Hi,
I'm humbling questioning the interest to micro-manage that. That's a big part of the time used in combat or before it, for not a lot of interest in my opinion. Why not just having a ship being able to fire on a target do so, if there is a non committed FC that has the range to the enemy?
And when you do fire, the used FC choice is rather simple, that's the FC (of the proper type, beam or missile) which has the lowest range while still being at range. I don't see there is much subtlety here.
Plus added bonus, a FC in VB6 Aurora can switch target in fly for each volley of missile I believe. i.e you fire away, then when launchers are reloaded, nothing prevent you from picking another target? Realistically, if the first volley is still in flight, then it should still be busy piloting the volley.
With my proposal, the FC being still committed, you could not fire again, or perhaps only of the current target. But not a brand new one.
I might be missing subtleties, I don't know much Aurora in the end, but currently I don't see much point in having to assign FC manually. It takes time and it's boring. I do love micro management, but not for the sake of it. I'm very pleased to see the extra MM on fuel in C# Aurora e.g