I'm not sure if I'm just imagining it, but it seems to me that from battle to battle, ships of the same weapon type sometimes start firing earlier or later?

For example, I had a battle where I had small ships start firing laser cannons the moment the intro part finishes, but also other games where the same ships would not start firing until the middle of the sequence. 

Is there something I'm missing?

I kinda hope the mechanics for the battles (ranges, getting in close, etc.) would be a bit more transparent?

PS: Still having a lot of fun tho. XD

Weapons start firing when the enemy is in range, and depending on the movement of the opposing flotillas, that can happen at different times. If both flotillas are set to short range, all weapons will start firing a lot more quickly than if both where set to long range, or even just one was set to long range.

However, you also need to keep firing arcs in mind. I suspect that in your case, the laser cannons where mounted broadside, and in the battle where they started firing immediately, you were using a long-range strategy so they immediately turned their broadsides towards the enemy, whereas in the other one you picked a strategy that had them moving closer at first, which meant that they would not be able to draw a bead on the enemy.

Which faction where you playing?

I agree that the feedback about all this is lackluster at the moment, though.

Wait, so basically, if I had two fleets who are on long range, they start firing immediately at long range with the appropriate weapons, correct?

But if I had two fleets who went short, they also immediately start firing with short range weapons because they start off close?

Hmm.

I think I get what you mean if that's the case, though yes, really hoping for clearer feedback. :)

They don't start firing immediately, but you can cut the time to start firing short range weapons down to something like half or a third of the combat duration, if both sides rush into short range. I haven't done enough experiments yet to tell for sure how much it speeds up the approach.

At least, that's what I saw from my recent battle between Cravers and Sophons.

When I tried almost the same battle configuration again (except this time I had one battleship with missiles), the battle seems to have started at the long-range phase.

I'm starting to think that the "warp-in point" might vary depending on the range match.

Well i noticed a bug. I was playing cravers. At the start of the game i assigned my first hero to one of my fleets.  The fleet contained only the basic slicer with only the projectile weapons for short/med range. The hero's ship contained the same weapons plus the missiles for long/med range if i remember well.  The opposite fleet contained some basic ships with only the projectile weapons i mentioned earlier. 

If i choose long range attack my hero can lay only about 2-3 waves of missiles before the med/short range weapons start firing. If i.choose short range attack it can fire 5-6 waves of missiles before the other weapons start firing. Quite the opposite as it should be. 

Gonna check it when i get home

Regarding weapons range, I get the impression that, even though my kinetics are supposed to fire in medium and short range, my ships won't fire until at point-blank, even when both fleets are on short-ranged trajectories. The guns remain silent until the last third of the battle most often, which I doubt is when the fleet reaches medium range.