Auto-explore is broken

It is definatly not working as well as it used to, though I never liked the system in the first place. Whey can't they just do some path finding or "own" sectors to explore each turn?

Needs a random number generator...

When I clicked on this post I figured it was the bug I just experienced, but actually it's just the regular "let's hold hands and explore areas we've already been to!" thing.

The bug I just ran into was this: I had about 8 scouts buzzing around, very close to the beginning of the game. Maybe 50 turns in. Suddenly some Korx bugger flies out of nowhere and colonizes my second planet. (my own inner daredevil got the best of me and I decided to use my first colony ship to explore)

Needless to say, I loaded the most recent autosave. I then rush-built a colony ship and hit "turn"... next turn, all my ships suddenly can't move. They say everywhere within range has been explored, but thats' nowhere close to the truth, there's a huge unexplored patch on my homeworld's doorstep. For some asinine reason the game decides I can't end my turn until I've given something an order, and all my ships will do bugger all for some reason. Won't move, all I can do is self-destruct them. So either I self-d my entire 15-ship early game exploration fleet and cripple my game, or I quit. PITA.

I never used auto-explore anymore, manual scouting is the only real solution.