Of course you could quickly tag the other ships to make them all go hostile?It seems NPCs are no longer randomly shooting every which way. This issue introduced in Update 17 is now fixed: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/62015, thank you.
This one, however, remains: https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/61052. This is where NPC wing supports won't shoot back, or even defend themselves against fire. Only when the lead ship dies, they'll start attacking back. Not only that but the supports are typically very weak and tend to escape mid fight.
I realize this was not targeted in U18 but just showing how bounty hunting is still not what it was before U16.
But I agree that's been a disappointment for a good while.