Micro is very fleet-composition, personal strategy, and play style specific here.  there could be a couple general good combinations, but that's about it.  and those are in the strat guides

if you wanted to make a complete guide (or near complete) it would be many, many pages long

use the z-axis; there's a whole dimension of movement that most players don't use.

Always a tough question.  For me, the question I need to ask myself before I focus on a capital ship is: can I make it count?  If it's going to get away, then I probably won't bother focusing on it. 

A good example was when I was fighting for a volcanic the other day.   I completely ignored my enemy's Marza for about ten minutes of fighting, focusing instead on his support units.  Suddenly, all my units converged on the Marza and began focus fire.  He decided to make a hasty retreat, but had under-estimated my little trap.  He managed to jump out with about 200 hull remaining, only to run into about a dozen LRM's in the next gravity well that finished him off.

If I'd begun focus firing his capital ship earlier, the hoshikos would have healed him and he'd have backed out if things got dicey.  I'd have taken casualties for no real gain.  Instead, I waited for the right time and place to do it.

another tip: dont use z axis :> you will screw up because its buggy......

I've noticed something, is it just me or out of the hundered or so people who play online, the twenty or so that know some amazing micro tips relating to positioning and execution just avoid sharing in order to keep their own personal advantage at the expense of culturing an unfriendly online experience to any new players ?

I mean just look at most RTS games, you actually have the -best- players telling others how they do everything, in the hopes that the bar will be raised and more people will have the "Oh thats a cool tip, I'm gonna try that online" type attitude instead of "Damn I have no idea how they did that and they won't even advise, I can't beat them, or even match them".

In my short time, I feel this may be the issue, hence why I feel it would help if some of the better players actually explained some of their micro tips, I've seen players actually get bombers/fighters to stop and fire at buildings, no need to dogfight all around it as it doesn't move, yet out of the seven or so people I have asked no one wants to tell.

The idea of that sounds about right, its expected really =D

ref the strikecraft hold position, i've seen somewhere on here someone did a DPS comparison with leaving them moving vs. stopped, and they do deal more damage when they hold still because they don't have to manouver to fire when they are ready to again.  En masse I think there are situations where it would be good to do this, but again, they're sort of sitting ducks.  The other problem i've seen is, once one dies and is re-built, I think they revert to their original attack behavior, so you have to command then to hold again... A logistic nightmare...

Against a spam fleet that can't effectively hit strikecraft back, though, the hold position seems like an effective strategy.

Interesting, I am gonna give that a try

The mana cost for heal was absolutely exorbitant in that game, to the point at which it was functionally useless against any smart opponent.  This was compounded by the fact that units died very quickly in that game (particularly late game when paladins were available) and it took a lot of micro to cycle out wounded units effectively.  This was made even worse by the number of spells and abilities in the game that were 1-hit kills or close to it.  By comparison healing was too weak to justify.

The Protoss Shield Regenerator was seldom used, but the Terran Medic (expansion) was an awesome unit.

Generally speaking, I categorize abilities into three categories:

1. Never Use Autocast:  these abilities require a degree of intelligence or precision to be used effectively and it's virtually never worth turning on autocast.
2. Avoid Autocast:  the autocast AI is subpar for this ability; you can use it, but avoid doing so as you can get much better performance from managing it yourself.
   
3. Toggle Autocast:  the autocast AI is relatively good for this ability, so you can leave it on if you like, but you should still toggle it off and on to conseve antimatter as necessary. 
   

Here's a list of how I'd classify the capital ship abilities.  Passive abilities are not included.  Unless otherwise stated, ultimate abilities are in the "never use autocast" category.

