sigmazero13 wrote:
Barring collisions, the ships are generally traveling in 8 distinct directions. If Ship 1 gets behind Ship 2, and they are going the same direction, all it takes is them going different speeds to have this happen. The only time the directions go outside that standard 8 directions are during collisions during a turn (or assuming they started pointing in a funky direction).
I take it this means ships are pretty much always deployed pointing straight toward the enemy side (with the their base edges parallel to table edges).
This certainly doesn't happen much around here, as ships are often deployed angled toward the opponent's side (especially for ships that deploy later in combat).
This immediately precludes ships all traveling in the same eight straight cardinal directions and really limits the possibility for perfectly flush overlaps "no gap" collisions between enemies where one ship flies into the back-end of another (the only situation under consideration).
Remember, even the slightest difference and smallest gap between ship bases would mean that next turn there's either no touching bases or there's a new overlap. Physically impossible for the two to end touching without new overlap.