Manually-ordered "Flee" largely unresponsive?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I'm at the "Fleet" stage of the game, where my large-ish fleets are fending off enemy fleets. If I'm with the fleet myself - riding along on the lead ship for example - I will micro-manage to a degree. I.e. I see a Destroyer taking a pounding but not being smart enough to withdraw on its own, I'll directly order it to flee. This used to be a ship-saving tactic. However, as I've progressed in a fresh v7.6 game, manually-ordered Flee seems to be more a suggestion than an order. Time after time after time, I'm ordering a damaged Destroyer (for example) to "Flee" when they're in direct danger, and they don't. They show they're withdrawing from battle, but they're not. They're still just pottering along, doing EXACTLY what they were doing before.

If the ship survives, they can be seen eventually boosting away, perhaps getting to engage travel drives. However, when it's a Xenon I bringing the hurt, my Split-themed Fleet - Rattlesnake Destroyers - just don't stand a chance. They DON'T use their speed and manoeuvrability advantage, because they're NOT fleeing as ordered.

During the Beta for v7.6, I'm pretty sure manually-ordered "Flee" on Destroyer-class ships was pretty responsive. However, I'm not seeing that in the release version.

The Rattlesnake in this example isn't even turning away in (one would assume) preparation to get out of the I's range. Though, that said, flying straight ahead would be fine... if it just boosted. Nope, it's just pottering along, actually slowly approaching the Xenon I, as it was before I issued the Flee order was issued. It did, eventually, boost. It DIDN'T change vector before doing so. It just boosted fast passing close by the Xenon I. A valid manoeuvre, just far far too late. It was escaping, but it simply did not have enough hull left to survive. A couple of shots from the I and it was dead. Reload. Note: Engines were NOT damaged and were working at full performance, it'd been facing the I previously, engines not exposed to fire.

Question: what impact does Captain / Crew level have on a manually-ordered Flee have, if any? Captain is 1 and 2/3rd Stars (5 points raw) in Piloting. Crew ranges from 1 to 2 Stars, but the average is on the higher end of that.

Note: in the past I've seen ships spending too long faffing around, one assumes trying to get the perfect escape vector before actually moving. Admirable to think about where to flee of course, however, quite often, just hitting boost and worrying about heading later is the best option. My ships seems to have done that, BUT it still took it too long from when the order was given to when it actually started boosting. A couple of minutes was all it took for it to become heavily damaged.

Well, that's annoying. I made a save from before the Xenon I encounter. I load it, and the ship I'm on - the Rattlesnake in question - INSTANTLY explodes? What the Fudge? I think the save must have gotten corrupted somehow, as I was NOT in an exploding ship when I made it. Deleted, I've reverted to a slightly older save. Xenon I has arrived, but fleet isn't fully engaged yet.

Edit: I've tried this a couple of times now. Sometimes the ship boosts within a few seconds (good) but then almost immediately aborts boost. It's still "withdrawing from battle" but it's stopped boosting. It'll then boost again, abort, before finally sustaining a boost, but it's just too late. So, this is very random. From boosting almost right away once Flee is ordered, but aborting a second or so later, to being unresponsive for a minute before boosting. As before, ship's engines are NOT damaged.

Note 2: Due to allied (ZYA) forces camping the gate to the sector, the Xenon I teleported about 18km from the gate - thanks collision avoidance - totally skipping that fleet and landing right in the middle of mine. Didn't notice that the first time around! As a result, my fleet is caught out and the Xenon I teleported in and started shooting instantly. Dirty trick lol.

Edit 2: As an additional test, I issued the Flee order the instant the Rattlesnake was first hit. Maximum opportunity to get out of there. Didn't even try, showed "Withdraw from Battle" but in fact actively shot the target with its main guns. So, it moved to FACE the target fully. In prior attempts, it'd not once used it's main guns.

I'm over testing this scenario now, ship lost, replacements queued. The rest of the fleet are owning that Xenon I. The other Rattlesnakes are engaged, almost exclusively with Turret though, not main guns due to how the Xenon teleport in so close. Plus Bombard Fighters (Plasma) are on their way too - I expect to lose a number of those.