Kol

• Gauss Cannon: avoid autocast
• Flak Burst: never autocast
• Adaptive Shield:  toggle autocast

Sova

• Missile Turrets:   toggle autocast
• Embargo:  toggle autocast

Dunov

• Shield Restore:  avoid autocast
• EMP:  never autocast
• Magnetize:  never autocast

Marza:

• Radiation Bomb:  toggle autocast
• Raze Planet:  toggle autocast

Akkan

• Colonize:  never autocast
• Ion Bolt:  never autocast

Progenitor

• Colonize:  never autocast
• Malice:  avoid autocast
• Shield Restore:  toggle autocast
  

Radiance

• Detonate Antimatter: avoid autocast
• Animosity:  toggle autocast
  

Rapture

• Vertigo:  toggle autocast
• Vengeance:  avoid autocast
• Domination:  avoid autocast

Revelation

• Reverie:  avoid autocast
• Guidance:  avoid autocast
• Clairvoyance:  never autocast
• Provoke Hysteria:  toggle autocast

Halcyon

• Telekinetic Push:  never autocast
• Anima Tempest:  toggle autocast

Kortul

• Power Surge:  toggle autocast
• Jam Weapons:  toggle autocast
  

Jerrasul

• Colonize:  never autocast
• Gravity Bomb:  never autocast
• Nano Dissassemblers:  avoid autocast
• Drain Planet:  toggle autocast

Skirantra

• Repair Cloud:  toggle autocast
• Scramble Bombers:  toggle autocast

Vulkoras

• Phase Missile Swarm:  toggle autocast
• Siege Platform:  toggle autocast

Antorak

• Phase Out Hull:  avoid autocast
• Subversion:  toggle autocast
• Distort Space:  avoid autocast

Some Micro tips for Strikecraft:

#1. Fighters against enemy Flak:
 

Set your fighters to "Local Area Only" engagement range if your enemy is using bombers. This way your fighters are protecting your fleet from bomber attacks and drawing enemy flak frigates in to your fleets  big guns in order to kill your fighters, and cant be picked off chasing a bomber accross the well or into their flaks. If your enemy is suing flak in conjunction with LRFs, set your fighters to "Hold Position" and Move them near the enemy LRFs (do not order them to attack, as it will make them fly around). The fighters will stay stationary and fire on priority targets (LRFS). The reason this works well is because the enemy flak will not be able to fire at the fighter with 100% of ther firepower, more like only 40% (Flak have 5 banks, 2 in the front, 1 on each side and 1 in the back, holding position will only allow them to fire from their front 2 banks.) ** WARNING: adjusting engagement range on strikcraft means you will have to move them manually, it may be a good idea to set them to a control group (ctrl+ a #) so you can quickly select them all and chage their behavior.

#2. Bombers:
   

If your opponent as an amount of fighters that can seriously threaten the integrity of your bomber squads (i'd say %50+ of your total bombers in fighters is dangerous), keep your bombers docked. It takes time to replace strikecraft, and your bombers are useless if they aren't in large numbers. Keep them safe and docked until your own fighters and flak thin out the enemy fighter squadrons. If you keep an eye on the enemy fleet composition info card (the one that says how many of each type of ship and their total shield and hull percentages) you can tell when it is safe to launch your bombers (usually when you see enemy fighter squads fall below 40%). Launch against a minimal amount of targets (structures, HCs and Caps are the best) and then dock them again once enemy fighter strength returns. Against enemy stationary starbases, use the "hold position" behavior and Move (not attack, as they will fly around if given an attack order) close to the starbase. They will fire on it (or sometimes on other nearby structures) as soon as their weapon cooldowns expire. This tactic is also useful against enemy cap ships that have engaged your fleet supported by flak, station your bombers as close to it as possible and they fire away, then issue them to attack once the Cap ship begins to retreat.

#3 Flak:

Flak are best used in the "attack local area" engagement range. This keeps them near your fleet, rather than running all over the gravity well chasing down fighters, running into enemy defenses and getting picked off by enemy ships. Using "hold position" would only be advised if you're using them to protect a starbase, otherwise it limits their firepower. The best possible scenario is a fighter trying to fly in circles around your flak (all flak banks can then fire), but one can often get a similar results by moving flak in circles. Flak are also very good at absorbing damage, when engaging an enemy fleet, you may want them on the front lines or engaging enemy ships point blank so they can soak up LRF splash damage and also fire all their banks on enemy ships and circling strikecraft.