EVE Fiction

Can't think of a worse way than plasma, primordial plasma for instance is the hottest thing known to man, 4 trillion degrees. It is probably what Blasters fire.

The problem with them being simple kill vehicles is that there's a visible explosion when they hit. The graviton implosion is a more likely explanation for what kinetic missiles are, actually.

Explosive damage weapons seem more analogous to shaped charge effects, especially in the way that explosive is the weak point of armor. In those, the charge uses a shaped explosion to dig into the armor, then digs in and explodes again to try to tear the armor plating apart. It's a common and staged sequence that is used specifically to try to destroy armor plating, but I can imagine that it would be counter-productive to do against some sort of repelling energy field. Lo and behold, explosives are the kryptonite of armor and laughable against shields.

In retrospect, the problem with them being simple KKVs would be the explosion radius and velocity mechanics of the missiles. Maybe it's a warhead made of thousands of little bits of iron with a tiny 'Bursting' charge to throw the warhead's thousands of tiny KKV impactors.

True, and if real-life physics were used then then using nuclear rounds would create a blast that hits everything within several kilometers, and antimatter rounds would be a great way to remove pesky planets from your flight path.

The problem with a pure KKV is it is incredibly dependent on the conditions of impact such as relative velocity between KKV and target. Against large, stationary targets a KKV is likely one of the most effective weapons there is, though large stationary targets are usually more easily damaged by sustained turret fire (higher applied dps in the case of 'impact' oriented weapons such as rails and projectiles, with the exception of HAM and Torpedos).

I am still convinced that the most reliable way to apply direct kinetic energy to a target, outside of having a ridiculously high comparative speed (such as that afforded by railguns and, I assume, projectile weaponry) is to generate some form of gravitational effect that causes shear stress. Explosion radius/velocity would dictate the 'period of exposure' required for maximum effect, with smaller, faster ships being able to evade the effect before it reaches optimal status just as they do with other 'implied AOE' weapons (plasma warheads etc).

It is possible that a KKV could operate like modern anti-aircraft shaped-charge weaponry, in that it flies relatively close, then angles to spray a burst of armour piercing munitions into the target. This is definitely a way of approaching the KKV while reasoning that the variable speed of target is much less of a factor over direct, whole body collision, as you could argue the shaped charge accelerates the 'shot' to extremely high speeds that guarantee some uniformity of effect over speed bands (below/over exp velocity).

TBH there is no reason that this isn't the case, precision missiles could use some incredibly advanced AI algorithms to direct a KKV 'shot' style missile, while a Fury uses an over charged graviton reactor to cause a local shearing effect that amounts to much more damage, but a more easily escaped AOE. Application is the muse of the engineer, and there's no reason why the bands of missile (Light/Heavy/dumb/guided) wouldn't have varying warhead technology.

If you're too fast for my grav implosion to grab a chunk of hull for a duration long enough to pulp it, maybe a directed, guided blast of high-velocity KK munitions will do the trick? The primary difference being that the KK 'shot' would have no explosive component, instead seeking to pierce the super structure and bounce around (oh god, multi-meter slivers of hardened alloy bouncing in my crew decks!), instead of tearing it apart from the inside as with explosive weaponry.

actually not. because nukes makes an EMP blast. so EM missiles are just nukes that detonates beside a ship. damaging the shield more than it would if it exploded like they normally do (Thermal missiles are nukes. i heard that somewhere)

I'm pretty sure EM missiles involve antimatter, either for direct use or to feed the EMP generator. And plasma fusion bombs do provide more heat than fission nukes.