Spaceship Wars

I don't like the initiative system. It's a pre-planned we-go sort of thing where you write down every ships movement orders in secret, then both players execute them.
Fighters and missiles are moved first, but after orders are finalized, which makes their placement a fun guessing game, but overall the interactivity of the movement mechanics is near to zilch. It also means light and heavy ships have no characteristics, as target difficulty isn't really a thing. The quasi-official fan-compiled rules use an alternative points cost so bigger ships get progressively more expensive, but this is a bandaid. Between not being able to maneuver with any reliable precision and the exponential fashion of defensive systems with mass, using escorts is almost more of a fluff decision than something you'd naturally do instead of fielding heavy cruiser bricks. There's some edge cases depending on the limits of the enemy fire control effectiveness, but anyone smart will put enough FCS on capital ships so they can crack multiple escorts a turn anyway.

I've done some experimenting with fixing this by replacing the initiative system to tiered initiative by tonnage. (largest ships move first, smallest ships shoot first) but this destroys the way fighters and missiles were meant to be balanced, and I never settled on a good solution.