The problem, far as I can tell, is just as much that your crew very inconsistently report contacts and sightings. I'm working on the River Mayhem mission at the moment, and it's far from a given that you get the "Contact, freighter, bearing this, range that" or "Ship sighted at bearing this, range that" messages when they see something. Just as often the time compression drops to 32 with no explanation at all.
Particularly irritating when you have map contacts disabled, and the "sonar guy" doesn't have the ability to give you a Bearing to Nearest Merchant
. What am I supposed to do, man the hydrophone myself every time there's a new contact (not that I can get the damned thing to turn).