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[Vundaex]

Additionally, I would like to suggest that players be able to manually position their ships in the fleet according to their preferences.
When players get large fleets with multiple large capital ships and cruisers, reorganizing the fleet is a slow and dangerous process, as large ships tend to collide with surrounding ships.

[DirectionsToL3Please]

I am now wondering whether reckless officers just ignore orders completely, making them useless to me.

Yes.  Realistically you want most of your officers to be Aggressive, with perhaps a couple Steady officers for manning carriers and/or missile boats. Reckless and Timid officers are unmanageable, and Cautious officers are inefficient.

[Vundaex]

I am now wondering whether reckless officers just ignore orders completely, making them useless to me.

Yes.  Realistically you want most of your officers to be Aggressive, with perhaps a couple Steady officers for manning carriers and/or missile boats. Reckless and Timid officers are unmanageable, and Cautious officers are inefficient.

Then there is only one kind of officer that is relevant?

[Vundaex]

Another example of a large ship struggling with pathfinding.
It's just standing in the back line doing nothing as the arrow keeps moving in all directions. The ship is unable to join in the fighting, so it just stands there doing nothing.
https://imgur.com/a/5y1aDol

[Thaago]

I don't suppose you could share the full screenshot, or screenshots of a couple different points in time? Arrows of that color are from either right click commands or 'search and destroy' in my experience (is there another way that color gets assigned? I'm away from the game right now.) They almost always point towards the objective that the AI is assigned to, even if its having trouble/refusing to actually follow the order. That tells me that either this unit has been assigned to an objective in the bottom of the screen we can't see, or that its on 'search and destroy' mode.

If its on 'search and destroy' mode, then its going to ignore all regular commands - I've noticed some funny behavior in that mode as well where they don't always go towards the main bulk of the enemy, and I sometimes wonder if in that mode there is some sort of issue where they only consider their own sight radius instead of all the map exposed by allies as well, or if there is some sort of 'exploration' imperative? The sight radius thing might explain this screenshot, as I don't think any enemy are in range of its own sight. I honestly don't use the mode very much but I wonder if there is a bug with it.

[Edit]
Re: officer personalities, I think three are relevant. 'Aggressive' is the standard type of officer for good AI performance on ships that you want to fly towards and attack the enemy, but still be reasonably careful. Full Assault on top of aggressive produces good results imo as then they will start freely spending missiles.

'Reckless' is a specialty tool for ship that you want to, well, recklessly attack the enemy. SO ships, big armored bowling ball distractions, etc. Just be aware that because the ships will charge in, if there isn't enough aggressive/reckless support to help them they'll just die, so if going for one reckless its often best to have some more so they all attack together. Or just have an Onslaught be Reckless and let the aggressive rest of the fleet take advantage of the opportunities it creates (with orders from the player to help guide them in.

'Steady' is also relevant for ships that need to be careful and stay away from situations where they are outmatched. Carriers, overfiring missile ships, fragile but fast frigates that are disctractors, dedicated kiting ships (artillery sunders, ion wolves, hvd vigilances maybe even gauss conquests though aggressive is fine on them).

Neither cautious or timid are useful, though at least a found cautious officer can be retrained into steady.

[Megas]

even gauss conquests though aggressive is fine on them.

If Conquest is Aggressive, then it cannot have shorter-ranged PD weapons or else itself it will drive closer to PD weapon range, which defeats the point of Gauss.  If I need PD on Gauss Conquest but do not have a Steady officer (because all are Aggressive), then either Converted Hangar: Xyphos or mass Tactical Lasers with IPDAI and other range boosters are the only options.

[Thaago]

even gauss conquests though aggressive is fine on them.

If Conquest is Aggressive, then it cannot have shorter-ranged PD weapons or else itself it will drive closer to PD weapon range, which defeats the point of Gauss.  If I need PD on Gauss Conquest but do not have a Steady officer (because all are Aggressive), then either Converted Hangar: Xyphos or mass Tactical Lasers with IPDAI and other range boosters are the only options.

95% of the time I want even gauss conquests to get down to the mid/close range if they can, so that fleeing enemies have even longer to go before getting safe (Radiant teleports away? No problem, still in range). If their flux gets high they will back off anyways so if they take heavy return fire they are still safe, but in the meantime I want them to be pushing in towards the enemy. Conquests have so much flux that Gauss's are just ideal kinetic guns: incredibly range, great accuracy (sometimes gets turned off target by the ship turning), good dps, incredible shot size. Storm needlers are a possible alternative but the range on gauss's is just so good.

[Vundaex]

I don't suppose you could share the full screenshot, or screenshots of a couple different points in time? Arrows of that color are from either right click commands or 'search and destroy' in my experience (is there another way that color gets assigned? I'm away from the game right now.) They almost always point towards the objective that the AI is assigned to, even if its having trouble/refusing to actually follow the order. That tells me that either this unit has been assigned to an objective in the bottom of the screen we can't see, or that its on 'search and destroy' mode.

If its on 'search and destroy' mode, then its going to ignore all regular commands - I've noticed some funny behavior in that mode as well where they don't always go towards the main bulk of the enemy, and I sometimes wonder if in that mode there is some sort of issue where they only consider their own sight radius instead of all the map exposed by allies as well, or if there is some sort of 'exploration' imperative? The sight radius thing might explain this screenshot, as I don't think any enemy are in range of its own sight. I honestly don't use the mode very much but I wonder if there is a bug with it.

It's hard to predict when this kind of thing will occur, so I did not save screenshots prior to this one.
Usually, I pick the two or three largest ships and place a search and destroy order to ensure they move forward and do not destroy half of my fleet before the battle has even begun.
It was a search & destroy order for the ship at the bottom, but since it can't be positioned manually before starting, it was stuck in the back and seemed to be lost.
There have also been some strange behaviors, and to get back to the original topic, I think the combat and battle orders, in particular, could use an upgrade.
There have been several times where I've lost fights that I thought I would win because my fleet decided to break up, making the enemy fleet's job much easier. There isn't enough predictability and control in this system.

Since we are in the suggestion forum, here they are:
- Manually adjust the position of the ships before the fight starts (like in Total War).
- Update battle orders, make their function clear, and add more specific orders as well so each ship will have a clear role (which might feel like it's already the case for some, but it definitely isn't).
- Remove collision for your own fleet. Let's be honest, the pathfinding isn't the best and we've all lost ships due to in-fleet collisions.

[Megas]

The main reason I would use Gauss on Conquest because it gets clobbered in a brawl against other capitals if I use conventional loadout instead of max armor from Shield Shunt/Heavy Armor/Polarized Armor.  If I use Conquest, I use it like a stronger Atlas II that snipes and lobs missiles.

Yes, Gauss is good.  I use one on Onslaught lately to match range with TPCs.  Might replace it with Mjolnir if I grab Ballistic Mastery.  (I am highly considering Point Defense and Ballistic Mastery as my final two Combat skills.  I will miss Field Modulation, Wolfpack Tactics, or Crew Training due to lack of skill points, but oh well.)

Radiant teleporting away is why I put Tachyon Lances on Paragon.  I tried two plasma cannons only on it, and its main weakness is enemies escaping when their flux got high.  Tachyon Lances made sure they take damage.