I... honestly don't know how to respond to that

Put them on defensive or aggressive, if passive then they don't fight

If it's on passive then they don't move on their own at all, if they're on defensive or aggressive they shoot back so... I'm not sure how they could be moving without shooting... unless you have them set to passive and manually directed them to fly away from the opposition?

Actually, I saw the same behavior. TMP, my Fed ships against Klingon ships; when ordered to attack they started just flying away in a diagonal downward line. Had to keep manually scooting them back into position.

Strangely enough I am having the exact opposite problem. All of my ships (as well as the AI's it seems), when given attack orders just fly straight up to and then into the enemy, usually destroying both ships in a collision. I can't even get any sustained large battles as they end up in a chain reaction of ramming explosions that destroys everything in short order.

I have been unable to enjoy this game due to issues like these. It's a real damn shame, it could be so much fun,. I try each sequential update and if anything it seems to have gotten worse, or perhaps I just didn't notice how bad it was at first.

We are working on the "ramming" issue. It is a vanilla AI problem that has to do with strike craft type movement on large ships. I feel all of your pain as far as the ramming problem. Yes. It is very frustraiting.

Defiant ships just float away from engagement no matter what stance they have. Intrepid class doesn't seem able to engage certain other ship types and just sit still like a lemon. I'm not sure how it's a "vanilla AI problem" if you consciously gave strike craft behaviour to heavy cruisers. I'll be honest, this is the most imbalanced HW mod I have ever played.