troubles with point defense

In 1.44 BM9 my ships PDs are constantly firing at missilies. No problems.

I believe the all PD targets the first missle/torp that comes into range letting other shots in the same wave to get through but as long as some PD remains it does target the next wave in my experance.

The best method of PD is generally to have onion-like layers of it.

Rather than have 10 of one PD weapon, have 1 or 2 of each type so they fire at different ranges. What gets past the first range will get shot at by the next weapon. What gets past that gets shot by the third, and so on.

Nearby friendly ships can contribute their PD fire to help the targetted ship, also, but given the range of most PD weapons the ships would have to be pretty close for all but the longest-range PD.

no, there is no multi-tracking-scanner in SEV.
i would guess it´s a bug of the european version. did you try the 1.44 patch to fix the problem?

Its unlikely, but your problem may be in the ship's strategies you are using. If you are making a dedicated point defense ship then you need to set strategies that target the right types first, seekers (missiles) and fighters, ect. Then on the strategies priorities section you should make sure that "type" is somewhere on the list and include "nearest" and "fastest" as well. That said, the default strategy for most ships, which is called something like "optimal firing range" will properly employ point defense weapons against missiles, IIRC. The strategies section is pretty complex, but once you get used to it, it is a very flexible and powerful tool.

This may sound silly, but you do have ordnance and supplies for the weapons, yes?

PD's require no supplies, unless some mod is changing that. I'm a strong advocate of this requirement for PD's, but no luck so far.

There may be one exception, but I don't remember.

Edit: I'd recommend restarting the program if this bug is encountered. I vaguely seem to recall it happening in the distant past, but they've almost always worked, and it hasn't happened to me recently.

In the strats, only "Do not Engage" should stop PD's from targeting incoming missiles.