How do I stop my rockets blowing up my own buildings in Revenge of the Titans?

I've been playing the latest Revenge of the Titans v1.80.12 on Steam and am in the middle of the Mars missions. I've been focussing on rocket research, with 4 x scanners they have a huge range and area of effect damage. My question is:

• What determines where a rocket will explode? From watching the graphic it seems that mountains, volcanoes and other natural landscape parts will stop the progress of a rocket and make it explode early. Do any of your own structures do the same?
• I've also noticed that sometimes you seem to get a dud rocket, maybe 1 time in 10? That goes 1/2 the distance it is supposed to with nothing in the road, and can cause massive destruction to your own buildings.

Any tips to workaround these? Only build rockets on the frontline with nothing to get hit by collateral damage?

What determines where a rocket will explode? From watching the graphic it seems that mountains, volcanoes and other natural landscape parts will stop the progress of a rocket and make it explode early. Do any of your own structures do the same?

This is correct, rockets can and will hit terrain obstructions. The same holds true for many other weapons too (the Laser is particularly good for seeing this).

There is no direct-hit friendly fire, so your rockets won't hit your own buildings but they can cause extensive splash damage.

I've also noticed that sometimes you seem to get a dud rocket, maybe 1 time in 10? That goes 1/2 the distance it is supposed to with nothing in the road, and can cause massive destruction to your own buildings.

This is something I cannot recall seeing, so have no comment.

Any tips to workaround these? Only build rockets on the frontline with nothing to get hit by collateral damage?

I didn't use them very often, but when I did I found building Rockets far away from my main defences to be most effective - this reduces the chance of collateral damage as much as possible.

Basically, stick them far out in the open - near a few roads where the Titans spawn or funnel together - with multiple scanners (and other upgrades as desired) and, ideally, with a Cloaking Device to avoid being targeted by Titans.

To reduce the risk of collateral damage to the support buildings, put as many of them behind the Rockets as possible (where "in front" is the expected direction of firing).