First shooting is not really a problem due to shield regeneration. Check some different setups and you will see that it matters more which shield breaks first which depends on formation and setup.
If you have equal numbers then losses are dramatic indeed. With bigger and more diverse fleets the losses are spread out more.
You can be active as defender and use self support. With self support you will have an advantage as defender as you can influence the match-up. I think it is fine that defenders which are not active have a small disadvantage.
Yes. It is a game and it is not realistic but we need to simplify it as no one can manage 3D fights with multiple ships in a web browser.
Happy to hear your constructive improvement suggestions that are realistic to implement. (Unfortunately we will not be able to implement 3D fights in virtual realty. ;-)
With 3D I didn't mean you to implement 3D graphics, ofc. I just meant that even with a number-based game, a line vs line setup is not really what one would expect if thinking about star-wars-like battles.
As for the setups, it might be ok with more ship types involved, but still, if 100 corvettes fight vs 100 corvettes, the attacker should not just lose 11 of them and win so dramatically.
As said, I have quite a few suggestions how to get around this.
I am very interested in your post and your ideas. Thank you very much for your constructive feedback. I disclaimer upfront: we need to consider also the complexity of any potential idea for our code.
Honestly, I would be happy for 3D mode. I think 3D will increase interest in space exploration, if you can explore space in 6 directions. What about the idea isometric view?