Has anyone else experienced an issue whereby it was difficult or impossible to target non-friendlies using the x or z keys?

I was in BP the other day with a new player I had invited to the game, and they were expressing their continued frustration that they could not target enemies using the z key. Every time they fired a missile, it would come after either me or Mike (the other person in our group fo 3), regardless of who they were facing or firing at.

I've seen it. From what I recall, it has to do with how the game determines red/green on the radar for players. Basically, the game marks a ship as hostile on your radar if any of the following are true:

1. You are hated by the target's faction
2. The target is hated by your faction
3. The target is hated by the faction that controls the sector you are in.

So for any Serco participating in BP, every other Serco shows as hostile, unless the other player is liked by the Itani, in which case they aren't participating in BP legitimately anyway, because Deneb is Itani (even though the sector isn't or shouldn't be monitored).

I had also assumed that was the problem. A new player would have a hard time with that and would be more likely to target friendlies as they are likely to be closest. If there was one other target nearby, he'd have a 2:3 chance of targetting a group member.

This is only a problem for serco characters that are hated by itani. c10 and b12 (and mabey even most of deneb) should probably be redefined as grey space.

...c10 and b12 (and maybe even most of deneb) should probably be redefined as grey space.

This would solve a lot of problems.