Micro-Antimatter Warhead

Micro-Antimatter Warheads (TL10)

These warheads contain small amount of antimatter in a shielded magnetic or force field "bottle." When the warhead is detonated, it reacts with ordinary matter and is annihilated, converting 100% of its own mass, and the same mass of ordinary matter, to energy. This inflicts burning damage with the explosion and surge damage modifiers, plus linked toxic radiation damage.

Unlike mininukes, antimatter warheads are not dial-a-yield weapons. They create an intermediate explosion greater than conventional munitions but smaller than a nuke, with a high gamma radiation output but no significant nuclear fallout. The minimum size of the microantimatter warhead depends on TL: 100mm at TL10, 40mm at TL11, and 10mm at TL12...at which point large-caliber TL12 pistols and rifles can fire antimatter bullets.

There are three typical sizes of antimatter warhead: 0.1 micrograms, 1 microgram, and 10 micrograms:

Micro-Antimatter Warhead Table

Warhead	Damage
0.1 micrograms	6d×4 burn ex sur*
linked	6d × 10,000 tox rad†
1 microgram	6d×12 burn ex sur*
linked	6d × 100,000 tox rad†
10 micrograms	6d×40 burn ex sur*
linked	6d × 1,000,000 tox rad†

* Divided by distance from the blast center, rather than by 3 × distance. † Divided by square of the distance.

The cost is 10 times that of a normal round, plus the cost of the antimatter. LC0.