I am implementing steering algorithms with group management for spaceships (fighters). I select a leader and assign the target positions for the other spaceships based on the target position of the leader and an offset. This works well. But when my spaceships arrive they all have a different direction. I want them to look at the same direction (target - start).
I also want to combine this behavior with a minimum turning radius that is based on the speed. The only idea I have is to calculate a path for each spaceship with a point before the target position, so the ships have some time left to turn into the right position. But I dont know if this is a good idea. I guess there will be a lot of rare cases where this can cause a problem.
So the question is, if anybody knows how to solve this problem and has some (simple code) or pseudocode for me or at least some good explanation.
I found this article: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131505/toward_more_realistic_pathfinding.php?page=4, and the curves show exactly what I want (besides the stuff with the dynamic turn radius), but I have no idea how to combine this with steering and unfortunatly the code is not available anymore.