I'm reading through the rules for weapons and came across blast. I'm a bit confused on how you activate the blast quality as it doesn't seem to say how you do this.

I believe it is 2 Adv. At the beginning of the descriptions for weapon qualities, it says that if the Advantage cost is not listed, then the required number of Advantages is 2. The 3 Advantage bit is if your attack missed

Correct, Active qualities require 2 advantage to activate unless otherwise stated in the weapon description. Blast can also allow a "miss" cased by insufficient success to still cause damage to the intended target with 3 Advantage.

I'm pretty confused with the Blast quality relative to space combat.

This is what I'm confused about: How does blast work for space combat, and how does blast work for space craft firing ordinance with blast quality on personal scale characters.

For ship to ship combat, can ordinance trigger blast quality to inflict additional damage on a ship?
Example: Proton Torpedo (Range Short, Dam 8, Crit 2, Blast 6, Breach 6, Guided 2, Limited Ammo 3, Slow-Firing 1)
Roll: 1 Hit, 2 Advantage
Base Damage: 8
Effect: Spend 2 Advantage to inflict additional (Blast) 6 damage on the targeted ship
Would anyone agree with this effect?

The rulebooks seem to only describe the Blast quality effect from a personal, character to character perspective (i.e. inflict blast damage on engaged targets). But, this doesn't directly translate to space battle, in my opinion, because:

-Any damage inside a ship (i.e. activating a "blast") would seemingly do damage to the ship itself
-Even if the missile hit an area of the ship with crew members and takes effect on those engaged characters, you would think that the area around them (i.e. the integrity of the ship and its components) would also take damage (I guess you could say the base damage is the ship damage, and any blast damage is only character damage, but that wouldn't make much sense either because you would think character damage would be implied with the direct hit and not require a special effect to trigger)

Finally, if we only apply the effect when a ship hits an area with personal scale characters, would you apply the Blast damage of 6 (using the proton torpedo example), or a Blast damage of 6x10 (proton torpedo blast damage translated from Planetary to Personal scale)?

I wish FF would have translated the blast effect (Personal) to a special effect for space combat (Planetary) in a similar way to the Pierce-to-Breach translation.

As with most "firing vehicle weapons at personal-scale characters", it works best if you just hand-wave it in some way.

I'm pretty confused with the Blast quality relative to space combat.

This is what I'm confused about: How does blast work for space combat, and how does blast work for space craft firing ordinance with blast quality on personal scale characters.

For ship to ship combat, can ordinance trigger blast quality to inflict additional damage on a ship?

Example: Proton Torpedo (Range Short, Dam 8, Crit 2, Blast 6, Breach 6, Guided 2, Limited Ammo 3, Slow-Firing 1)

Roll: 1 Hit, 2 Advantage

Base Damage: 8

Effect: Spend 2 Advantage to inflict additional (Blast) 6 damage on the targeted ship

Would anyone agree with this effect?

Nope... for the same reason you can't double up on grenade damage in personal scale.

The deal of weapons like torpedoes and missiles in planetary scale combat is long range (short where most weapons are close) and all those other passive qualities like breach and a low crit requirement. Guided is a nice bonus too I suppose...

The thing you are missing is close air support and the size of the Engaged range. People seem to assume that because engaged is the range band needed for melee it's really really small. Like a few feet across. But, since it's also the blast of a missile, it can actually be pretty big.

Firing at something like a flight of starfighters won't (usually) involve blast because for simple safety reasons they won't be closer then the "close" range band.

On the other hand, ground combat, even involving vehicles, CAN be run at the personal range scales. That's where Blast on these weapons comes into play. While you can certainly bomb the snot out of a squad of dismounted troopers, you can also blast ground vehicles that are close enough together. So for example, imagine three repulsor tanks cruising down a road in a neat little line. Hit the one in the middle, and the GM would be well within the realm of believability to say you can blast the other two.

Nope... for the same reason you can't double up on grenade damage in personal scale.

The deal of weapons like torpedoes and missiles in planetary scale combat is long range (short where most weapons are close) and all those other passive qualities like breach and a low crit requirement. Guided is a nice bonus too I suppose...

The thing you are missing is close air support and the size of the Engaged range. People seem to assume that because engaged is the range band needed for melee it's really really small. Like a few feet across. But, since it's also the blast of a missile, it can actually be pretty big.

Firing at something like a flight of starfighters won't (usually) involve blast because for simple safety reasons they won't be closer then the "close" range band.

On the other hand, ground combat, even involving vehicles, CAN be run at the personal range scales. That's where Blast on these weapons comes into play. While you can certainly bomb the snot out of a squad of dismounted troopers, you can also blast ground vehicles that are close enough together. So for example, imagine three repulsor tanks cruising down a road in a neat little line. Hit the one in the middle, and the GM would be well within the realm of believability to say you can blast the other two.

Ah, I see. This is a good illustration. And you're right on the double grenade damage—I failed to consider that. Okay. Thank y'all.

I Don't See Any Reason Why Not. This Falls Under Rule Of Awesome. Imagine The Look On You Players FaceS As They Take Out A Squad Of TieS. They'd Be Talking About It For Hours! That Said I Wouldn't Make It TOo easy. The Advantages To Activate The Blast, Then A Triumph Or Two To Expand The Blast.

A related question: If you fire a vehicle based blast weapon, such as a proton torpedo, at a vehicle and you miss, can you activate the blast quality for three advantage and still inflict the blast damage on the target?

I Would Allow It, But I Would Require A triumph To Get TheTorpedo Close Enough, AnD Then Just Apply The Damage Of The Blast, Not The Weapon Or AnY Other Attachments Or Extras.But Due To The Scale Of Ship CombaT, And That They MisseD, I Wouldn't Let An Advantage OR Two Cover It.

What is with all the CAPS? It is really distracting...

On Phone. It Caps Automatically.

That must be a setting you can switch off right?

It is hard to read what you wrote without thinking of a 12 year old on facebook while you have such interesting posts.

I Really Do Wish Could Just Turn Off A Setting, But It Only Does It On This Site. I Can't Even Use Swipe Here To Text.

And Thanks For The Compliment. I Really Do Like It here

A related question: If you fire a vehicle based blast weapon, such as a proton torpedo, at a vehicle and you miss, can you activate the blast quality for three advantage and still inflict the blast damage on the target?

Yes. Weapon qualities (such as Linked and Blast) are activated in the same manner for starship/vehicle weapons as personal-scale weapons. Missiles with the Blast quality have proximity fuzes (a real thing) that allow them to detonate near the target without a direct hit.

While you could activate Blast, you're probably better off activating Guided and having another go at getting a full-on hit.

While you could activate Blast, you're probably better off activating Guided and having another go at getting a full-on hit.

Probably. The odds are that with the 3 Ability Dice of the Concussion Missile's Guided 3 vs. an Easy Check (Missile Sil 0 vs. target's Sil) ( anydice ), you'll get 3-4 more damage over the Blast 4 quality.

That's why our ship has an ECM with the mod to increase the difficulty of a Guided attack, and my Astomech Slicer/Mechanic (Intellect 5/Computers 3) is on hand to spoof those missiles and upgrade the difficulty dice with an Average Computers check.