Splash Damage

Some weapons have an area of effect when they strike a target. These weapons explode in some way and hit anything that is around the target, not just the target itself. Damage tolls generally decrease the further from the center of the shot the unit is.

Splash damage affects your units along with those of the enemy; anyone caught in the blast is damaged, regardless of who launched the shot. Therefore, you should become familiar with which units deal splash damage and be careful about grouping your forces around anything targeted by such units. Splash damage is particularly hazardous when your units are grouped together and they target an enemy within their midst; they will end up doing more damage to each other than the enemy.

Units that deal splash damage can be used to damage tightly-clustered groups of enemies and to creatively hit things with the splash that you are unable, for whatever reason, to target directly. For example, you cannot hit a phased unit directly, but if you suspect one is lurking nearby, you can use the Attack command to target the ground and strike the phased unit with the splash damage of the shot. The larger the radius of splash damage, the easier it is to find such hidden units.