Nice! I knew that S-game OST had to be top of the list

I checked my saves and I hope this helps:

In the save the 8th Fleet is ordered to refuel at Nemban 1 Spaceport. Keep your eye on the carrier "Advocate of Karuse". It will abort its refuel order once the fleet decides to attack a craft, despite no having completed the order (switches to No mission ...

1.0.2.7 fixed save corrupting crashes for me, but tweaks to fleet AI have adverse effects:

1. manually controlled fleets override orders, dropping the manually given order and persuing their own. For example, it is impossible to micro a fuel tanker to refuel a ship, because "Stop" or "Move" (to ...

And while we are at it: the manual/galactopedia should define "nearby" unreciprocally.

See Galactopedia -> Game Concepts -> Fuel:
The current movement range of the selected ship is shown by a dashed yellow range circle that can be seen when zoomed out to the galaxy level.
The current jump range range of the selected ship is shown by a dashed orange range circle that can be seen ...

Here is what I make of it:
Think of it this way: every ship in your fleet has its own set of tactics which you can set exactly the same way but per ship.
If you want every ship in the fleet to use its own tactics, e.g. how reckless to attack a target and when to attempt to escape, then you leave it ...

What it probably comes down to is design philosophy. DW2 prides itself with limitless automization. Hence the player is not meant to get involved with such specific tasks as telling an explorer which astroid to look at next. I think that is fine if it is properly communicated.
What compounds this ...

Thank you! Huge help. I like the focus on early economic development first. My cashflow allows me to crash all research...

I have now encountered this bug also numerous times.

In a Twitch stream by DasTactic of the preview version several weeks back, he also encountered the bug. IIRC, it had something to do with conflicting fleet and ship stances or orders. He and Erik, who was present and acknowledged the bug, came up ...

Setting a fleet role to Defend and letting it then guard a base and its vicinity does nothing.

In the save file attached, a "Defend" fleet hast the orders "Defend targets withn 50% fuel range of base". There is a pirate raid at another base in the same system. The "Defend" fleet does nothing.

Also ...

Q: How do fleet stances work, specifically how is a defensive fleet suppose to work? What settings do you need to make them actually work?

I set a fleet to Defend, set their home base and give them a guard job at the base. The engangement range is set to system. The orders state "Defend targets in ...