[V 1.09 Air Combat] Torpedos inexplicaby vanishing on impact with Carrier.

This is quite problematic. Twice now, I've sent up two Marauder interceptors to take out Carriers, armed with two plasma torpedoes. Most of the time it works fine, but for some reason, some of the time, the torpedoes simply vanish when they hit the Carrier, failing to do damage. The last time I observed this, it was when the Carrier was turning sharply, and the torpedoes impacted on the projection to the rear of the vessel.

This is very perplexing, especially as no mention was made of these warships having point defense weapons - nor, indeed, is there any indication that they are firing upon the torpedoes. The torpedoes simply vanish, failing to do damage. This is a problem, because a Magstorm can't down a Carrier in one magazine, and dogfighting a carrier is impossible with its 315 degree blaster fire arc.

I've seen something similar, with battleships I think.

It looked like they hit the target but there was no drop in the UFO's health

I just had it happen again. What happened was I was running two Marauders right down a Carrier's backside, and it started swinging to the right to try and engage. I let loose four plasma torpedoes at maximum range and broke left to evade. The carrier started swinging back left to follow them. The torpedoes on the map hit the carrier's left rear spike at the outermost edge, and they just "poofed," no damage, no impact sound, they were just deleted.

It's pretty clearly a wonky hitbox issue. It can be worked around, but it would be better if it were fixed.

Missiles have limited range/fuel. You can see it if you zoom in.

Funny how people never notice a "problem" as long as it works in their favour. I can't imagine you've never seen your fighter run away from range of an inbound alien missile.

It was not the fuel, the UFO was heading towards me

Missiles have limited range/fuel. You can see it if you zoom in.

Funny how people never notice a "problem" as long as it works in their favour. I can't imagine you've never seen your fighter run away from range of an inbound alien missile.

So they ran out of fuel at less than their actual launch range? It's not like a carrier can bloody well evade.

This is, in fact, a problem. It's a specific bug with the carrier's spikes. The missiles are not running out of fuel, they're impacting on the spike and then vanishing without a trace.

It's strange, because the game doesn't actually use hit detection for the graphics. Rather, the UFOs just have a circular hitbox which the missiles have to hit in order to do damage.

I suppose it's possible the missiles missed the hitbox but disappeared under the graphic and ran out of fuel (or flew out the other side unseen)?

Do you know how big the hitbox is for the Carrier relative to its graphic? The Carrier is a funny shape (being quite long) so it could be that it doesn't extend over the full size of the Carrier in all directions.

The hitbox is quite a bit smaller than the UFO for the Carrier, thanks to its somewhat awkward shape.

I don't think that really matters for this case though. The torpedoes should be launched only when the hitbox gets within their range, and if the UFO was getting closer, it should have been hit (with the possible quirk of explosion being a bit delayed due to the hitbox being smaller). I don't think it's likely this could be fixed without a way to reproduce the problem.

You're quite possibly right, but to explain my thinking: albeit in a modded game, I've had torpedoes launched from a distance miss because the UFO has turned just enough to take it out of the firing trajectory of the torpedo. It seems like this would produce a plausible explanation for why a torpedo might appear to hit one of the spiky bits of the Carrier but in fact miss because the hitbox doesn't extend that far.

Reproducing it is fairly simple.

Like I said: Get two planes (Marauders are best, but I suspect Foxtrots or any other torpedo truck will work) to engage a Carrier from right on its six O'clock.

Afterburn directly up on the Carrier, drop your torpedoes at maximum range, and then break both planes opposite the direction the carrier was turning. The carrier will swing back in the other direction, its spike will hit the torpedoes and vice versa, and then a disappointing lack of an earth-shattering kaboom will ensue.

(Note: if you're doing this on a game you're playing, I strongly suggest having another squadron of interceptors already tailing the bastard.)

Workarounds include waiting until you're almost on top of the Carrier for ordnance release, or breaking in the direction it was turning, so it keeps turning in that direction and gets hammered on the broadside.

Like I said: Get two planes (Marauders are best, but I suspect Foxtrots or any other torpedo truck will work) to engage a Carrier from right on its six O'clock.

You said the UFO had been heading towards the fighters.

If you shoot at any of the big, fast ufo's from behind at maximum range, they will move fast enough to outrun your missiles. You have to close in just a little bit more. May be a bug, I guess, as it is a bit of a pain to de-activate the missiles when you see the air combat start up like this.

That does make sense, then. It also explains why it only happens on the Carrier if I make it turn back on itself - if it starts turning right, and I break right, it continues to turn right, and stops moving away from where I launched, but moves instead laterally. If I break left, it swings back around left, going directly away from the launch position.

And it very much looks like a bug because the torpedoes definitely reach the displayed UFO's icon, then poof out.

Suggestion: Some feedback when torpedoes run out of fuel.