I loaded up your interlude save, "let me win" all the way to Beta 3 and watched a VTOL hit a python tracked hurricane unit (professional rank). I admit I now see that it does count the second rocket, but it is far from a "one shot"
Not if you only get hit by one vtol no, the issue is that all 4 normally focus fire a single target and when all of them focus fire a single target then it is an instant one shot because what ever value it says in the design screen for lancers you have to double that to get the true damage that a single volley from a single lancer will do before any modifiers because as Alfred already pointed out each shot is counted individually.
So with a 30% damage bonus from research for lancers and a damage value of 600 in the design screen then that would mean that each lancer vtol should inflict 1200 damage before any modifiers are applied and that is indeed what I saw when I tested that yesterday.
[edit]
With the 20% modifier the damage value in the design screen is 480 for lancer vtols so we double that since lancers fire 2 shots and then we multiply that by 4 vtols so
480 x 2 = 960
960 x 4 = 3840
so assuming that all 8 rockets hit a single target of professional rank then that target will still be destroyed we work that out like so
First we find 25% of 3840 why 25% ? because yesterday when i worked out what the damage difference between an unattached rookie python tracked lancer and unattached professional python tracked lancer the damage difference came out at around 25% give or take so
3840 /100 x 25% = 960
3840 - 960 = 2880
AAA only have about 2232 hp and lancers only have 1909 hp so even at professional rank they will be destroyed unless some of the rockets miss.
My guess is that the research change is only seen on saves that have not already granted those rocket damage upgrades yet.
You sure about that because I can load up beta 03 and the damage of the ground based lancer has dropped from 400 to 320 so the damage reduction is defiantly being applied even when loading an existing save.
Having said that however I'm wondering if the reduction to the research bonus should be reverted back to 30% the reason I'm wondering about that is because I didn’t realise that altering the research bonus would also affect ground based lancers as well I had assumed that they used separate values so that you could reset 1 without affecting the other.
See my intention in all of this is simply to bring the damage of lancer vtols down to a point where its survivable and if a single target gets hit by all 4 vtols and all 8 rockets contact its not going to be instantly destroyed, It's why I reckon that when you go in to the design screen lancer vtols shouldn't have a damage value of more then about 235 / 240 and I know that is less then the ground based equivalents and i know at first glance that doesn't make a lot of sense and you are probably wondering why lancer vtols need to have there damage value set so much lower that that of there ground based equivalents, in a nut shell this has to do with the way the damage is applied.
When facing off against lancer tanks or lancer turrets it's rare then a single units is going to take 4 consecutive hits in the space of a couple of seconds which would destroy them if each of those 4 hits where inflicting a total of 1200 damage each before modifiers and assuming that all 8 rockets connected, ground based lancer fire is also easier to avoid because you can just pull back a bit, use the terrain etc.
The issue with vtol lancers and why they can still cause problems even with a damage value lower than that of there ground based equivalents is that the damage is all but impossible to avoid unless you are relying on exploits and all 4 units will focus fire a single target which means that what ever unit is being targeted has no chance of retreating because the damage is applied so quickly in essence its almost like you are taking a single shot that is inflicting somewhere between 3000 and 4000 damage which will just waste most of your units as most only have around 2000 hp give or take and even when you take into account damage reductions from armour and rank it still doesn't lower the damage enough that a single units can take all 4 hits and not be instantly destroyed and It's this that I have a problem with because in my opinion that's not fair, because you can't defend against it.
I mean if you are getting destroyed because you are doing something wrong then that's one thing but if you are being destroyed simply because to much damage is being inflicted to quickly then there is nothing that you can do about that which makes it an unfair advantage and it's why i reckon that the damage of lancer vtols should be lower than there ground based equivalents.