Bug: Reports of bugs or possible bugs.

[PvK]

I've noticed that same thing with quests to destroy a certain number of ships. When I ran out of ships to kill myself, I could warp out and back and there'd be a new batch. For named ships though, it doesn't make much sense. Seems like for named target ships either the quest should vanish (you didn't fail so no reaction penalty, but you didn't do it yourself either), or you should get credit if you put in some damage before it was destroyed.

Or, if the game calculates a named target ship is about to be destroyed, you could have it warp out and escape instead... then it would make a little more sense to have to come back later to catch it again.

Or we players could rationalize that it escaped somehow (warp, cloak, etc.) when that happens.