I'm on "metallake" in I-war 1, and the ai ships are utterly useless. For some reason they're only allowed to attack one ship at a time, and if you tell them to defend the alabamma they'll wait till about 10 seconds after it's been cracked in half to do anything at all. Is there a a fire at will button I'm missing? Does using free thrust all the time confuse them?
I've got past the first few waves a couple of times, I even think I know how to escape the system without a jump drive, but it's a complete lottery as to whether the wingmen will finish their bag of doughnuts and do something to help. Is there anything at all I can do to make them more reliable?

okay, so I can obliterate the incoming squadrons by nuking them with remote missiles, that's beaten. But when the alabamma reaches the jump point it just flounders about. I'm obviously not meant to dock to it because it hasn't got a docking port, so what's it waiting for? Can you share a ship's capsule drive simply by sitting next to it?

I had thought of that, but it's a bit small... it's a poor life being a dreadnaught engineer isn't it? Well I guess it's their own fault if they don't know how to undock their living quarters.