Can someone clarify this for me... I was having a discussion with another player the other day about this, and my interpretation of measuring is:

1) Declare target.

2) Check to see if the defending ship is in arc.

3) Measure from closest point to point on bases to determine range.

The question was do you measure closest points OR closest point on the defender inside your firing arc.

Attack range is the generally the closes point you can attack. If you only can attack within an arc then that is where you measure. If you can attack outside of your arc then you are simply measuring the closest points.

It is possible to have the range to a ship be closer than the attack range you use when attacking a ship.