The arcing turns are retarded.

Period.

(scroll to the bottom for suggested solutions; keep reading for rants)

You guys at Ironclad say that people complain about the game being too static, that the ships don't move around too much and that sort of stuff to justify the arcing maneuvers of units.

You'll not make need for speed out of this game. But you can put a little sense into the pathing!

Maneuvering larger fleets is all but impossible. Ships all aim for their places in formation and when that shifts slightly, they begin to do those damned arcing turns, ending up all over the gravwell, eating enemy's starbase railgun fire and clearing minefields with their faces.

Example:

I entered the gravwell from a safe direction so as to evade the extensive minefield. I approached the enemy starbase (it had been where the yellow X is) by circling the minefield and attacking from a mine-free side (green arrow).

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/5153/screenshot28d.jpg

After finishing off the starbase I realized that I couldn't get out of the minefield. I couldn't go forward, because the gravwell "edge" was too close to evade mines. "Just turning back" would be the best option

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8374/screenshot29k.jpg

 I knew what would happen, but I didn't have time to micro all ~100 ships (I could've used the Z-axis, but the ships would do the same thing only above the minefield), so I just waved my hand and watched them do their "clever" turn.

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9441/screenshot30b.jpg

Effect: 6 ships dead, dozen barely alive and the minefield cleared neatly. Awesome   

And that Vulkoras... how the hell is THAT supposed to be anything close to turning around???

ANOTHER example:

Please, PLEASE, if you really want to succumb to children's whines about how they want their battleships show off  with drift racing in space, give them an "I want my ships to do idiotic circles instead of turning" option in fleet management. But for the rest who would really want the ships to do sensible stuff - please, at least make the ships turn 90 or even 50 degrees first before they accelerate. It would DRASTICALLY reduce the "stupid circle syndrome".
Those circles truly make this game annoying at times. Kortul using Jam weapons deliberately flies half a gravwell away from the rest of the fleet simply because he has to make a thousand mile circle in order to move ten miles back. Skirantra suddenly stinks like a camel, cause the whole fleet decides to stay half a gravwell away from it (and away from repair cloud of course). Ordering your fleet to move AWAY from the enemy starbase makes your fleet fly right THROUGH it, deliberately so as to catch fire from all possible weapon banks on the beast.

Argh! Somebody give me a SINGLE screenshot depicting a situation where a HUGE CIRCLING TURN is the SENSIBLE THING TO DO.

I beg you IC, rethink this ship behaviour. It really makes controlling large fleets too much like trying to hold a glass of water on your open palm after the glass is gone.

PS. Any of the following suggestions would fix the arcing turns stupidity to some extent, ordered from most brutal (longest wait, greatest arcing reduction effect) to the lest noticeable movement-wise, whilst still having a big impact on the arcing.

My suggestions are:
- make the ships wait until their destination is in the forward hemisphere (long wait) or
- make the ships start accelerating after turning 30-50 degrees instead of immediately. That alone would make a HUGE difference! (as in: accelerate if destination is less than 150-120 degrees from current heading.)
- make the ships start accelerating if their rotation ratio has reached its maximum. It would take roughly 1-2 seconds of wait for all ships, 3 sec for a starbase, and would reduce the circling by almost a half!

1-2 seconds of wait before accelerating <-> 50% lesser arcing turn.

That's the best deal I have ever heard if you ask me.