[Fyron]

Unless I am horribly mistaken, the repair priority list is definitely followed. Repair order by ship, not by component. A ship with a damaged component of the hihgest priority will be repaired first. The entire ship will be repaired though, not just the component. So if you have engines as the highest priority, pretty much any ship with damaged engines can be repaired first. If there are multiple ships that are candidates for repair, the order of construction then comes into play. The first constructed of these ships will be repaired first.

Incidentally, order of constructin is a very prevelant method used in SE4. You can see this in any screen with an unsorted list, such as the fleet joining screen.