Ok, I think why and when the problem with fleet formations has happened.
I started with this 1.58 Version change:
Quote:
10. Fixed - If a combat piece was in a fleet it would always use the fleet strategy,
even if it had broken formation.
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The reason for this change was the problem with AI that would still use formation strategy when it would break formations. This bug was important for AI because it would not be able to use fleets with different ship designs effectively. So just un-doing it wouldn't be good.
OTOH it seems that the patch makes ships ignore the fleet orders completely, even when the fleet formation is not broken. That makes fleet orders useless. This probably can be fixed. 