Attacking a station

[dcarver]

Do we not have access to the same orders as the computer AI?

I notice when the computer attacks a station, they attack from range. When I attack they fly as close as possible.

From my experience the player is expected to micromanage, which is fine although I can't do that with more then one ship due to the scripts. Basically my ships don't go to where I tell them, they still fly into stations, or don't get in range... but mostly they fly into the station and there is not enough time to turn around... and if I tell them to move farther away it takes way to long and the location they move to is not accurate enough.

[LameFox]

I have heard this is related to pilot skill, and that higher skill makes them attack from further (e.g. using destroyer main guns) though the game itself is very unclear about what skills actually do.

[GCU Grey Area]

Generally find it's best to tell each ship where to go before commencing their attack, so they can form up in a firing line at an appropriate distance from the target. To do this I shift-select all my destroyers as a group, give them the attack order, then click on each ship's order line & drag it to a new position. This inserts an fly to order in each ship's order queue & creates the firing line. This is a typical example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qclmezr2k6su ... 1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9hhsev4mwb8c8 ... 1.jpg?dl=0

[Shepp]

How are your turrets configured? I have had pretty good luck with putting Plasma Cannons on the L turrets (They are nearly the range of your main guns), with the "Attack Capitals" and then setting the M turrets to "Attack Fighters". This typically results in my destroyers attacking from range. Otherwise, they try to get in close so all of the turrets are in range of the target.

[Karmaticdamage]

its a lot easier to just park L plasma destroyers around a station. Don't tell them to attack, let them just sit there and and turrets will do the work. Set their behavior to ignore attacks so they continue to just sit there if attacked by drones. M turrets should be ARG M flak or ARG M pulse to deal with defense drones.