[Moriarty]

Slick said:
Yes, if you have ever seen the "stutter step dance" (SSD)(tm) this makes sense.

SSD = a ship moves into sensor range of a warp point, sees an enemy on the warp point, decides that he doesn't want to engage, moves 1 sector toward another warp point and now out of sensor range of the original warp point, now can't see the enemy, realizes that the original warp point path is shorter, moves 1 sector back toward the original warp point, again sees the enemy, wash, rinse, repeat.

As pointed out in my bug list, this continues to happen even when the route the ship wanted to take becomes clear.