well if you just set both capships to initial oders "attack" in FRED they do behave stupid...
if you want mor sophisticated battles you have do a little more... best is you do create a waypoint path (or two) in FRED for the combat movements of the ships... the more maneuvers etc. you want the more waypoints you need...
if you want certain ships to fire their weapons at certain time that is relatively easy... just use the events editor of FRED and toy around with the operator category "Beams & Turrets"...
It needs a lot of expermients to make decent cap-ship fight ... but if you see the result it will be worth it I can promise
