Even though it would look real great if all ships tried to move and never stopped during combat I don't think it would really work in the long if you wanted to micro your ships during a battle. I am allready struggling trying to mark my bombers or fighters and get them to attack a more important target. Atleast when it comes to getting fighters chase after bombers.

This doesn't mean that moving ships in combat isn't important though. I have several times found myself move ships into a better posistion to deal with a incomming fleet. Getting Missile Frigates "standing" at the correct spot to quickly swap targets to deal with potensial threats. Move the Siege Frigates around so the can approach the planet from a un-defended side.

I have to agree with the OP, it looks way better when the ship reposition themselves for best coverage. Think of the Dervish in Homeworld: Cataclysm. It constantly moves in order to bring its many ion cannons to bear.

It looks kinda stupid in Sins where ships are either moving constantly (small fighters and such) or they're frozen in space (anything bigger pretty much). It just isn't very awesome.

The ships, at least when in fleets, do move around a bit more than before in the internal builds. It takes a bit of getting used to...

agreed. I want my ships to do what I bloody tell them. That means they shouldn't go run circles around the enemy, exposing their flanks and entering fields of fire they shouldn't.

I just want fighters visible from further away, it would create greater feeling of movement

I think the only practical method of adding a lot of movement to fights would be reinventing frigates so they fly more like fighters. But that would be rather confusing and hard to control.

Yes but if every ship is moving wont this put extra unneeded strain on your system

I would think that the size (in terms of targeting) and mass (in terms of inertia) would make evasive maneuvers for most if not all of the non-fighter ships in this game impractical.

small is pretty big out here, isn't it? ./yogi berra

Frigates do move around more now than in the Betas. It would probably be comical to mod in fighter movements to them...can't imagine the pathfinding resolution on that one.   

P5y, I have been watching and rewatching the Xplay video a lot lately, and there does seem to be some drift in the Gamma version. Ships slightly jostling for position and whatnot.

I agree wth you a little, at least in regards to cap ships, I wouldn't mind seeing their side guns given a smaller firing arc to encourage the AI to use more "broadsiding" sorts of movement, but not if it means fleet formations go to hell.

Ok ppl lets replace it in the Newtonian context. In space there is no drag force (matter of fact there is and it is called universel gravitation but in case of sublight speed there is no impact).

So let's assume that you want to move your ship forward. All you have to do is to give it a little impulsion and the ship will start to move in the opposit direction of the impulsion. Unless you fire up retro thrusters it will continue to move indefinetly in same direction. So you are a captain of the ship and you reached designated coordinates givenn by admiral.

What do you do ????

You order all machines stop and therefor you fire up your retro thrusters just enough to compansate inertia creadted by previous movement.

You are not going to drift because that will mean that you are breaking up from your position in formation.

Now if you judge by Navy Battles on Earth you can tell me : "But ships during those battles are in constant movement"

That is true but it is true for another reason. Water offers some pretty high resistence and in order words for a 56 000 metric tone ship to defeated such resistence an enormous quantity of energy is needed. However you all know that ship's fuel storage is quite limited unless it uses nuclear powerplant as main propulsion. So playing it with stop and go would have depleated its fuel pretty quick.

Another reason why modern navy ships are not immobile during engagement is because of force composition. Since 1942 a new era has seen the day in naval warfare. It is an advent of task forces. Before 1942 everything was centred around battleships but now everything is constructed around carriers.

A typical task force in the US Nay is composed of destroyers, frigates, missle cruisers and submarines with the carrier in the middle. In orderd for carrier to launch and receive airplanes it has to change its course and go into wind. An entire task force is moving with it because an entire taskforce is there just to protect the carrier. Carrier doesn't stop they don't stop.
Aegis defense system was developped to defend taskforce from attacks because it is impossible to apply evasive manoeuvers to such force and even if it was possible anti-ship missiles are travelling at almost twice the speed of sound.

But if the scale of frigates and cruisers is increased, then the capitals become comparatively smaller, and lose their "Hey, this really is a big ship" feel, too.