Are torpedoes and rockets considered a form of missile and do they get a boost from the target painter?
Yep, they all benefit from target painters and can be shot down by point defense turrets.
Target Painters are very useful on missile based ship configurations.
And I just noticed one nifty little fact… Now that you can deploy fighter squadrons smaller than 16 (if you have less than 16 pilots remaining, or not enough points, it just deploys how many you can afford) it’s actually possible to deploy single, or small groups, of fighters equipped with target painters, instead of having to deploy 16 at a time. It’s a bit of an awkward way to deploy them, but it makes fighter target painters suddenly look a little more attractive.
You know, I’m finding Fast Cruisers with all Rocket Hardpoints + 1 Painter to be really really good Frigate Killers, and they tear down Cruiser shields reasonably quickly.
I know rockets can be shot down, but can they be jammed?
EDIT: I just got fighter painters. They’re useless, a Cruiser Laser can shoot them down even at bare minimum, ie. Engine + Painter (0.81 speed).
Yes. With the Guidance Scrambler. It works much like a point defense module… Except it’s extremely efficient, and the disabled missiles go rather gratuitously wild, instead of just blowing up.