Absolutely impossible. nope

Rules of battle dictate that two enemy ships with the same ini and same weight will each have 50% chance to fire first (nope, this only describes ships with identical battle orders). This is decided randomly and last the entire battle (and does not have as great an effect as battle orders).

If both ships are the same then battle orders cannot affect who fire first because of tech advantage or because of "battle dancing". No, you are wrong. Battle orders determine movement, and therefore who is in range at time to fire.
Thus, as soon as both ships will be in range at the end of a given turn, they will be randomly assigned their order for the whole battle (again, only when same orders given).

Some details can weight the balance in a way or another so it is more likely for the lightest ship to fire first. (not what I describe when I say identical ships)
But assuming that both ships are identical, the % chance is 50%. (nope. not even close)

neilhoward wrote on Tue, 24 July 2012 20:08

2) Beamer ships with standard beams (all the same range) shoot first twice as often with Maximize Damage Ratio (when two races present).

If it'd happened on every attempt I'd say there's something to it, but I really suspect that this is random variance - especially since there's no known battle-guts mechanism that would be involved, and if there was, it'd be an unintended bug.