[Vidmaster]

I just replayed Diaspora because playing the wonderful BSG board game made me want to frak some toasters.
I noticed that despite me reporting this issue when patch 1.0.1 was released, the Cylon Basestar missile launcher issue is still present. Hence, the re-report in this thread.

This issue is evident in mission 2 "The Strike". Firing your torpedos at the basestar's missle launchers sometimes kills the launcher with one hit when its still at  100%, sometimes it only makes about 5% damage and other times it does not hurt the thing at all despite hitting it. When experimenting, I found out that the best firing angle for you, the player, is to be above/beyond the launcher aka being inside the basestar's arm structure. The further you hit the launcher "from the side" (aka being on the same level as the corresponding arm), the higher the chance of a zero-damage hit.
The problem is that the engine seems to predict a hit and does not show you the cross for the selected turret which does also lead to the AI firing many shots that have little to no effect.

[newman]

That is correct, you pretty much need to hit it directly from above the launcher, facing it towards the inner part of the arm. I've found that I pretty much never miss the thing; as long as I'm hitting it from above I one shot the things. I'd argue that this is actually intended behavior (weapons subsystems should, tbh, require some precision to take out in one blow), but if the rest of the team want to do something with that hit box I wouldn't mind either. What I agree with is that the current system can be misleading because you basically need to ignore what your targeting system is telling you and hit it from an angle you estimated yourself. So either some larger collision box, or require the same angle but have the targeting system actually show an X from all angles that don't work. Solution #2 would be something I'd prefer, as I don't think one-shot-ing these kinds of subsystems should be too easy, but I'm not sure how complex would it be to implement.

[General Battuta]

My rule of thumb for this kind of issue is that it needs fixing if it presents a problem the AI can't handle. I like to believe in my wingmen!

[Vidmaster]

It is simply bad player feedback if your HUD says you can hit it but you cannot. Keep in mind that to a new player, this is most likely a annoying and frustrating bug. Hell even a veteran like myself has to try the mission a few times experimenting with good firing angles. Or ignore the objective :-)

[newman]

It is simply bad player feedback if your HUD says you can hit it but you cannot. Keep in mind that to a new player, this is most likely a annoying and frustrating bug. Hell even a veteran like myself has to try the mission a few times experimenting with good firing angles. Or ignore the objective :-)

I completely agree with you. All I'm saying is there's two ways of fixing this:

1) Make it easier to hit from all angles, and
2) Fix the HUD so it shows you correct information (as in, puts an X over all non-viable angles)

I'd prefer 2) myself, but I'm not sure if it's even possible or how much work would it be. If it can't be done, we'll probably need to do something with the launcher's hit boxes.

[Vidmaster]

Both would fix the issue hence both are viable options. As long as something happens this time.

EDIT: would prefer (2) too

[jg18]

My rule of thumb for this kind of issue is that it needs fixing if it presents a problem the AI can't handle. I like to believe in my wingmen!

Which reminds me, there was a quasi-recently fixed bug about the AI not ensuring a clear line of sight when attacking subsystems. Has anyone tried playing M2 using a build containing a fix for it (revision 9512 [Jan. 27, 2013] or later)? I think recent FSO builds contain the changes needed to play Diaspora.