Transcendence

For some reason fragmenting missiles often don't explode on a direct hit, doing little-no damage. They impact, and that's it.

Bobby wrote:For some reason fragmenting missiles often don't explode on a direct hit, doing little-no damage. They impact, and that's it.

Don't some missiles require a minimum flight time to arm so they don't explode too close to the ship firing them?

That's not it, of two shots from around the same range, (well beyond the failsafe) one could explode and the other not, when both hit the target directly.

At least it's better than 0.99c and earlier....where frags and proximity weapons NEVER exploded when you hit targets.

(Speaking of prox. weapons, the M5 and M2 are still grossly underpowered on those direct hits where they don't blow [Which I've noticed a fair bit].....compared to the general "OMGWTFBBQ" effect when you get them to detonate fully.....with the massively damaging frags.)

If a nuke weighing 1 ton is dropped on a city, but it doens't explode, it has all the effect of a 1 ton piece of iron being dropped on the city...
It's when it actually goes off that the city gets flattened.
Not to mention you can't set off the nuke by slamming it into the ground or hammering it or by any other more creative ways to manhandle it...

Guess the same applies to the missiles.

Depends on the nuke. You might be able to set off a gun type nuke by slamming it into the ground if oriented correctly.

Blitz wrote:If a nuke weighing 1 ton is dropped on a city, but it doens't explode, it has all the effect of a 1 ton piece of iron being dropped on the city...
It's when it actually goes off that the city gets flattened.
Not to mention you can't set off the nuke by slamming it into the ground or hammering it or by any other more creative ways to manhandle it...

Guess the same applies to the missiles.

True, but if I was making any kind of explosive missile for use in space the first thing I'd do is make sure the proximity fuse works...

getting shot down is a different story.

Blitz wrote:If a nuke weighing 1 ton is dropped on a city, but it doens't explode, it has all the effect of a 1 ton piece of iron being dropped on the city...
It's when it actually goes off that the city gets flattened.
Not to mention you can't set off the nuke by slamming it into the ground or hammering it or by any other more creative ways to manhandle it...

Guess the same applies to the missiles.

Then why is there an absolutely massive fireball then, but underwhelming damage, when the prox blast fails?