Well, it's difficult, but I finally made at least some decision.
As a side note: I did try my hand at that feature. Major parts of it was integrated in this pull request.
The original proof of concept behavior was that all crafts get the same target. I am not sure how we came to the decision (maybe it was me) but I went for setting up a framework so crafts follow the first craft/the wing leader instead by setting the first craft as destination.
It makes sense in "escort the skyranger to the destination" situations.
Less in "intercept UFO with multiple interceptors".
Even less in "intercept UFO with multiple interceptors from different bases".
And there's also the "check starting conditions" issue.
I guess it was the less painful decision at the time.
Not sure who made it.
For the wing leader framework I did try my hand at intercepting non-hunter-killer with wing crafts having the wing leader as their destination. You can have a look here. One thing I am not sure about this implementation is what happens if you have two wings following two different UFOs.
This is too complicated.
Both code-wise and user-experience/friendliness-wise.
I looked at it several times over the last year, and wasn't able to come up with a solution I'd like.
I suppose the much easier solution is to change the current implementation to the proof of concept behavior.
Agreed.
But I let the user decide between the two approaches.
The default for flying UFOs is "everybody goes after the UFO individually".
The default for crashed/landed UFOs and every other type of target is "follow the wing leader".
The user can change the default via a toggle button, see screenshot.
https://github.com/MeridianOXC/OpenXcom/commit/fe4f8cf9dafbd37a7bed9c46f5f088b7d3aaec7d