Weapons simulations?

[Alienboy]

I have been doing a few simulations on ships and weapons platforms. I am having a few problems with the stratagies and I haven't been able to find any comments on the problems I'm having. I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right dirrection.

1. With WP's on Strategic simulations, almost every turn there seems to be a few weapons that don't fire. I can't seem to get all the weapons to fire on the enemy. It isn't the same weapon every time. I have done simulations with 5 or more WP's on a planet, all on the same strategy, and maybe 20 odd enemy ships. I know a planet can only target 10 enemy targets but sometimes I have observed only 15% of the weapons fire on a few ships and thats it. There are plenty of other targets to fire on, and within range, but nothing happens. The amount of weapons that fire is different every turn, even if you have over 10 targets in range every turn. I have spent some time mucking around with different strategies but nothing really works. I have also noticed that if you select "Damage target until all weapons are gone", that it doesn't work. I do understand that if your target has just one weapon left, and you fire at it with a large weapon, that its posible to completely distroy the target. This isn't always the case though. Smaller weapons just keep firing until the target is completely distroyed! Is it that the simulator doesn't work as well as the actual game situations?

2. Another annoying thing I have observed is irratic weapons fire from specialized weapons such as sheild damaging weapons and engine damaging weapons etc. I have tried putting one shield damaging weapon on each WP. During one simulation I placed 5 or more WPs on a planet, and attacked it with 20 or so enemies. Usually, during the first turn the WPs fire, there is nothing odd to report. Sheild weapons fire randomly at targets with sheilds. If one targets sheilds are depleted, then the next sheild weapon fires on another target with sheilds. However, from the second turn onwards the sheild weapons sometimes "lock" on the same target, even if its sheilds had been depleted in a previous turn. Same with engine damaging weapons??

Conclusion is that it is really difficult to develope your ideas if the simulator sucks!.... actually, I'm a bit of a newbie so maybe I'm overlooking something???