I noticed a while ago that the auto fire option you have for your turret groups doesn't actually do anything. At least it seems so, since I would guess that an autofiring turret acts on it's own, searching for targets in range and attack them.
If that's not how they are supposed to work, I don't have a clue how they should work otherwise.

I'm just assuming they should work like I said, searching for and firing at targets without player input. In this case I would like to propose a feature: Let the player decide what kind of ships which turret group should attack first, a target priority list. Some weapons are better suited for targeting some ship classes than others and because of that it would be very convenient to have such a priority list for auto firing turrets. Having that list build into the design would allow for specialized designs and capable self-made fleets which could attack your enemies making smart use of their weaponry instead of blasting all they have at one target.

Example: I'm flying a flagship class ship with every possible upgrade and a nearly impenetrable shield. I'm a behemoth. And then there are this pesky little fighters, frigates and what not, which can't do anything against me, but keep flying around me, while I take care of the bigger ships, more worthy of the attention of my primary guns. But I have those two missile groups ready on my backside, just waiting to shoot their load and pulverize the little buggers. Now it would be very nice if those turrets would be able to autofire and even nicer if these turrets would prefer to shoot the fighters instead of shooting the big carrier which happens to be in range too. And if that behavior would be built into the design, so AI controlled ships would use those defined turret groups in the same fashion, it would give combat strategy and new depth.

Any thoughts on this from others?