Fleet capacity - what influences it?

umm... you can research it under Research > Fleets?

Build a fre research stations, the in the research panel, the 3'rd tab down on the right, click it, the upgrades on the top get you more capital ships, the ones on the bottom give you more crew for any ship.

Each capital ship needs:

1 Crew (Upgrades on the top)
50 Supply (upgrade on the bottom)

Light dawns on thunderhead! Missed that panel entirely...DOH!

THANKS THANKS THANKS! Now I'm gonna go kick some AI booty!  

nope that doesn't do it for me, I've been trawling through these forums trying to find that answer, I have 6 civ and 6 military research stations and loads of cash

and under fleet logistics, it asks for basic provisioning and basic training before I can upgrade under fleet logistics and I look and I look and I've googled it with no success...

Is this a whacky problem from the last upgrade???

No, it just means you need to research all the earlier ranks. It goes in sequence from left to right. Can't jump ahead

Researching fleet size is a bit like military ranks. You have to become a private before a corporal before a sargeant etc.

So the left most research icon is the starting point and you keep researching to the right.

Same for capital ships.

Basic provisioning and basic training, are the names of this research. Just mouse over and read them all to find them. Each one also says what is needed before it.

If all else fails, click every research icon until one actually works !

wow...this thread makes me sad....so many players don't bother to read their manuals in games anymore.

Pro Tip: Take your manual with you to the Bathroom, it makes excellent potty time reading.

Little excerpt for you:
FLEET LOGISTICS
There‘s a limit to how many ships an empire can field at the same time, which is represented by your fleet supply. Each faction begins with 100 fleet supply points, which is the base amount any race can manage without additional research. Every ship drains some of your available points, with frigates requiring the least and capital ships the most.

Once you‘ve maxed out your available fleet points, you won‘t be able to field any additional vessels. The amount of currently available fleet points is displayed at the top of the gameplay screen. By mousing over this number, an InfoCard will appear that will list your total points in use and how your points are distributed across your ships.

In addition to fleet supply, capital ships require special commanders before they can be constructed. Each player starts the game with the ability to field one capital ship, which should be used wisely. In order to construct additional capital ships, players must research advanced training technologies. The number of available capital ship crews is displayed next to your fleet supply at the top of the main gameplay screen. By mousing over this figure, you can see where your commanders are deployed.

There I underlined it for you. If you bought the game digitally then you can always just print out the pdf manual, which I copy and pasted for your viewing pleasures.

I'd gotten used to games that have 'Manuals' that are all of nine pages that basically say, "This is a keyboard/controller, these are buttons. Hard, isn't it?"

Even the 80 page manuals dont say much more than that. The Sims manual could have done with another 40 pages of actual detail.