Hi,

Yesterday evening we had a bit of a problem with the whole activating blast effect for a thermal detonator.

To describe the situation in full.

A group of Trandoshan mercenaries were just about to breach a fortified position (frightened civilians were hiding behind a fortified door).
The party was able to approach the scene without the mercenaries noticing, but forced to action as one of he Trandoshan forced open an armor plate and another primed a thermal detonator and was ready to throw it inside.

Immediately the party acted and the first shot, targeting the Trandishan with the thermal detonator, rolled enough advantages to achieve a disarm result... and the thermal detonator ready to exploded dropped to the floor.

RAW: No attack roll was made, grenade was not targeting anyone. -> Trandoshans run out of the blast zone... at least the civilians were saved.

I have been searching a reading the whole grenade rule set a bit disappointed, as I hoped for a more epic and sudden conclusion to the whole encounter, but I cannot find anything to question it properly.

Did we handle it right?

Your thoughts would be great! Thank you

There is no specific correct way. You can say it has a timer and everyone was able to scoot. You can say it was set to detonate on impact and everyone got kerblooyed.

In regards to the write ups for the grenades I just assume that's people who have never used them. I sure the F wouldn't want any part of a hand grenade that detonates on imact, butter fingers and all that.

I concur. Choose whatever seems like the best, most cinematic result for your game and go with it. No need to maintain consistency, as different manufacturers may build-in different features to their explosive products (i.e. it "primes" after it leaves the user's hand and revolves x # of times, travels y feet/meters, etc.).

To use the oft-quoted catchphrase, I'm not sure the game benefits from that kind of "granularity." What happens is whatever you & the players decide happens. Having a specific ruleset for handheld explosives in fumble situations, which will no doubt require reference just at the moment of climax, only bogs things down.

Personally, I think situations like that are great opportunities for players to improvise. A Knowledge check and/or Destiny point and your marksman says "Hey, they've got a thermal detonator! I recognize that model from some work I did on Ord Mantell; it's produced by a TaggeCo subsidiary and has a sensor that won't let it detonate within 10 m of the initiator. If we target that Trando and get him to drop it, everybody should be OK!"

Or it could be ruled that if the acting player who disarmed the Trandoshan didn't get enough Advantages to also activate the Blast trait on the grenade results in the grenade going inactive.