I like to imagine that Frieza had his attack timed so that as many Saiyans as possible were on Vegeta, to make extra double sure they were all dead.
My various fanfics.It wouldn't be surprising for more Saiyans to survive, which is why they're a popular Sailor Earth, but the manga acts like it's impossible for some reason.
edited 12th Dec '13 8:21:29 PM by Saiga
If they were arranging it, they would have arranged it so that all the Saiyans were on the planet. Didn't the Saiyans all work for Frieza? He probably has some way of keeping track of the people in his employ; he could have just gone, "Hey, all but four Saiyans are on Planet Vegeta, I'm never going to get a better opportunity than right now." Then just kept using the three Saiyans he had left after covering it up with the meteor story, and left his men instructions to wait for Kakarot to report back in for duty, and went off to do whatever Frieza does in his spare time.
edited 12th Dec '13 9:52:24 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Freezer Chose to keep Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz alive...Goku was just lucky to be sent off right before it exploded.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Raditz wasn't deliberately spared, he was just assaulting another planet (presumably, from his dialogue, with Nappa). That was before it was revealed that Freeza blew up the planet, but it was never said Freeza deliberately spared anyone but Vegeta.
What? The average power of his mooks is less than that. The nameless ones, if that's what you're talking about. They were told by Zarbon not to confront any Namekians with power levels of 3,000 (exactly double of Raditz) and the two that confronted Gohan and Kuririn got killed in one hit each when they powered up to Raditz' level.
edited 13th Dec '13 11:13:56 PM by Saiga
well Raditz was stated to have a powerlevel of over 1200 (the same as the Saibaman)
and the mooks were clearly unaffraid of Nameks with a powerlevel of 1000, so I'd say they werent that close to 1000 themselves
and I dont see anywhere what the powerlevels of Gohan and Krillin were when they took out their mookpair
edited 14th Dec '13 1:39:21 AM by Medigo03
The Saibaiman were exactly 1,200 and Raditz was 1,500. Them both being over 1,200 and the same power is a translation error.
Zarbon states that both Gohan and Kuririn were "about 1,500" to Freeza when they wonder who the pair that took down their goons are. Dunno if dubs/Viz carry this over. The goons' confidence against the three Namekians could be the fact that they severally outnumber them, or that they fit between 1,000 and 1,500 and just suck enough to be OHKO'd by people slightly stronger than them. Or those two goons were weaker than the rest of the group.
edited 14th Dec '13 2:15:35 AM by Saiga
There was a list of Saiyan arc (and a few pre-Saiyan arc) power levels included with Chapter 231 (with the Kamehameha vs Galick Gun clash) in Jump that gave Raditz's battle power. Here
◊ it is. Toriyama also wrote on a memo for the anime that Raditz had a higher battle power than the Saibaimen. No idea why he did that.
edited 14th Dec '13 4:51:25 AM by Saiga

Don't forget Turbles!