(Answered) External equipment reducing safe thrust

[Hellfire]

I know external equipment on aerospace fighters reduces safe thrust like bombs, but I couldn't find anything actually saying that external fuel tanks or things like tag reduce thrust like bombs do.

sillybrit didn't know of anything either and suggested I make a rules post.

I don't believe it is directly stated in either TW or TO.

The example of capital fighter squadron generation in SO does note the a squadron having its thrust reduced due to payload consisting of a missile and a bomb:

SO p29:
"He decides to equip each fighter with a single Anti-Ship Missile (equal to 5 bomb slots) and 1 HE Bomb."

SO p31:
"Each fighter has seven bomb slots filled, this reduces their Safe Thrust by 2,"

I would note that the example is actually incorrect, because a payload of one ASM and one bomb fills six slots, not seven, but even with six slots filled, that would still reduce thrust by 2.

If you require further confirmation, I would suggest posting a question in the rules questions section of the board.

[Xotl]

Looking over those sections, it's not explicitly stated because the rules don't make the distinction you are making between bombs and what are, in rules terms, other bombs but aren't thought of that way by players.  TAG and RL are both implicitly referred to as bombs on page 246 and described as taking up bomb space.  All that fancy stuff in TO is in a section called "Bomb Munitions" on page 357.  They're all bombs.  It's a case where the dictionary definitions and the rules terminology don't intersect neatly.

I'll make an errata entry along the lines of "All items on bomb hardpoints are treated as bombs in all respects unless otherwise noted", because that's how the rules work and are meant to be read.

Also, as this question doesn't belong here, I"ll be moving it to TW or TO rather soon.  Thanks.