send the strikecraft to target the LRMs and have some of your other ships target the repair ships and have the rest support them.... but that is for that engagement only......you should try to identify what ships do what in your enemies fleet and target accordingly.....support ships..even though dont do much damage....are there for support and are good at it..take those out and the rest of the fleet soon follows without their aid

And, of course, 'pause' is your best friend

-HD

Focus fire yields diminishing returns... So, I wouldn't put a whole fleet on them. You want to put a group of capital ship killers together and kill the cap ships while your other ships do their jobs (killing their target ships).

It seems like you have drone cruisers in the midst of that battle... they don't need to be that close. I'd also recommend poking and prodding your enemies frequently to simply see what ships they have. This will allow you to prepare the proper ships to counter the enemy.

problem with using the stacking button is that if i choose a group of 10 LRMS and tell them to attack overseers they will all attack the SAME one :-/

Focus fire is generally a good thing.

When the engagements get that large I turn on stacking and select ships of the same type in appropriate groups, e.g. 1 group of 10 Enforcers for each group of 10 enemy ships. This way you focus fire and can choose appropriate targets for the damage type you do without the amount of firepower you put out being complete overkill for the target.

Be sure to micro you abilities when you have the time but its not good to have you shops abilities being put to best use when your fleet is just randomly targeting enemy ships.

Setting targets and using abilities is generally a higher priority for me but you can also toggle stacking on and off to pull back individual ships when they're severely damaged.

If there are no ships left that need targets assigned or need to fall back I start to micro ships in the main view to try and outflank the enemy or to make them turn to face the wrong way (I find its generally worth sacrificing a frigate if you can get a group of 10+ (arbitrary number) ships to turn around). In addition it can be good to take out the support ships and carriers that generally sit at the back.

Ok, not being able to edit your posts if someone has posted after it is completely ridiculous.

well of course they will attack the same one! it dies faster and stops shooting at you!

Yea you get diminishing returns, but it is still worth it by a LOT. you want to kill enemy ships, not slowly wear out their shields while they are killing YOU.

Also, bring more kodiacs, MUCH MORE.

If you are playing tech, def bring along your support Cap for the shield removal special, and the colonizer for the +dmg/range aura. Just those 2 is huge, especially in large battles where one EMP can hit 20-30 ships, and as far as i know this doesn't count as "damage" for shield mitigation, which lowers their effective hitpoints immensely.

And as someone said, make a control group of Cap ship killers. This will be your combat cap ship with the gauss round, and the support ship for the +25% dmg (autocast off).

Also, remmeber that you can micro your strike craft. Grab your bombers and have them focus on the Cap ship you are targetting.

Most important is def knowing what your enemy ships do, and at least having the Macromanagement of counter ships

I did that lol look at the pic...thats a must....imo

I really don't know why people don't know this or probably don't like it.

But I group all the same ships into a completely separate squads

so I have a capital squad, a siege frigate squad, a carrier squad etc etc.

Although this can get a bit hard to track on the empire tree if you have twenty planets which is why I don't use Auto Pin But, it makes the AI of your fleet manage large fleets much much more affectively and requires less micro to get proper targets.

Lets say I'm am going to assault an enemy base. I'll select my crusaders and my capital ship fleet and move them forward to attack I then select my support squad and click on my crusader squad which make them stick to them and cast heals. and no worries about my carriers the stay on the edge of the gravity well and launches bombers. best part about the separate squads is they they all don't focus fire on one ship but instead shoot what ship they do best against first, but I can quickly select my crusader squad and have them fire at support ships.

Edit. Also i will squad support capitals ships with support squad and siege capitals with siege frigates.

heavy cruisers... its like the "win" button.

I also like to play vs multiple hard AI. You just have to slow down the speed once you see a big fleet to your planet. Send a similar fleet to your planet. Normally they only send fleet to your weaker planets hence you need to research the tech to see incoming fleet.

Normally those planet-bombing frigates are my 1st targets. Queue 2-3 cruisers to take out them dependning on the numbers. They pushovers and die easily. Focus fire the bombers on their capital ship. Queue another 3-5 cruisers on the capital ship you want to take down. Another gp of frigates/cruisers on their utility frigates/cruisers. Lastly try to disrupt enemies fire by retreating ships that are heavily damaged. It waste their time following and retargeting ships. Do remember to utilize some of your ships abilities. I usually set to manual and auto for some depending on the ships type.

I think just reduce the game speed will allow you to perform your actions better. After a few times, you can do the same at higher speed.

Have fun