I am wondering exactly how missiles work in FS2. My searches of the forum haven't been very fruitful and the weapons table page in the wiki also hasn't been as helpful as I'd hoped. I was wondering if there was some FAQ somewhere that I didn't know about. Barring that, perhaps some of you could answer the following questions. I could just try to figure it out by trial and error, or reading the code, but I don't really know code and it would be nice if I could save some time. Perhaps I could add this info to the Wiki, which I'm sure will help some inexperienced modders.
If a ship takes a direct hit from a missile, does it take both the $Damage and $Blast force values, or just damage?
If I am reading this correctly, a missile's initial velocity is [$Velocity]/4+[your ship's current speed]. It flies at that velocity for 0.25 seconds, and then what? Does it immediately increase to its $Velocity, or does it accelerate? Does this mean that if the missile is slower than your ship it will slow down? Does the missile always travel in the direction it's pointing at its $Velocity, or does it have some kind of $Damp-like behavior?
Here's the big one: how does locking-on work? I'm totally clueless here. Is there some maximum angle off-boresight at which locking-on will begin? I assume this thing with pixels/sec has something to do with how fast the aspect triangle will approach the lead indicator, dependent on the minimum lock time and the angle of the target from boresight at any given time, but I can't begin to guess the specifics, or how the catch-up rate and penalty work.
Also important: how does a missile pursue its target? Aspect missiles try to lead the target, but do they do that by generating a lead indicator and flying straight for it, or is it more complicated than that? Do heat missiles just point themselves at a target? I hardly ever use them, so I don't really notice. I don't think I've seen them leading a target. Do they lose lock if the target leaves their view cone? I assume that's the point of the view cone.
I notice that Countermeasures have a default effective radius of 300. Does that mean that CMs only work on missiles within 300 meters? Will CMs spoof any enemy missile in that range, or just missiles locked on you? Is chance to spoof always 1/2 for aspect and 1/3 for heat (assuming this isn't a custom weapon), or are there any other issues that can affect spoof chance?
I've never even noticed, do spoofed missiles explode, fly straight, choose another target (e.g. the CM)? I recall in Wing Commander my spoofed heat seekers would inevitably hit my wingmen, I didn't notice if that was possible in WC Saga.
