Should I be spacing out my asteroids more than I usually do with my HSF list?

That entirely depends on your escorts and the opposition.

Lets begin with this:

The lesson we get here is Dash is a Clown Fish and the Astroids are his Anemone. you will want to get a tight cluster of rocks so that Dash can use these to protect himself. At the beginning of the match each player places 3 astroids each. We can bend this placement to our advantage by placing 4 astroids and letting our opponent placing 2. Nope this is not cheating and I'll show you how to do it.

You will always want to give away initiative to your opponent so he places the astroid. what we are looking to create is a dimond shape out of a set of rocks. your opponent will decide where to start the dimond and you can finish this shape with the 3 astroids you place. Here is the first placement from your opponent:

From here we begin our work by placing our diamond. Since our opponent placed his first in the corner we will be working our diamond shape out and towards the middle. Our first rock will get placed like this keeping it as close to range 1 as possible:

Be sure to place the astroid so that you can narrow the entrance to our Anemone as small as possible. After our opponent places his rock you will continue to create your diamond:

It's only now the shape is starting to take place and your opponent might not even know what is happening. he keeps placing the rocks are far apart as he can and you just keep clustering them up. Place our last rock and the construction of the "Blood Diamond" is complete:

Now during the ship placement you will want to place Dash in such a place where he can get to his Anemone as fast as you can and live there for the rest of the game. This will make it harder for your opponent to chase or follow Dash around his home and help protect his blind spot. After all Dash is just a Clown fish hiding in his Anemone.

Outstanding post @Osoroshii. I really appreciate the insight, and theme

Outstanding post @Osoroshii. I really appreciate the insight, and theme

I have other works of better understanding this game of X-Wing if you follow the post in my signature. I'm very happy to help.

This is the reason I'm going to the next tourney with a 99 point list.