Missiles vs Planets, Out of range?

[Aristoi]

Has anyone else seen the behavior where a missile attack ship on Maximum Range will try to attack a planet and somehow fire them too far away so they never hit?

It's like it is targeting the nearest square of the planet but it needs to hit a specific corner.

Any thoughts?

[Lemmy]

i noticed that too, the missile must always reach the far end of the planet to hit.
I encountered this in tactical combat, ships where just in range too hit one corner of the planet, so i fired, but once the missiles where over the planet, they did no damage, then i moved one sqaure closer to the planet, and fired again, this time the missiles went to the far end of the planet and exploded.

you could see this as a feature, your missile also must have enough fuel to go through the atmosphere.

[Aristoi]

If it is a feature, the AI should know it needs to move closer to account for the atmosphere.

As it is, my ships won't destroy the planet without a switch in combat strategy.

[Alpha Kodiak]

The problem is that the missiles have to reach the upper left of the four interior squares to impact, but range is calculated from the firing ship to the nearest outer square of the planet. Thus, the firing ship needs to be one or two squares closer (depending on which side you are firing from) than the actual maximum range to hit. The AI does not understand this limitation, and thus has all kinds of trouble hitting a planet with missiles. It seems to me that the missiles should just be able to impact on whatever surface of the planet is closest to the firing ship.