I know Stellaris is meant to be abstracted in a way (i.e. pops aren't supposed to represent a specific number of people) and I know that all video games will begin to break down if you overanalyze them in that manner, but just for kicks I thought I'd be fun or interesting to at least go through the process of finding some things out even if there isn't a right answer anyway and even if there was it'd be irrelevant to gameplay.
Anyway, the first question I sought to answer is "What is the yield of the 'nuclear missiles' that ships can fire at each other?" This has always intrigued me since nuclear weapons are considered the lowest tier of weaponry. Obviously, these can't be the "wipes a whole city off the map" nukes that you'd normally think of when you hear the world, because tiny corvettes launching salvo after salvo of city-destroying warheads at each other makes no sense.
Therefore, I decided that these must be small scale, tactical yield nuclear weapons. That is to say, they destroy a city block, not a city. I looked up to see what the smallest yield warhead in history was and it turned out to be the W54 with a yield roughly equivalent to 10 tons of TNT. Considering its small size and weight (it could be carried by a single person) it'd be the ideal weapon for early spaceships such as corvettes, considering the need to pack as much destructive force into such a small platform as possible.
In addition, we can also say what a "point" of damage is. A small nuclear missile (which I assume to be a W54-like weapon) inflicts an average of 10 points of damage per hit, and considering the 10 ton yield we can then say that a "point" of damage is the damage inflicted by 1 ton of TNT, or alternately that 1 hitpoint is enough size and structural integrity to withstand the detonation of 1 ton of TNT.
EDIT: Granted, the idea of using TNT as hitpoints is a shaky idea, but that's really par for the course with video games. In real life durability is far more complex than hitpoints could ever represent (i.e. getting hit with a 100-ton blast is not the same as receiving a 1-ton blast 100 times), but hitpoints are hitpoints and that's what we have to work with.
Anyway, the first question I sought to answer is "What is the yield of the 'nuclear missiles' that ships can fire at each other?" This has always intrigued me since nuclear weapons are considered the lowest tier of weaponry. Obviously, these can't be the "wipes a whole city off the map" nukes that you'd normally think of when you hear the world, because tiny corvettes launching salvo after salvo of city-destroying warheads at each other makes no sense.
Therefore, I decided that these must be small scale, tactical yield nuclear weapons. That is to say, they destroy a city block, not a city. I looked up to see what the smallest yield warhead in history was and it turned out to be the W54 with a yield roughly equivalent to 10 tons of TNT. Considering its small size and weight (it could be carried by a single person) it'd be the ideal weapon for early spaceships such as corvettes, considering the need to pack as much destructive force into such a small platform as possible.
In addition, we can also say what a "point" of damage is. A small nuclear missile (which I assume to be a W54-like weapon) inflicts an average of 10 points of damage per hit, and considering the 10 ton yield we can then say that a "point" of damage is the damage inflicted by 1 ton of TNT, or alternately that 1 hitpoint is enough size and structural integrity to withstand the detonation of 1 ton of TNT.
EDIT: Granted, the idea of using TNT as hitpoints is a shaky idea, but that's really par for the course with video games. In real life durability is far more complex than hitpoints could ever represent (i.e. getting hit with a 100-ton blast is not the same as receiving a 1-ton blast 100 times), but hitpoints are hitpoints and that's what we have to work with.
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