Jet - Resolution between to ships with the same initiative is random.

Assignment - after talking about it internally a bit more we'll most likely do a priority list where each ship type has it's own set of priorities for which ships to attack first. In the event of there being more than one of the highest priority ship the attacker will choose the one that's taken the most damage.

Supamand -
1 - If the battle is at the sun or empty space no one receives an initiative bonus.

2 - Probably at some point but not necessarily right away.

3 - That depends on how elaborate Zark / Tsagoth want to get but I'm arguing for keeping it simple in which case they take turns. My initial thought for order is that visitors fight first (determined randomly if there's more than one player with ships at that planet who are at war with the new comer.) and if the new comer survives that then they fight the planet owner. My reasoning for that is the assumption that if you've got peaceful ships hanging out at your planet that belong to someone else it's because they're an ally who's there to help protect your planet. It would also suck if the planet owner lost and then the former planet owner's friend had to then fight the planet.

4 - See the comment to Jet above about target assignment.

5 - We haven't decided yet but my current thought is that Planets and Super Capital Class ships have high ATK but an ATKSPD of 1.

6 - My current thought is that the planet's DEF (which is linked to population) is fully restored if it survives the battle. It's ATK is the same as any other ship although pretty high and attackers can't target the planet until everything else has been cleared away.

7 - The main incentive for victory is to claim or protect territory. I'm not opposed to a co/ro bonus but I'd have to think about the balance implications a bit more. It would certainly be a boon for more aggressive players and I could see it being a Warlord specific trait. My main fear is that in a game like this there's already plenty of motivation to be aggressive so adding more might push things into the realm of that being viewed as the only viable option.

8 - More likely there would be a stealth check each round (compare the two players knowledge of stealth tech and then roll a die), if the attacker fails then they cannot target the stealth orbital that round. In the case of stealth ships and initiative bonus probably makes more sense since entering combat pulls them out of stealth.

ATKSPD - The number of attacks that ship has per round. If a ship has an ATKSPD of 4 and there's only one available target it will attack that target 4 times. If an attacker has 4 attacks and kills it's current target after 2 attacks it then moves onto the next priority target.

On initiative - I personally enjoy some randomness because it's more true to life. (someone wins against the odds due to mistakes made by the other side, inopportune equipment malfunction, etc..) It's important to note that initiative is determined - per ship - not per player so that reduces the odds that your example would happen. Also ships will have a base initiative value as well so that adds some additional weighting to the scenario as well.

That said I could see reducing the range of the random initiative to say 1-10 if 1-20 just winds up feeling too random or even pulling it out if it's something that drives everyone nuts.