A situation came up in a game I was playing the other night where a powerful Nemesis confronted the party and people started to throw Thermal Detonators, because with Damage 20 Breach 1 they are one of the hardest hitting weapons in the game. The issue that I started having with that whole scene was that Thermal Detonators were being thrown at an enemy that was in short or even engaged range with other player characters, and people insisted that as long as they don't trigger Blast there was no danger to anyone else but the enemy.
This just rubbed me all kinds of wrong, but the rules seem to agree, Blast does hit Friends as well as Foes, but it has to be triggered for the weapon to actually have an explosive effect. There is mention of the GM being allowed to declare that Blast hits everyone, but it specifically refers to enclosed spaces, and the GM in that game didn't think it was appropriate to invoke that rule.
What's more annoying is that if you actually play a Demolitionist or Saboteur you get a talent called Selective Blast that allows you to exclude friendly targets from detonations, so the game recognizes the value of being able to use explosive weapons inside of a group of friendlies, but it doesn't seem to acknowledge that some explosive weapons are so powerful that using them on a single powerful target that is surrounded by friendlies might easily end up being your best attack if you simply don't trigger blast.
Is there something I'm overlooking here? If I was GMing I'd say Thermal Detonators explode whether or not you trigger blast, triggering blast merely establishes whether you hit more than one enemy, but that is bending the rules as written. It really bothers me to think that in the Scene where Leia threatens Jabba with a Thermal Detonator there was actually no danger to anyone but Jabba himself as long as she doesn't trigger Blast.