I just got this game, and noticing weapons systems placement, I can equip a ship with lasers and blasters, but the ships won’t always move into blaster range. Is this a bug, or did the blasters happen to go offline? Also, the damage inflicted on ships doesn’t seem to tally up in the % on either side: rather its deducted as ships are destroyed; a moving indicator might work best to show true effectiveness of design and repair ability.
Check the orders you gave the ship to see if you established a distance too far for those blasters.
The distance automatically set for a ship with lasers and blasters is, sometimes, between both, which places the ship just outside blaster range.