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The demolitions skill provides a 3 increased force with planted bombs. However, the SRC indicates that most bombs:

"Such bombs are inevitably powerful enough that characters in close proximity to them when they detonate have very little chance of survival. "

Given that the engineering "breaking things" doesn't refer to the force of a bomb, why should an engineer take demolitions?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton
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Simple: because you want the GM to have the bad guys have stuff armored enough to require your use of Demolitions to place the charges right for that extra damage.

Which probably means some form of mad scientist villains.

To be clear - I'm not trying to be snarky. Your skill choices in SOTC are cues to the GM. A SOTC GM who isn't challenging the key skills, or is avoiding allowing opportunities for them to matter, isn't really grasping the nature of the intended narrative mode of SOTC. Characters are supposed to be pulp Heroes, so it's their areas of skill that should be challenged most.

So, if you take pilot, and the GM makes certain you never get near a plane, he's already rejected your concept and not been kind enough to tell you.

Same for a dem-tech and things to blow up.

Further, as Tetra noted in the comments, your skill choices dictate how something gets narrated. Using Engineering to take down a bridge is different than using Demolitions or artillery.

aramis
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    I very much agree that they are partly cues for the GM, but they are also a good place for you as a player to narrate things differently. If your trying to break the deathstar, doing it with engineering might work sure... but demolitions should have an extremely different narration, you aren't just trying to break it with demolitions – Tetra Jan 19 '12 at 08:20
  • @Tetra Excellent point! – aramis Jan 19 '12 at 19:07
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    Being able to point to relevant aspects, skills and stunts should also give your GM more reasons to allow you to do things. If it's a borderline decision whether you should be able to blow that thing up, it might persuade them if you can point to your demolitions skill and say "I'm pretty good at finding the weak points". – Aether Jan 20 '12 at 09:51
  • Something you didn't point out is that besides simple destruction of things, it is also a very useful "dynamic entry" skill into even otherwise secured places. Doorways and windows tend to be guarded, walls less so. – Ashen Jan 22 '12 at 02:49
  • @ReconEtc That's not a normal use for dem techs... it's also out of period for SOTC. – aramis Jan 22 '12 at 02:51
  • @aramis I'd think you could make a case to the GM using it that way if it's not explicitly in the rules (FATE is pretty flexible anyway), and the French were using petards back in the 16th century to do the same thing. This is just on a smaller scale. – Ashen Jan 22 '12 at 03:37
  • @ReconEtc The petard was pretty much unlike modern tamped breaching charges... it was a large grenade on a longish stick; unreliable and dangerous to the user. The use of explosives for relatively quick and safe ingress point making required the understanding of tamped explosives coupled with reliable explosives and detonations. Plastique in a breaching frame is very different from dynamite or bagged black powder without tamping, or with only loose rubble... both in terms of energy on target, safety, and energy on target. – aramis Jan 22 '12 at 05:59
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Engineering: Breaking Things

…Given time and tools, an engineer can topple virtually any building or structure. …

I guess carefully placed big bombs make a huge difference in the time involved in destroying a building.

To be clear, taking down a structure with engineering is a very long process. With demolitions, preparation takes some time but the actual taking-down is very, very quick.

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edgerunner
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