Auto-pilot
The Gates have lights. Traffic lights. Lights that hint whether there is a ship incoming or outbound. The lights do get that info from the gerbils that steer the ships. In other words the Gates do have traffic coordination for both regular flyers and jumpers.
For the gerbils (aka auto-pillock). When you do use navigation commands such as "Fly to Sector" or "Jump to Sector" in your personal ship, it is the gerbil that takes command and your ship, like any other, will pass a Gate in scheluded fashion.
There is more. The auto-piloted ships do appear from a Gate at 120m/s. Even the mighty Aran does. This is Good; you get away from the Gate quicker, decreasing the chance of being hit by the next incomer.
Jumping or flying into Gate with auto-pilot waits for the Gate to be clear, before entering. Again, a Good tactic. Furthermore, the Gates have "lanes". Small ships fly into Gate's lower rim and appear from the upper rim. Many small ships can thus use the Gate simultaneously, full duplex. Big ships have to use the center and take turns.
There is a downside to the auto-piloted jump. The ship stands still up to the jump event. At 0m/s you are a sitting duck. Regular flyers are not as much sitting ducks, but they like to demostrate the berserk gerbil collision avoidance dance.
Manual
Manual flying and manual jumping do have a clear edge there. You can still steer you ship while the Jumpdrive is charging manually, and you can cut all corners to get into the Gate as quickly as possible. One does not simply jump out of a furball with the auto-pilot.
The downside is that the manually operated playership is not telling the Gate system of its intentions. You don't have to wait for the Gate to be free, because you don't ask whether it is free, nor tell the Gate that you will be there shortly.
Far too often (as in "two too many horses") the first sight in the destination sector has been the rear of some awfully large ship. The second, unavoidable sight was The End.
Again, there is more. The exit speed after the Gate is not 120m/s. It is snail pace. One should immediately accelerate, strafe, and steer to get out of the traffic lane. I have stopped to do planning way too often, and the next regularly scheluded arrival just has to be something big. Too big. :facepalm:
Oddballs
Rapid Response Fleets (RRF) do not "play fair". They do jump in near a Gate, but not via the Gate. It is understandable that their arrival should not be clogged down by a traffic jam.
That relates to missions, such as Xenon "invasions" or Stations being under a threat. The hostile fleets arrive entirely via a Gate. It seems that Pirates that are about to attack a Station do actually assemble a fleet in neighbouring sector. The RRF, should it make an appearance, does bypass the flow of incoming attackers.
The war has different rules. I have seen how ATF task force enters a war sector. The escorts do not use a Gate. They simply appear around the Gate. The Capitals, however, do enter via Gate. When they are in, their escorts are immediately in perfect formation. This clearly differs from Xenon (all ships do use Gate) and RRF (all ships jump near Gate).
I've seen things ... Attack ships ...
War reports did predict activity. I went to check Asteroid Belt. Quiet and blue, with one Megalodon on guard. I did remember to sidestep, luckily, for soon after me the second Megalodon did arrive via the Gate.
Then it does happen. An ATF Task Force joins the party. Just the way that I have described above. Probably Odin and Tyr as Capitals. Bit hard to say, for ...
The Megalodon had just arrived via Gate. It was still in front of the Gate when the ATF did emerge.
The first ATF Capital dies in collision with the tail of Megalodon.
The second ATF Capital dies in collision with the tail of the Megalodon.
Apparently the exhaust ports of the Megalodon are not the vulnerable part of the ship. Hello Empire, watch and learn!
I'm not sure whether the ATF gerbils blatantly violate the Gate traffic regulations or whether the standard traffic clearance rules simply do not suffice for the Megalodon scale ships.
