[Bug?] Keep moving order

I’m not entirely sure where to put this, but as it’s related to the new keep moving order and as it seems like aberrant behaviour then I’ll post it here, sorry if it’s the wrong place. I’ve been playing around with the idea of Fast Frigates, particularly missile boats and I’ve found some slightly annoying behaviour with the new keep moving order.

My shiny new missile frigates, despite being set to max range on their fast missiles (1100 units) and to keep moving don’t interpret this as a harassment order but plow on straight into the depths of the enemy armada. Now, they’re nice and fast at .88 and a lot of the lasers miss, but to get that speed I’ve had to ditch a whole load of shields and other nice things to keep them alive and they don’t really survive all that long. Which makes me cry.

Cut short: the keep moving order doesn’t currently seem to tell the ships to try to stay at the intended range.

I’ve noticed this too
Maybe there needs to be a circle strafe order to remain at set range from target

Ships ordered to keep moving should keep a minimum distance from their current target, and currently that is hard coded as being half their engagement range.
So say a frigate is set to attack cruisers at range 600
If further than 600 it will get closer
If closer than 300 it will back away
If between those two ranges it will find random positions near itself to meander between whilst maintaining that sort of distance.

However…
This is applicable to that target. the ship will not take evasive action if a totally different enemy ship gets in close. It’s possible for ships that ‘keep moving’ to drift closer to some parts of the enemy fleet than you would like. I suggest a very cautious ‘cautious’ order for them to encourage them to run away if damaged.

Thanks Cliffski, that’s very useful. At the very least, I can increase the engagement radius to try and make sure that they don’t get too close. I’ve actually had more luck with fast cruisers: they’ve got the armour and shields to take a beating and still get away again.