I was watching a swarm fight the other day and noticed, like many of you have I'm sure, that when missiles and rockets run out of fuel they just disappear. Poof. I kinda understand energy weapons running our of steam and fizzing off into nothingness, but when a solid, physical object runs out of fuel, it shouldn't just disappear. All I suggest is that when the missile or rocket runs out of time, they simply explode instead of vanish. It might hurt FPS but...

I couldn't find anything in the search, sorry if this has come up before.

yep. been suggested before. the argument against it was that the extra reach of the explosion radius could be detrimental to game play. wich i think is bull.

but that wasn't vo's official stance. for all i know, the idea dried in the air and wasn't revisited since.

i'm siding with you on this waffles. like butter on toast. or waffle.

yea they should explode maybe after 30 seconds of ballistic flight even, then you could even use them at 5 km on static targets.

If rockets exploded instead of vanishing, then cap ships could have some kinda flack launcher. A fast flair, with a high damage radius but relatively low damage. It would be pretty intimidating to make a run on a big cap with all that flak going off.

I predict minimal effect on game play. I am only marginally for it, but not at all against it.

yea the effect would be minimal but it's something that could be fun to mess with

edit
oh waffles you mean like the seeker missiles the aerna's drop?

Probably with a bit more force though. Not damage but just making your ship move a tiny bit, so that a ton of them would make your ship movement be a bit bumpy like real flaque. Yeah, that'd be awesome...

[Mortis' Stamp of Kewl]™

I don't like this...

Why would a missile arbitrarily detonate if it had no hope of hitting its target and a possible chance of damaging innocent bystanders? I think this could lead to more frustrating than helpful situations.

They are 45th century missiles, they vaporize when out of fuel! :D

Missiles are designated to hit their target. When they've run out of fuel, the best way to maximize the chance of fulfilling their purpose is to explode, on the off chance that such would be enough to reach its target. This is especially true for Jackhammers. In contrast, simply vaporizing does nothing to improve the chance of hitting.

[stamp of approval]™

I support this the same as I supported the identical thread last month. :-)

SuperMegaMynt: True, missiles are designed to hit their target. However missiles are also designed to not hit unintended targets. The game already tends toward fewer explosions with the safety radius on warheads. Why do this if the point was to maximize the chance of hitting the target? Perhaps you would say that it's a different case since you are not damaging yourself, however I would rather avoid unintentionally damaging a wingmate.

It just seems that the off chance of getting a hit by having the missile explode in space wouldn't be worth the potential collateral damage.

/2c

Although they're not designed to not hit unintended targets (what gun is?), missiles are not designed to hit unintended targets. Not parallel cases. At the end of their lifetime, the chances of hitting the target or anyone else in the vicinity is in favor of the former.