[Taera]

there is a drawback and a benefit to that.
The drawbacks of formations, there are two major ones - for one unless your using moderately tight formation AND/OR long-range weapons (APB, WMG...) your damage would be spread and if youre facing tight formation some of the weapons might not get to shoot at all. Second drawback is when the formation turns around - chances are its going to get messy.

Now the only benefit i know of, which for me often offsets the drawbacks, is that the enemy has to spread fire aswell. Formations such as Turbine get your ships spinning around and if they all are well armored and shielded chances are they will not die fast and might come out of battle hardly damaged. This depends on the firepower of the enemy however. Fyron here had been telling me its useless because for ships its all-or-nothing because they die when shot at. Its all debatable, and for organic or crystallurgy races the damage spreading / ship rotation might be quite useful.