In the Core Rulebook, it states that weapons with a Blast rating deal that much damage to anyone engaged with the target. In Shadows of a Black Sun, for the Mini Thermal Detonator, on page 36, it states it's Blast 10 means it deals 10 damage to anyone within SHORT range of the original target.

Has anyone tried using a larger area for Blast weapons? I think it makes much more sense to extend it to short range, because the area for an engaged target is very small. Surely a Thermal Detonator or Missile Tube would deal damage to things further than a few meters away from the impact zone?

Thermal Detonators in the core rulebook also have the exception that they deal their Blast damage to all targets within Short Range, so the Shadows/Under a Black Sun module isn't necessarily unique in that aspect.

A missile tube is more of a precision weapon, in that most of it's power is focused on the point of impact rather than simply creating a huge explosion. The Blast quality is more of a side-effect than it's main purpose.

As for increasing the range of the Blast quality in general... that starts to make it too good, particularly against minions since you can still hit them on a missed attack roll (and for an extra Advantage, you can get the original target as well). Coming from Saga Edition where area effect attacks (such as grenades) were extremely effective, as long as you got above a 10 on your attack roll, you did at least some damage, making it a very effective tactic for PCs with a low BAB or if the NPC had a really high Reflex Defense. As a number of GMs run their Minion Groups as having to be engaged in order to function as a Minion Group in the first place, Blast having a default limit of Engaged works just fine, since the primary use of Blast would be to take out multiple minions in one attack.

In the Core Rulebook, it states that weapons with a Blast rating deal that much damage to anyone engaged with the target. In Shadows of a Black Sun, for the Mini Thermal Detonator, on page 36, it states it's Blast 10 means it deals 10 damage to anyone within SHORT range of the original target.

Has anyone tried using a larger area for Blast weapons? I think it makes much more sense to extend it to short range, because the area for an engaged target is very small. Surely a Thermal Detonator or Missile Tube would deal damage to things further than a few meters away from the impact zone?

I know that is wrong after rereadng it I guess my old shadowrun mechanic just clouded my mind. The blast rating meant the radius in my mind lol opps

As a number of GMs run their Minion Groups as having to be engaged in order to function as a Minion Group in the first place, Blast having a default limit of Engaged works just fine, since the primary use of Blast would be to take out multiple minions in one attack.

For those not paying attention, what he mentions is one way GMs run minion groups, but the rules do not require minion groups to be in such tight formation. Minion groups of trained combatants that are familiar with Blast weapons are very likely to spread out to avoid such a fate.

Oh I didn't notice the difference in the Thermal Detonator. Thanks for that clarification.

As a number of GMs run their Minion Groups as having to be engaged in order to function as a Minion Group in the first place, Blast having a default limit of Engaged works just fine, since the primary use of Blast would be to take out multiple minions in one attack.

For those not paying attention, what he mentions is one way GMs run minion groups, but the rules do not require minion groups to be in such tight formation. Minion groups of trained combatants that are familiar with Blast weapons are very likely to spread out to avoid such a fate.

As a point of interest, while I was at GenCon and passing through the FFG room as well as playing in a couple scenarios, the GMs that did use maps (not many) appeared to be running minion groups has either engaged to start with or having to be engaged with other minions in order to count as a group. The one that sticks out to me is the session that I played under Sterling Hershey, though we pretty much went almost entirely off the rails on that one.

You're right, there's nothing in the rules that says that has to be the case, but it seems that's the inclination by at least one of the core design team. Perhaps something to ask the designers if you want the official ruling.