As of yet though, there are tricks for it:

a] if you haven't developed your fleet capacity to maximum, you can start another upgrade, then select your units you want to build, then cancel the upgrade. As soon as your negative fllet point counter zeroes (i.e. you lose or scuttle enough ships), your queued ships will start building and the RA will not interrupt that.

b] Select a group of any number of the same unit, Pause the game, press scuttle -> tab -> scuttle -> tab -> .. and so on with every ship in the group.
Unpause the game and after x seconds you will have a large amount of fleet points freed at once. Pause the game immediately, queue what you want, unpause.

And it is good the RA was changed. It is still good very good, but not as game-changing as it was before.
In 1.05 the game looks like this:
no RA -> manage your empire to have resources to build units to conquer and have more empire to manage
with RA -> move your always-full fleet to where it can do most damage, spend money on planet upgrades and Pirate bounties . Don't bother withdrawing - the more damage you do now, the lesser resistance you will have to face when you rebuild your 2000 unit fleet (which is less than 3 minutes later, cause your ships are already ready )

Ok so you're saying my post should have sounded like this: "sry dude, I got some good tricks that could help you, but they aren't viable in multiplayer (which you aren't doing but you could someday) so I won't post them" ?
Now that would be helpful as s... .
And your idea is no different from my first one, simply using another research that does the same.

Anyway, if you're a fast clicker, you can do my b] thing without pause

Or you could always turn off Returning Armada autocast on every stabilizer on every planet you own... which is a daunting task.

Oh ive just realised, in the game im playing against to hard AI's i have my home system and then another 2 planets in the enemy system and i have phase gates there but i cant get my fleets from my home system to the other system using my phase gates. Is it not possible to use them for travel between systems or is there something im missing? Thanks again

you cant have everything....   in1.05  returning armada is unbeatable anyways, also make myself one rule when i host games,  nobody get's ra or i'm out, so hapyp that in 1.1 you'll finaly have to pay lots... was getting tired of people sacrificing everything just to get 1 phase gate with returning armada,   then calling themselves pro for beating 5 vs 1

phase gates cannot be used between solar systems,  tough personaly, i think they should (for that money...)  just with same speed as any other in-system jump... so it'll take super long....

then again.... if you misclick u migth lose your fleet for 15 min... ouch, maybe  a "are you sure you want to.....?"   and after clicking yes another "are you absolutly sure you want to.....?"

meh nvm , just brainstorming here >.>

Yep, download 1.1.

In 1.05 it was extraodinarily hard to fight RA once it was going if you didn't have your own RA.  The way you do it is by crippling your opponent's worlds and infrastructure while trying to hold off his fleets.  It is possible, I've done it several times, but it is not for the faint of heart.  A lot of RA players are going for the easy win, and when you repeatedly cripple their worlds, they often give up even though they still have powerful fleets.