I would like to know a few things too, like ship prioritisation



Do big ships get targeted first?

Do they target those with the toughest defences?

Do they target those with long range, then medium range, then short range weapons? (never had a mixed fleet myself, as missiles are too good)



I had cruisers once, with a LOAD of shields (as much as the enemys beam power) and a few missiles chucked in, then when the fight started i used the shield efficiency 'tactic' and the enemy (who had mostly beams) could hardly dent them. (and got completely battered by my missile swarms)



Also, will the destroyers, who can load a TON of weapons on them become redundant, or the corrvette, will it still have a place in a fleet? and a purpose? Do bonuses in the support section transfer to the whole fleet?

I second the fact that as a player I nee dto know what are the exact calculations behind the scene, or at least a very good estimation of what's going on. It's hard to change our strategies/tactics when you don't really know what happenned.

1: not sure about the targeting priority but from watching many battles and some guessing i believe that fleets will try to spread their damage evenly over an enemy fleet. i have never lost a dreadnaught before a destroyer for instance. the accuracy of that firepower is variable however, so even fire on two equal destroyers might destroy one (lucky hits) and leave the other completely unscathed. that said i think that the hit chance is greater for cap ships. so basically by destroying enemy ships in the first phase you exponentially boost damage in the following waves--> same # of guns against fewer targets.



2: my strategy with corvettes and destroyers change based on race and i am still playing around but here are my thoughts. corvettes get repair and engine bonuses so they work really well as raider/interception ships. i keep a few dedicated fleets of them to patrol and harass my borders/run through blockades. i load them up on defences and give decent missile capacity. this makes them survivable and versatile. when mixed in larger fleets they can serve to increase survivability (if damage is even on all ships than lots of high defence corvettes soak up a lot more damage than a dreadnought due to what i suspect is a lower hit chance). destroyers (i don't like) they lend themselves to huge weapon load outs and pop like grapes in large conflicts, i use them in my frontline/blockade fleets and give them mostly beam weapons so that they dominate damage output in the early first phase (hopefully destroying missile ships before they fire) and level everything in mid phase (leaving the last phase for repair). i use cruisers as bigger corvettes or to augment invasion fleets because of their invasion bonus (no combat bonuses to speak of though). Battleships i design as pure tanks and load with ridiculous defence/armour and some missiles. i put dreadnoughts in fleets of battleships and i cover them (dreads) with ridiculous numbers of weapons. i use dreadnaught led fleets to crack tough planets like wormhole chokes. that is my current ship strat.