1.32, Ships, and the Expanding Map

[LameFox]

So I've noticed something after the 1.32 patch. It seems like if I point my ship outward, turn on travel drive and let it go, it really doesn't matter how far I fly or which direction I pick, I keep on running into small pockets of AI ships out here. At first I thought they were leading me to something like an anomaly, using it as a hidden jumpgate, but I don't think that's true. If it was, they wouldn't just appear in any random direction. I don't think they'd be in clusters, either. When I try scanning them, they're flying to random places around the universe, far-off systems which give them no reason to come out here. I land on them, just in case, and all they do is fly inwards. They nearly always spawn in groups with some of the guaranteed hostiles, and fight each other. They are often miners and their escorts, but they carry no cargo, and there hasn't been anything out here to mine for a very, very long way.

Are these ships really built at shipyards? It certainly seems like there are a lot more of them after the patch. Then how do they get here? I never see hordes of ships fly into a system and disappear off the edges. I stop, over and over, to ping the scanner, but I've never found an anomaly. Only ships. Does the game just take them from their shipyard and fling them out here, without them having to fly by themselves? Is that why they're always making their way back into the world? Or does it pool them up and drop them in front of me in these little mixed clusters, so that I think there's something going on out here? The intervals seem strangely regular.

The map grid is invisible now, except for the faint red circle of minerals in the centre of the sector. The line I've left in the fog of war isn't any thicker than a highway. There are still ships.

UPDATE:

I've broken the map now. It no longer expands, I am under the next sector, inside the last sector. There are still ships.

[niksenior]

I think this mod stops that.

viewtopic.php?f=181&t=406600

[LameFox]

I don't want to install any mods until the game is a bit more stable/complete, but I think I'll bookmark that one. What a strange and artificial experience these 'encounters' are.