Posted by: nuclearslurpee
« on: March 29, 2023, 12:01:16 PM »The problem is that if the parent fleet is not moving, and a hostile bearing target isn't visible, the escorts return to 0 distance from the anchor fleet.
I would honestly consider this a bug and hope that Steve will fix it. This is also a hindrance if you want to use survey carriers and parasites, since if you assign the carrier as the anchor fleet for survey parasites, they will fly back to the carrier instead of continuing the survey. Frankly, escorts in formation around a stationary anchor point should have no reason to change position by default.
Well, if you're not moving, why would you need to be in formation? Why not just move the scout ships to where you want them and toggle off anchor fleet until you're underway again? If you want to have them be in a certain direction from the carrier, you can use waypoints to direct them and then use the move-to with a minimum distance from the carrier (or just use the waypoints themselves and estimate with shift-click or something).
I agree with OP's counter-argument that "ignore the feature and micromanage" is a poor rejoinder. However, even so, what you suggest is not actually really doable as we do not have any other tools for setting up these kinds of formations even manually. Waypoints can come close, this is true, but if for example I want to set up a sensor net around my fleet I have no way to tell each sensor vessel to fly to a position X distance away at Y bearing (the Follow order does not allow for a specified bearing AFAIK). Even with waypoints there is no way to set exact relative positioning outside of the formation/escorts system, so there will inevitably be gaps in the network due to human error in positioning with any other way.