets in earth shattering "deathstar laser" kabooms, they cause a chain reaction that causes free oxygen in the atmosphere to catch fire.
The deprivation of oxygen isn't the killer though, but as the name suggests, it causes a firestorm that ravages the planet. Supersonic winds and temperatures high enough to melt rock will not only destroy the biosphere but make it geographically unrecognizable.

But yeah, a scorched and often barren rock still remains after wards. And it's uesless against planets that doesn't have an oxygen rich atmosphere

[Dryden]

There are many ways to destroy life on a planet. Virus bombs, cyclonic torpedos, bombardment with an entire fleet and obviously fusion cannons the length of an Ironclad.

An exterminatus isn’t to destroy a planet, but to render it lifeless. As for whether a frigate could do it. It depends on if they have the necessary bombs/torpedos (which we obviously don’t) and are able to launch them.

With the weapons that we can equip our ship with in game, the answer is no. It’s not even clear how the reactor was blown up considering that it would likely have had void shielding intended to prevent bombardment.

[Mack]

Originally posted by corisai:

And our ship is not a Sword-class frigate. Sword-class frigate have only 2 slots for weak weapons. Our ships armament (5 slots) is very close to full-sized cruiser (plus we're able to use gear limited only to grand cruisers and battleships).

Look on it as a von Valancious quirk to call that jewel of archeotech as "frigate" :)

I'm surprised they didn't just make it a Dauntless Light Cruiser. With added torpedo tubes and a dorsal gun it makes more sense than a Sword frigate.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Dryden:

It’s not even clear how the reactor was blown up considering that it would likely have had void shielding intended to prevent bombardment.

Cult leader already prepared it for explosion after assaulting the shrine. Mechanicus don't have enough time (and bodies) to fix secondary systems (like orbital defenses) in time.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Mack:

I'm surprised they didn't just make it a Dauntless Light Cruiser. With added torpedo tubes and a dorsal gun it makes more sense than a Sword frigate.

I would say - it's a full Lunar-class cruiser, but refited for more cargo holds and turrets instead of big broadsides (so -1 slot of broadsides, +1 prow & dorsal - same amount of slots in result). After all we're Rogue Traders and not some kind of crazy zealots constantly fighting wars).

[Lycaniz]

its a sword class, you get told that, goodluck going through the paperwork to get it adjusted if you are not happy