I was testing with mines, and multi-stage drones, and running into a conundrum. I'm attempting to do a long range strike on an enemy fleet, so I created a slow, long-range missile that had ~20 short range submunitions, with the submunitions having ECCM. Both the long-range and the sub-munition have equal-size active sensors with equal-resolutions, giving a range of ~5.3m km for 800 ton objects or larger. Release range is set to 5.1m km range.
I launched a salvo of these missiles at a waypoint on the body the fleet was orbiting. The missiles successfully released their submunitions, and the submunitions merrily continued on their way to orbit the waypoint, ignore all the enemy ships at the waypoint, and then self-destruct.
Thinking maybe the issue was the sub munitions were continuing to their original target (the waypoint) and not re-targeting, I thought maybe having the long-range missile launch a mine that would then release the sub-munitions (having 3 stages essentially), and re-designing the sub-munition to have re-target capability, may fix the issue. I then decided to run a field trial first. I sent a ship to orbit Mercury, and then marked that ship to be a Designated Target. I then set a Waypoint on Mercury, and had a ship orbiting Earth launch one of these new 3-stage missiles at the Mercury Waypoint. When the missile's active sensor came into range of the Designated Target, it successfully deployed the mine, which then successfully deployed it's submunitions, which then successfully targeted and detonated on the Designated Target.
Thinking I was good to go, I then tried a launch of the same missile at the waypoint where the enemy fleet was. In this case, the missile released the mine, but it does not appear the mine released any submunitions. I tried one more time with adding ECCM to the mine and the drone, and increasing the resolution on all the sensors to detect out to 15m km (this enemy appears to have level 5 ajmmers), but same deal, mine releases, the mien shows it's targeting one of the ships in the fleet, but no sub munitions I can see.
Anything I'm missing? Or are multi-stage still not working against actual enemies in C#?