Here's an IDEA.

Okay.

Mayday's scale is 1 hex per light second, and the time scale of the game is about 5 times that of book 2.

I don't like that Mayday gets rid of the Book 2 range/detection limits.

But I like the idea of being able to have maneuver in combat, and have it on a tabletop instead of a basketball court.

What about this:
Intruder movement as per MAYDAY.
Native movement as per MAYDAY.
Missile movement as per MAYDAY, except that instead of single missiles, each counter represents a salvo of missiles; also, missiles maneuver at 6gs maximum, with 6 possible 1Gburns.
Laser fire resolved as per BOOK 2 with the following adjustments:
laser fire to adjacent hexes=no modifiers,
1 hex intervening = -2,
2 hexes intervening =-5
Laser targeting not possible at greater ranges than 3 light seconds
Missile damage as per book 2, except that nuclear missiles do D6*d6 hits.

Whaddayathink? I gotta try this.

ALSO I've been figuring hits using TCS' statistical method, and it's interesting. 

Book 2 military craft should always have their computer maxxed out; they should (according to assumptions in book 5, which work for me) be typically staffed with skill level 2 personnel if they're combat craft. 

What this means is that any military craft should be -5 to hit (Maneuver/Evade 6) and should have a +5 to hit (Predict 3 and gunner interact, skill 2)

Book 2 fighters are awfully limited, but there's that extra ton of space, so swap in a 2/bis and you actually have a fighter that's -5 to hit and, with a laser, +3.  That's still not good enough, so forget the laser and pack missiles. 

SO. Ships of the line hit each other with lasers on 8+ at short range, 10+ at a lightsecond, and  cannot hit with lasers at two light-seconds. Fighters hit with lasers at 10+ at short range, and cannot hit beyond that. 

At 8+, 15 out of 36 shots can be expected to hit on average.

Missiles have an outside range of well beyond book 2 detection ranges in Mayday; for the purposes of this blend, they might just have a 6 light second range which is still well beyond laser range. So any ship getting close to laser range will have to weather missile fire. Not as hard as all that: 7+, and ecm gets all the missiles on a given turn. Laser fire will hit, again, 15 out of 36 shots. So if ECM doesn't work, missiles are SUCH A BITCH.

Note to smoketest: Laser frigates approaching at a superhigh vector, 7+ light seconds a turn. Makes contact and a laser exchange; the next turn, it's away at 12+ light seconds, well out of missile range. Workable?

This all depends on how detection is understood to work. If each side is really blind to each other outside 2 light seconds, then the line between these effective ranges is really very slight.