Ship destroyed when component destroyed?

No, and no.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Just a wacko idea, but what if you put an if statement in the tonnage structure field of all internal components, something like this:

Tonnage Structure Formula := iif(Get_Named_Component_Count("Reactor Core") == 0, 0, 30)

Also put a requirement for all ships to have a Reactor Core, and then (if this actually works), as soon as the reactor core blows up, all the other ship components get max HP set to zero, reducing the ship's total HP to zero?

Of course this does depend on the game continuously recalculating the max HP of all the components... which I kind of doubt it does... but even then, if it at least does it once a turn, then you could have "crippled" ships which will explode in one turn unless the reactor is fixed

edit: and for the one-shot weapons, can't you set units to auto-destruct when they run out of fuel in Settings.txt? So if you tweak the numbers just right and restrict the types of supply components that units can carry you might be able to get the effect you're looking for...

~~~
The power of the ancients is now yours to command. You are truly the Master... of the obvious

To my knowledge it's not actually possible to use the Get_Named_Component function inside the components.txt. Even if it was, I still don't think that approach would work. The game just doesn't respond that way.

Mine warheads (and for that matter, drone warheads) destroy themselves and their vessel upon attack. Maybe model another weapon similarly, and give it a bit of range?

I kind of like the idea of intensely powerful beam weapon satellites that fry themselves as they fire.

That is a property of ramming, not so much something you can mod into a direct fire weapon.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

If you mod the mandatory satellite core to have 0 durability, and the weapon to destroy after firing, and have no other components in the satellite (armor is allowed I think), that might work.

Once the weapon fires, it is destroyed, and teh satellite core has no hits, so internal hits become 0. This would destroy the satellite, would it not? Or does it still need one hit after that?

edit: Whoops, accidental thread necromancy.
The thread was in the side view, and I forgot to check the "best before" date.

The "used" verb in "destroyed on use" only applies when a component is used via a button press in the main game ui. It only applies to stellar manipulation and emergency energy/movement type components.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki