[President_Elect_Shang]

Damage to a ship is random given the following:

All components are of equal size and tonnage structure.
No components have the armor (or any variation of the) ability.
Each hit will destroy one component.

So assuming a ship with say ten components and using the above, the order of damage is random. If you notice your ships are getting pounded from right to left (most of the time) than I bet you have mostly armor ability or larger components on the right too.