Battle Management of anything larger than a few ships is currently a micromanagement nightmare.
In my opinion the biggest problem is that combat is managed by player ship. You pick a ships and decide what it fires on. However usually I don't care which one of my ship fires on what, the only thing that matters is how many missiles are assigned to each target, not the launch platform.
My proposal is the implementation of a 'Battle Management' screen/tab. Fire Controls can be set to Battle Management System similar to setting a PD mode; once set they are available.
Battle Management screen would show contacts only. Here a priority and a number of missiles can be assigned to each contact, all contacts, a specific class, and then the BMS does its thing, using the Fire Controls to fire the requested number of missiles in priority order at the targets.
Refinements would include to drop the priority of ships that get crippled, and options to spread fire or concentrate it among equal priority targets, and how the firing platform is selected (Distance, remaining ordnance, ...).
Multiple channels could be implemented to allow firing anti fighter missiles and heavy shipkillers at the same time without mixing up the targets.
The current combat management would still be available, for those cases where the player wants something very specific.
