Fleet/Design trick to help with micromanagement

[Bentley264]

First with designs, save your designs at the beginning of the game. Turn design off, and never turn it on again. When it is time to upgrade to a new type of an old component, simply select the affected ships (or all of them - easy enough), and click the manual upgrade. I usually pick standard flight bays, since they never really become obsolete. I put fighter bays on most of my ships and bases.

Once you are designing your own ships, simply pick which ones you will want in your fleets - usually destroyers, carriers, transports, capital ships. Make sure all the ships you will be using have at least one troop component. Now, make a bunch of ships. Hit F11 and select troop carriers as your filter. You can easily make a large fleet for invasion (include transports), or defense - skip the transports for this one. I then refer you to the fleet management tips by Gelatinous Cube.

If you are at war, make an overwhelming invasion fleet, load troops, and target an important planet. I use F12 to also rename the fleets (such as 3rd western defenders, or 5th heavy invaders), so I will know how to use it later. I try to spread out the home bases for fleets, but I always want a large defensive fleet at the capital, plus an invasion fleet to load troops from the capital.

Just some thoughts, feel free to contribute your own ideas.

[sPOONz]

Do you have any suggestions on the matter of fleets and their fuel? When I create a fleet the ships intially are scattered about the empire. If I automate the fleet they will refuel at their designated Home Planet regardless of whether there is a closer refueling station near by. I end up with a fleet that takes ages to be operational as there are ships crawling around without fuel. How I go about it at the mo is to un-automate them, manully tell them each to refuel at the closest station and return some time later when I see they all have fuel and I'll then tell them to meet up at their Home Planet. All abit long winded. Is there a better way?

[Nedrear]

A home region is given to focus them on a base of operations:
 
E.G. Your home is System X and the automated constructors will therefore increase fuel mines etc. around it for your fleet to work and your fleet will defend it around this place in a predefined fleet stance radius.
 
A home base is NOT something you give an attack fleet. An attack fleet should switch to the closest refueling point, at best a followed up resupply ship in the conquering system on their previous mine, guarded by a small defense fleet etc.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Good system! Not too different from how I do it. By mixing naming conventions, good design decisions, and proper fleet management, you can truly create an empire that runs smooth. [8D]