Ever seen video of a modern MBT that's able to shoot on the move? How the vehicle rumbles along overland, bouncing about over humps and bumps at speed, stressing the suspension, yet the barrel of the gun is flat as a board?
That's the computer actively compensating for motion of the platform. You can apply the same concept to the weapons on a ship firing from a moving platform while tracking another moving platform. ...
The platform in that case is being affected by factors external to the platform that the computer cannot predict but must compensate for in real-time to maintain the barrel's aim. The factors involved in a spacecraft's movement are know to the computer because the computer is executing those commands. Even a Model 1 should be able to compensate for all the ship's own movement effects on weapon targeting; superior computing isn't needed. For a spacecraft in vacuum, the only external factors are the occasional jarring missile hit, venting fuel, and suchlike effects of weapons hits. The game doesn't factor those in.
...My cat is very agile. She can scoot and avoid capture while at the same time snatch flying toys out of the air. The in built kitty ballistic computer is extraordinary. I can move the toy fast, she can move faster. The toy is very agile, the kitty is more so and is able to compensate and adjust her reactions within the envelope of maneuver of the balls, birds, mice, and other toys I flick around. Simply put, she is faster than I am. A combination of her strength to weight ratio, along with her natural dexterity and that kitty computer puts me (and the meeses) at a distinct disadvantage.
It's no different for starships at the meta level. If ship A can react quicker, using whatever mechanic, than ship B, then that capability offsets each other, and offers one ship an advantage over another in terms of getting guns on the target and improving the chance for a successful hit.
A cat toy is not the size of a building, and kitty is not having to deal with light speed lag. Space combat is essentially taking things the size of office buildings up into the vacuum and then trying to shoot them with God's Own Laser Pointer. At 150,000 km, an angle adjustment of 1-second in a turret's aim is something like 727 meters; the turrets are having to make corrections measured in the tenths or hundredths of a second arc in order to lock onto and follow a target, and the image it's seeing is half a second old, and it's going to be another half a second before the laser beam reaches the target. None of that cares how much power you have available to put into your maneuver drive, because whatever orders you're giving to your maneuver drive are also being plugged into an equation and sent to your turrets as adjustments so your maneuvers won't affect them. Your agility does not offset his, and the agility of an office building at 6G acceleration is of no help whatsoever unless the light speed lag is long enough that it can get out from under the beam before the beam arrives. Otherwise it's just a matter of the beam burning through the wall on the 4th floor instead of the 3rd floor
Gun range: under 5 km. Mostly irrelevant unless some roleplay situation has a ship in low orbit that can't run away fast enough before the planet's grav-AFVs get to it and start shooting at it. Most AFVs can't manage more than 2G, so most ships in orbit can stay out of their effective weapon ranges while being able to shoot up any AFVs foolish enough to pursue. That free trader, though, it's vulnerable.
Visual range: between 5 and about 50 km or so, maybe a bit more if you like. Guns aren't a factor. Spacecraft lasers and energy weapons are at full power. Targeting is by image-enhanced visual sighting, and the range is too close for computers to have much of a say in what's happening. Range is too close for agility to be of any help except to AFVs and craft of about 10 dT or less.
Close range: between about 50 km and 5000 km. Spacecraft lasers and energy weapons are at full power, but other sensors are more involved in sighting and targeting.
Short range: between about 5000 km and 50,000 km. Spacecraft lasers and energy weapons are at half strength, which is the -6 penalty to the damage roll in High Guard. Range is too close for agility to be of any help, though a ship can try to turn and adjust attitude randomly to make the hits come in on angled facings rather than flat on. We might make agility effective against spinal mount weapons by arguing that these weapons have a poorer reaction time than turret weapons since they involve fine control of the entire ship - which has to be accomplished while said ship is also doing everything it can to adjust attitude randomly to take inbound weapon hits on angled facings rather than flat on. The turrets, on the other hand, are free to keep pointing at the target irrespective of changes in the ship's attitude, unless a change takes the target entirely out of the firing arc.
Medium range: between about 50,000 and 150,000 km, what High Guard would call long range. Outside of energy weapon range, but lasers and particle beams remain effective. Lasers are at a -1 to hit. (I wonder why particle beams don't get a penalty too.)
Long range: between 150,000 km and 250,000 km. Outside of meson range. Agility is a factor against turret beam weapons because the light speed lag is high enough that a ship can move out of the way before a light pulse fired by the target reaches it, so random movement can make a ship harder to hit. Lasers are at a -1 to hit.
Very long range: between 250,000 km and 500,000 km. The light speed lag is becoming a serious impediment. Lasers are at a -2 to hit, and agility is doubled except against missiles.
Extreme range: between 500,000 km and 900,000 km. Basically missiles only, unless a target is very cooperative and you are very lucky. Lasers are at a -5 to hit, and agility is tripled except against missiles. Note that military craft have a detection range of 600,000 km, so most such engagements will start at that range.
Rather a lot more ranges, but some interesting potential effects if you adopt it in the abstract game. You can try to hang outside of meson range and duke it out with missiles. If you're a capital ship, close range can be dangerous but you can still reduce the odds of a hit with superior computers, which means only the high-end fighters are a threat and you have a chance to pull back out to short range before the little fighters become a threat. Probably works better with range bands.
