Id love to see an auto-dock feature for the carriers so the whole area doesnt get cluttered with fighters, and it adds a little more plausibility to carriers...not to mention how its kinda not right how i see them kinda teleport out with the carriers when they jump out during a fight...they should start the docking a lot earlier
Fighters do begin to autodock as soon as you give their carrier a jump order, AFAIK. As you note, if they don't make it in time for whatever reason they'll get 'pulled' along regardless. But unless the carrier is right by the phase lane already, there should be enough time for the fighters to at least get pretty near them so they don't get pulled from the middle of the system, or something like that.
Doesn't work that way when enemies are in-system... I can't count the number of times I've flown a carrier force "through" a star, only to have the fighters hare off after enemy trade vessels.
i know, but what id like to see is the fighters only come out when there is an enemy nearby. That way when in trying to organize my fleets and shuffle things around in-system it reduces the clutter involved...This is also especially true with the hangars when u have fighters just sitting outside of it for eternity, it just doesnt seem quite right, and would also add to the epic feel of it to see all of your fighters launching to deal with a threat rather than see then already sitting out just waiting..and waiting...and waiting....
Just a point, but why not select and then MOVE the fighters to an advantageous position? For example, I frequently sit my fighters either right on top of a jump point the enemy is coming throug, between the two jump points he's coming in from, or (in cases where the AI is "running the blockade" with civvies / singletons) right in the AI's path sometimes.
