This is what wing nav-lock is for and usually works well at (with a range much greater than 10Ls - it's dependent on your current speed - and no need for extra modules)
The catch is that if the ship you're escorting gets interdicted, and you have nav-lock enabled at the point that happens, you drop out at the position of the escorted ship ... which itself then gets teleported tens of Ls away to the position of the interdicting ship. So you have to do some slightly annoying fiddling and only engage nav-lock after the escorted ship has dropped. But you get used to that pretty quickly [1], and the interdictee can resist the interdiction for a few seconds to give you time to be hovering your control over the "engage nav-lock" button.
(So long as you're not escorting a paper freighter being attacked by another player, this is still plenty quick enough to save the day; if you are escorting paper ships through a PvP hot zone you're going to need smarter tactics all round though wing lock can still be a useful part of them)
[1] The tricky bit for a beginner is developing enough understanding of some of the non-obvious bits of mechanics around interdiction to figure out that's what you need to do.
Yep,
I realise current Wing mechanics can work for
this but I was really just offering an example of how new modules could be added to help encourage co-op play.
I guess the mining example I offered demonstrates what I mean best; where the functionality of ship might be divided between several ships to do things more efficiently.
In the case of mining, a Viper with a PWA/Prospector would be able to locate and tag a dozen or more 'roids, a Krait with a bunch of mining lasers/launchers could extract ore, a T9 could hoover it all up and an FdL could fly CAP.
Because the functionality is divided, each ship would have a heap of slot-capacity and FDev could come up with wing-related modules to improve cohesion.
The Viper could have some kind of "Signal Relay" module, which'd mean that, after locating DC/high-ore 'roids, the pilot could push a button and they'd appear on everybody else in the wing's scanner.
The Krait would also need the "Signal Relay" module to display the tags transmitted by the Viper and it might also be fitted with some kind of "Laser Regulator" module, which'd keep mining lasers cooler, increase their power so they mine faster and, possibly, generate slightly more chunks. This module could be fitted to
any mining ship but, obviously, it'd take up a slot that might better be used for Collectors or Cargo normally.
The T9 would also need the "Signal Relay" module so it could locate the ore mined by the Krait and it might also have a "Limpet Accelerator" module, which'd improve the way Collectors operate. Again, this module
could be fitted to any ship at the cost of taking a module slot.
Lastly, the FdL
might be fitted with the "Signal Relay" to help monitor where the mining was happening and it could also be fitted with the "Close Protection" module, which'd lock it to the T9 in SC
and it'd also alert the pilot to incoming threats to all members of the wing earlier than normal.
Also, so the FdL pilot didn't get bored, I'd tweak the game so that pirates could detect a co-op mining wing and they'd show up regularly to keep things interesting.
Overall, with the Viper being able to detect and tag suitable 'roids quickly and the Krait able to extract the ore and move on without waiting for Collectors, I'd hope to see the time taken to fill a T9's hold
halved compared to what a lone player might accomplish.
Your Vanguard Carrier is costing your group Cr100m per week (or whatever) so you arrange for a mining wing to go out for a couple of hours on a Sunday and collect enough stuff to pay the bills.
