I find this a bit frustrating ... the big advantage of missiles is supposed to be their weapon range, but often I find my missile-focused ships starting out in combat within beam or even kinetic range of enemy ships, which eliminates that one advantage of missiles.
I propose in some future update that any ship that has missiles equipped should never start out in combat closer than its maximum missile range (shouldn't be fixed to default missile range, but should take its range boosts into account).