GTM Harbinger

Weapons in Descent: FreeSpace

Primaries Secondaries Turrets Weapon Comparison Table, FS1

Weapons in FreeSpace 2

Primaries Secondaries Turrets Weapon Comparison Table, FS2

Described as the "best chance of destroying the Lucifer", the GTM-N1 Harbinger is a special-issue warhead used by the GTA during the closing stages of the Great War and the Hades Rebellion. The Harbinger has a tremendous payload that does extreme damage against subsystems, as well as double the damage against hulls compared to the GTM Tsunami. Because of this, the bomb is prohibitively large and has a lower velocity than the Tsunami. The GTB Ursa is the only ship in the GTA that can carry the Harbinger.

Tech Room Data

The GTM-N1 Harbinger Bomb

Fusion bomb surrounded by 3 salted fission bombs - propulsion unit is a half-size version of a regulation GTA fighter thruster (Class II) - given the weight of the payloads, the missile is slow despite the power of the thruster - as the Harbinger is exceptionally large, GTA bombers are limited to carrying 6 of these weapons at any given time - the resultant shock wave from this weapon is potentially deadly, due to the size of the payloads (5000 Mt in total) - use near allied installations or allied ship groupings is strongly discouraged by the GTA - most effective when used in preemptive defensive strike against non-military installations.

The Harbinger is our best chance of destroying the Lucifer.

Performance

Harbinger

Name	Harbinger
Range	1500 m
Reload time	30 s
Velocity	50 ms-1
Damage	3200
Armor damage	3200
Shield damage	32
Subsystem damage	51 200
Homing type	Aspect
Minimum lock time	7 s
Turn rate (360 degress)	1.5 s
Shockwave radius (inner/outer)	100/250 m
Hitpoints	50

Additional properties

• Weapon is a missile weapon (Secondary weapon)
• Weapon is marked as a bomb (Bomb)
• Weapon is capable of easily damaging even larger vessels (Huge)
• Weapon must be locked onto the target in order to be fired (No Dumbfire)
• The shockwave doubles the damage against any target that takes a direct hit

Harbinger#End

Name	Harbinger#End
Range	1800 m
Reload time	10 s
Velocity	90 ms-1
Damage	1600
Armor damage	1600
Shield damage	32
Subsystem damage	64 000
Homing type	Aspect
Minimum lock time	3 s
Turn rate (360 degress)	1.5 s
Shockwave radius (inner/outer)	1/20 m
Hitpoints	50

Additional properties

• Weapon is a missile weapon (Secondary weapon)
• Weapon is marked as a bomb (Bomb)
• Weapon is capable of easily damaging even larger vessels (Huge)
• Weapon must be locked onto the target in order to be fired (No Dumbfire)
• The shockwave doubles the damage against any target that takes a direct hit

Veteran Comments

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The big bomb of FreeSpace 1, the Harbinger can take out anything and everything in the game. Like all space-bombs you need to get in really close, nearly running into your target at maximum speed to ensure the bomb gets where it's going: interceptors and blob turrets are adept at destroying bombs before they reach their targets.

Insanely high subsystem damage value. A single Harbinger should be sufficient to destroy any subsystem on any ship in the game.

Theoretically, the Tsunami should be stronger because it has a matter-antimatter warhead, so all the matter is turned to energy, thus resulting in a bigger boom. With fission and fusion, there's leftover matter that's not turned into energy. As the Tsunami is the first foray into antimatter weaponry, however, it's likely it's not very efficient.

Delta wing is given a special type of Harbinger in Good Luck as well as the previous mission The Great Hunt, which has a radically decreased range of explosion. This is due to balancing reasons, as unshielded fighters get destroyed at once when within the explosion range. This special version, named "Harbinger#End" in the tables, also moves faster than the standard variant.

When a missile embankment depletes, the next bank down will inherit the reload timer of the missile type that just depleted. This is crucial to remember when wielding the Harbinger: if the next bank down is a second set of Harbingers, you will have to wait 30 seconds until you can fire them. If there is a bank filled with something else, fire the set above it before accessing the other set of Harbingers.

It has been mentioned that this thermonuclear weapon has a yield of 5000 MT. This is equivalent to 5 GT (Gigatons of TNT), roughly 100x more powerful than the strongest nuclear explosive ever detonated in real life.