So exactly how fiddly is placing an Astral gate exactly? Cuz sometimes it gets put down where I am......but most days it gets shunted off into the worst possible position: out beyond the oort cloud of the star and as far as possible away from a jump node. And there doesnt seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which result i actually get.
It tries to place the Astral gate at a location near to the player where a stable location could potentially exist. After playing the game for a while, you'll have a feel for where stable locations typically exist and where they don't, so you can choose a spot likely to have a valid spawn location near your fleet. If it spawns somewhere you don't like, then just reload the save.
I suppose. I'm more wondering at the fact that EVERY time it doesnt place the gate at my location it shuffles it out to the system's edge. If it was seeking stable locations, you'd think it would occasionally get shunted closer to the star.