...or just roll dice

I think this gets forgotten a lot. It is part of the primary rulebook that, in the event of a rule dispute that the players are unable to resolve, they should dice off and move on with the game. I think this situation would qualify.

The little problem with that is that some people who actually know what the rule is could argue the other way when it benefits them. They may know they are wrong but if a die gets to determine who "is counted as correct" they'd have a 50:50 chance of having things go their way instead of a 0% chance.

The problem is there was a ruling in an older FAQ, but it was removed three FAQs ago, so the question is: does it still stand?

My opinion is, if the ships are indeed parallel, then maybe the line of fire measurements should be made pin-to-pin.

The rules as written specify the "closest points" on the subject ships, if the 2 ships are for the purposes of the measuring equipment available in the game parallel then in principle all the points parallel are the same distance apart. As the firer is allowed to chose the point at which he measures, as long as the path chosen is the "shortest/closest" (which if they are parallel then they are all closest) then if this route is not obstructed by crossing an obstacle then there is no obstruction penalty.

The chances of this happening are really, really slim since each ship is moving indepently and by differing amounts from differing points of origin. So while incredibly mathematically slim, it's always probable.... pigs may just yet been planning a Channel crossing...

I actually spectated this game, and the ships were genuinely as visibly close to exactly parallel as any of us could determine. For the maths people here...no, obviously they weren't truly parallel, stop being silly. They were however indistinguishable form it to the naked eye.

They just diced off in the end, and it had no effect on the game result, but certainly was an interesting one!

I don't think it is as uncommon as people think. I've been in a couple of games where to the naked eye the ships appeared to be parallel and were only partially obstructed by an obstacle. From what I recall we've counted those shots as being obstructed, but it would be nice to have a ruling.