Order of Fire?

[General Hawkwing]

I don't believe this has been covered before, but if it has I'm sorry.
My question is: How is the fire order for ships in a fleet determined? Assume fleet(3 ships) is in a V and heads directly toward a lone battleship. If the whole fleet comes within range at the same time, due to the battleship closing with the fleet, will the ship with shield depleting weapons fire first? Or is the order of fire predetermined by "rank" within the fleet?
I apologize if this is covered in the manual but I have yet to use it and thought I could get a quicker/clearer response from my fellow universe rulers.

[Puke]

I believe it is rank within the fleet, but I am sure that it is ship-at-a-time. ships themselves fire weapons from left to right with no descrimination for wither or not the target has shields (so design them with shield depleters on the left, and be prepared for them to wase their fire)

Knowing this, and knowing that the AI is not too good at figuring out effective combined fire from designated shield destroyers and designated direct-damage ships, its not the best idea to make specific 'roll' offenseive ships if you are not doing TAC combat. give each ship a smattering of weapons, and then it wont matter what order they fire in.

I do like to keep support ships and defensive ships seperate though.