I got a new ship, a pretty kick butt one but when I approach an enemy, my weapons don't automatically fire anymore at ships within range. In fact, I can be firing on one, it'll get bowed up good but I won't be able to fire on another for a while. There doesn't seem to be any cooling down of any kind. Just won't fire.

I'd like to be able to have the ship fire automatically at enemies within range (that I can see on screen) like I was able to before.

Thanks in advance for your help

(Maybe it was the respec I did...)

Have you checked your settings in options? It could be that they were reset when you got your new ship.

Right click on the weapon icons (next to the skills tray or on the skills tray if you have them there) they will turn green, this means auto fire has been activated. Without it you have to mash space bar alot . . like back in the day . .

One annoying thing I've noticed lately is that my autofire just turns off in the middle of a fight. Well, autofire is still green, but I stop firing. And then I have to hit my fire button again in order to get it to fire again.

This has only been happening since this weekend.

If in any way you break the lock on the enemy, no matter how briefly, the autoshoot will end and you have to re-initiate it. Very annoying in intense space battles.

That's only if you have it set to 'Toggle, change cancels'. If you go into your Options / Controls, you can change it to 'Toggle, never cancels', 'Toggle, never cancels', 'Toggle, non-combat cancels', or 'Maintain' to prevent that.