I searched the forum but didn’t find anything on my rather simple question;
Does the target painter improve the performance of torpedoes and rockets? Does it affect missiles already in flight before the painter activated? Does it impact just one module of a painted ship, or all modules of a painted ship?
I believe the target painter does work on those modules, yes. Even though they have different names in the UI, the data the game uses for the simulation mostly treats them the same as other missiles. The target painter module makes it so they never miss.
I don’t know the answer to the first of these questions, and I would like to know myself. I’m pretty sure the second is not true, since module damage seems to be entirely independent of weapon accuracy.
My own test results have been pretty inconclusive on that score. There are definitely some torpedoes that miss and go flying away when the target painter is active, and I’m trying to work out why. I do think that all weapons target individual modules, so maybe the target module is destroyed before impact?
Only missiles fired at the time when the painter is active will gain accuracy bonus.
This goes for cloaked ships as well, missiles fired before the cloak will still hit.
In effect, hit chances are calculated as soon as weapons are fired.