The group that I'm involved with has made some changes to the movement system which we think is more accurate and fair for the game.
Turn Sequence
1) Place special orders (hidden)
2) Roll for initiative, high decides who goes first.
2a) The first player moves all his ships.
2b) The second player moves all his ships
3) Firing is done and considered simultaneous
4) Players write down secretly what ordnance they are using and what the target is. This
prevents a player from launching bombers and the opponet saying "oh yeah I launch
fighters at the bombers".
Eldars ships then move at the end.
5) End phase.
We made these changes because the concept of ship A moves and fires and B moves and fires is an awkward system. Even Andy Chambers in the Designer Notes said the system is clunky but useful for record keeping. To mine and my friends perspective though naval combat has always been one of constant motion never is any other naval system from ancients to WWII do one fleet move at a time, its simple unrealistic so to impose such a system to "Advanced" ships is even more so.
Andy Chambers' Thoughts:
Am I missing something here, or is 2a/2b one player moves all his ships? This means this turn sequence just makes firing and ordnance simultaneous (as per Epic40K) movement still alternates in block-player turns. I like Darren's suggestion on using Leadership for intiative in movement, but it creates a huge advantage for high LD vessels which would need to be reflected through points increases (think of the poor Orks!). Ultimately the only way to get truly simultaneous movement is to pre-plot moves, for which you need lots of scrap paper and lots (and lots) of patience, as anyone who's played SFB can testify. The fact is pre-plotting, like any kind of record keeping really slows down the game (the worst crime in the multiverse in my book) and puts an upper limit on the number of units you can handle.
Without pre-plotting the effect of move/countermove created by an alternating turn sequence is unavoidable, the only thing you get to tweak is how many vessels move or countermove - it could be individual ships or squadrons (like in the earlier versions of Space Marine/Titan Legions) or whole fleets at a time as in Gothic. I've found in practise that letting the whole fleet move together tends to encourage a more focussed overall strategy. In a game where you move a ship, then your opponent moves a ship, then you move another ship it gets very easy to get distracted from having any kind of a plan because you get sucked into responding to your opponents moves. I'll be really intrigued to see a turn sequence that works differently but doesn't put somebody at a disadvantage.