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[Torch]

I`m currently struggling to get all of my ships to actually do what I want them to do. I've tried several different strategies, but the Eliminate command makes my ships suicidal, Avoid makes them stay so far away from the dangerous ships that they can't attack anything anywhere near it, and whenever I assign a ship to escort, it either kills itself by bravely face-tanking everything or stays too far behind the ship it's escorting to have any weapons on target. Am I using the commands wrong?

The one thing that I really REALLY want to use the Command Interface for is to create a main battlegroup comprised of me in a capital/cruiser carrier, 2 dedicated PD/Support frigates, a long range beam destroyer, and maybe a dedicated missile boat too - basically a well rounded squad that has all bases covered that I can use to lead an engagement while the rest of my fleet keeps the enemy busy. Is this possible to do with the current AI?

[Wyvern]

Yeah, this sounds pretty common; escort, in particular, is treated as "protect with your life" rather than "stay near and support".

I've ended up using 'rally task force' commands a lot - you can click on some empty space somewhere.  Does tie your fleet to a location, which can be less than ideal, but it's a better "hey, stay together and don't go running off on your own" option than escort is.  Often I'll do this staggered, with one or two groupings for frontline ships, and then another further back for carriers.

[Torch]

So should I be using those commands at all? Because it seems that my fleet manages alright without orders, but is just too passive without them.

[Wyvern]

Because it seems that my fleet manages alright without orders...

The AI is pretty good at surviving.  Usually.  As long as it doesn't have burn drive or other forced-forward-movement mobility options.  Even so, it's relatively easy for one or two ships to get themselves separated, surrounded, and killed, if you don't have -something- set up to pull ships back towards the group.

...but is just too passive without them.

This, actually, is intended - what you're seeing here isn't passive play so much as it is defensive play; the 'steady' AI will always pick the safe option over the risk-taking option.  Which can be frustrating, yes, when the AI backs off from a target you were sure it could have killed... but it also makes it much less likely for you to take casualties in battle.

That said, you can go to fleet doctrine (hit 'd' and tab over to it) and set aggressive or even reckless behavior as the default.  Might be more your style.  Worth a try.  (Note: this won't change the behavior of ships with officers, just those without.)

[SCC]

Setting two assault/guard orders a that are spaced a bit seems to give good results to me. Most importantly, it reduces the chances of destroyers and frigates trapping themselves in front of bigger ships.

[Torch]

That said, you can go to fleet doctrine (hit 'd' and tab over to it) and set aggressive or even reckless behavior...

Does this apply to ships in my own fleet, or only to fleets controlled by my faction, like patrols?

[Wyvern]

That said, you can go to fleet doctrine (hit 'd' and tab over to it) and set aggressive or even reckless behavior...

Does this apply to ships in my own fleet, or only to fleets controlled by my faction, like patrols?

It applies to ships in your fleet that don't have officers; it also applies to faction fleets.

[Thaago]

You can make group assignments by selecting however many ships you want in it and pressing "ctr + number". The numbers then let you quick select the groups (including in deployment!). I like to use this for making my carriers a group and setting a rally point for them with right click. I will often do this a ways behind the rally point(s) for my main fleet (for a large fleet of my own I'll put 2 defend orders and 1 carrier rally order in an inverted triangle. Works well at keeping things grouped.

In your case you could assign each balanced squad to its own group, then assign each group to its own rally point. Be aware though that if the group gets swarmed, it will probably separate out into its individual members. Pretty much as a rule carriers, missile ships, and long ranged support does best when there are some frontline "brawling" ships to soak up the enemy attention.

For escorts: I usually find that frigates makes poor escorts because they rely on movement to get out of trouble, and escorts are chained to the flag ship. Its really easy for a frigate escorting a cruiser or battleship to die. However, I've found that destroyers, especially tough ones, make good escorts: the best use of Enforcers that I've found is as carrier or cruiser escorts. They stink as independent ships but are nice flak/missile support platforms, and are so slow that they won't run ahead of their assignment. For battleships, cruisers or even another battleship make for good partners.

For the eliminate command: This will make the assigned ships "go for it"... so its really important to both be careful in making the assignment, and also in removing the assignment. The AI likes to retreat its fluxed up/damaged ships behind fresh allies (as I'm sure you've noticed) - at that point I usually remove the eliminate command as a failed order.
Eliminate can be really useful when you notice an enemy that has fallen out of formation, or when there is a matchup going on that you know your ship can win if it would only get over itself and shoot. About half the eliminate commands I use are against enemy frigates to get my own frigates to fight - the other half are on stragglers and/or flimsy carriers.

Avoid is very powerful in keeping your ships out of trouble from a killer enemy, but as you've noticed its got a really wide radius. I will use avoids on an enemy cap while my fleet takes out escorts. Typically I will engage the ship myself in something mobile like a destroyer to draw its fire and push up its flux, then flip the "avoid" to "eliminate". With a bit of luck the capital will be out of flux and out of position for the ensuing strikes.

[Vind]

Problem with orders - AI will chase targets into the blob and die horribly. Either you babysit orders each minute or so or they will get your allied ships killed. Target not marked as eliminate target ignored by AI so if you want them to survive mark all nearby targets so AI wont drive ram into some enemy ship. Officers and reinforced bulkheads on rest of the fleet - best solution for AI at the moment as it will lose ships in pretty dumb ways.

[StarGibbon]

You can get pretty far in most engagements with a simple buddy system--making sure that everyone is guarding someone else so they dont go flying off on their own initiative. Carriers are good anchors for this as they need to be protected anyway, and dont tend to go charging in (most of the time--I've got a Drover that is pretty ornery even with a cautions pilot). Then its up to you as the player to see where your attention is needed. With the exception of fighter strikes, I don't tend to use direct attack orders until the enemy fleet has been thinned considerably, and it's no longer necessary to blob up so much. I rarely bother with anything else in the command layer, so it's possible im missing out.