they don’t stop if attacked by entities (the escort leaves and the cargo should stop and wait) and they just continue forwards, but only the image continues, not the actual cargo, so if you want to damage it, you need to shoot at the spot where the cargo was, or is still when it stopped. Ofc when you shoot it, the texture will return to the original position where the hitbox is as well. also, it seems like the hud prediction is kinda broken with this as well - the aiming assistance option helps you aim better towards the prediction circle, if you are close enough, but since the cargo is somewhere else, the projectiles shoot sometimes even 90° to a side from where you wanted to shoot.
This bug seem to be introduced via 1.4.
An old bug: Sometimes escort ships jump-scratch too. Haven’t seen it recently, but could be related to this too.