Wormhole defence.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

The ship placement routine has holes.

[Atrocities]

I believe that you have to own or have claimed the system in order to get first shot at the WP while defending it.

Secondly it might have to do with strategies, IE maximum weapons range as oposed to optimial weapons range.

Also it might be that the race attacking you is not at war with you. The fist shot should always go to the aggressor, but sometimes it does not.

Now this is just me ranting and I too would love to know the answers to this.

[Q]

Were there any other empires in this sector beside yours and your enemy? This may give some unexpected starting placements of your ships.
Initial ship placement generally is a problem in SE IV and as discussed in another topic it should be improved for SE V. The random factor is just too big. However the defender should always gets the first shot if he is in weapons range (at least with the Last Version of SE IV Gold).

[Randallw]

Well it was my home system. Q may have a point, an ally did have a single satellite there, perhaps that mucked it up.

[Mephisto]

Randallw said:
Well it was my home system. Q may have a point, an ally did have a single satellite there, perhaps that mucked it up.

Yes, definitely. That is the reason for it. In a game of mine I once nearly declared war on an ally who refused to withdraw his puny 2-ship-fleet from a wormhole. I knew that a large enemy force was on the other site and my only hope for survival was to hold the line at that warp point via the first shot and my ally was endangering it! He finally moved his ships just a turn ahead of the attack...