I just used the pain sounds it made to tell if I hit it or not - the not knowing where it was was part of the fun of the battle…
Probably it’s because of the surface tension and friction difference between air and water. It doesn’t occur underwater 8).
Also it’s a GAMEPLAY mechanic in a GAME. It works in reverse in HL, rockets fired underwater explode when they hit the surface.
Still, water has a much higher density than air, so it is somewhat likely that a rocket fired underwater would detonate instantly. It would at least go much slower.
In Half-Life 1 underwater, you can make a rocket spin slowingly around you, until it reaches a virtual halt. I liked that… but I think it should actually run out of propellent and sink.
Slowingly? :brow:
First of all, I think that the gameplay is more important than realism (visible laser??? GMB!), a little suspension of disbelief wont do any harm.
As for the rocket, it detonates when it heavily decelerate. Firing the rocket in the water wont cause it to decelerate, it will just accelerate slower with lower max velocity than compared with firing it in the air.
To spin slowingly: To rotate in a slowing manner.
It’s not normal but it makes the sentence much clearer (to tell why anybody’d bother aiming in circles).
It’s not a real word if that’s what you mean.
Can anyone recall the underwater rocket behaviour in HL2 to contrast with HL1’s diminishing-velocity veritable torpedoes?
how dare you tell me what adverbs I can and can’t form
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The word typically may be crucial here 
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How about “slowly”.
The -ing should go with the verb, so spinning slowly.
I’m pretty sure no actual rocket measures acceleration to determine when to ignite.
Unless of course you count the impact fuze. But even that doesn’t really measure the acceleration. Only whether it hits something or not.
…for certain definitions of hit…
A hit is resistance. Firing into water would create enough resistance to trigger the explosive.
He means that the rocket is accelerating, ie slowing down and spinning.
What? That’s not my point at all. I was contesting Seba’s reasoning why the rocket would not explode if fired submerged.
fixed.
The general rule is a hit is deceleration, so going from air to water might count depending on the trigger threshold; going from air to ground certainly does; starting it water on the other hand probably doesn’t as the rocket simply accelerates slower to start with, however there are other issues that arise from firing things underwater that weren’t designed to do that…
Ah, okay.
little rusty on our fiziks there are we?
acceleration is a change in velocity, it doesn’t matter in which direction. Because velocity is a vector, a change in direction also constitutes an acceleration.