Ah I may have miscounted, it was a large bounty fleet, only 40 units there.
Ah, ok. That's more within the bounds of possibility; would've been surprised to see 50+.
But in the mean time, is it possible to disable the fleet limit at the moment and how? And would that brake the saves?
Pretty sure you already got your reply in the modding thread, but, yeah - there's a value in settings.json - maxShipsInFleet.
Why was a hard limit of 25 implemented?
The logistics system was pretty much a textbook example of something way, way overcomplex for the job it was intended to do (and wasn't really doing). That's probably a longer discussion, though.
Anyway, the limit is there mostly for UI reasons. It's not intended to be something you bump into regularly; if you do and it bothers you, that setting is there.
There does seem to be a bit of an issue with the limit for fighter-based fleets, though. It's not the only issue with fighters right now (though they're still viable, afaik), so I'll be sure to look at it at *some point*.
The AI is a cheater!
I understand the sentiment about having an even playing field, and feel strongly about it myself, but also really, really, don't see this as running counter to that in any meaningful way. It's not functionally any different from the AI having two fleets following each other and always joining in each other's battles. Well, that's not true - two fleets doing that would actually be stronger because they'd have more officers.
... so, I suppose, the AI has the deck stacked against it if it has a >25 fleet. Fair point!