[Captain Kwok]

Actually, I'd imagine a real-time system is really executed in a similar manner that I proposed for a "staggered" turn-based model in my post below - it'd be some sort of continuous loop that cycles through each ship on both sides deciding firing targets, movement, etc. Except, in a true real-time system, the cycle is too fast for us to notice and it looks like all ships are moving concurrently.

I suppose the advantage of the "staggered" turn is that it should be less taxing on a computer system. This may not be an issue for real-time combat with small fleets, but I'd imagine it would be much more with the kind of fleet sizes we are used to in SE:IV.

Again, this is not a problem in simultaneous turns, because there are no graphics to generate. But in some sort of Combat Reply Mode or Tactical Combat this can be a major issue unless some sort of restrictions were placed on zoom levels etc.

Overall, it is a very viable option to consider. You eliminate almost 95% of the quirks of strict turn based movement and keep performance at a high level. I cannot honestly provide a real drawback to this type of system, except maybe with fleets of vastly different sizes.