Formationssystem

Is formation really random? I thought it had to do with the order in which you selected the ships (unless you select them at once with the select-all button). In any case, try selecting one at a time and see if that helps control formation better.

Geezer's suggestion is a very good one too, about multiple squads. I generally have found that I don't use formations much. I keep shuffling ships around in combat as much as possible so that different shields are exposed at different times. You can kind of automate this by doing short moves, but sometimes need to manually grab a ship and move it back or forward.