Waypoints have been suggested before, but a SINGLE waypoint should be easy. Set a point on the map for your ships to rally to, and they fly there in a straight line. When they reach it, they behave as if an escorted ship was nuked, and go about their business.
Not a bad idea. I do have some deployments where I start with all ships clustered semi-tightly together - a task force - with the idea that they should stay at least mostly together (assuming roughly equivalent speeds) until the real shooting starts. Obviously, it never quite works that way, and since I don’t want to use the Formation or Escort orders (since I am addicted to skirmisher-style ships that require the Keep Moving order to be even remotely effective), I have no way to really execute the strategy as conceived.
A simple waypoint order would help with this, plus it would have its drawbacks as well (all the enemy’s engagement fighters come to one spot, like pirates hitting a convoy), which I think encourages strategic and tactical thinking.
It seems a bit too specific considering that we play on blind posted challenges.
I have maps I play with offline that are 8192x8192. I also have longer ranges in as a mod.
I made an “anchor” ship that I put on the extreme north of the map, then set a bunch of EDF cruisers to “escort” that anchor 8000 range units away. My attacking ships were just set using normal GSB orders. The EDF cruisers (spread in a N-S line about a ship length apart) turned north, then drove to their charge (at nice, slow cruiser speed) in a “line ahead” formation. Looked cool when they fired their turrets at what was effectively a 90 degree angle broadside. It also nicely confused the enemy (which in this case was me, lol).
So it could be useful in a blind challenge.
A perpendicular movement would in fact be pretty common, IMO, since the alternative is for your ships to head right at the nearest enemy.