Fleet position

[Smolf]

I guess I have to learn to live with it...

[Suicide Junkie]

the best idea is to use the fleet formation to determine a general distribution for your ships (compact vs spread out)

Then set them to all break formation so they can each move to their optimal firing ranges.
You will also have to make your designs a little more mulitpurpose than with tactical combat; every ship should have 2 or 3 PDCs, and every ship that you want to stay in the fighting needs at least one non-PD weapon.