First of all, I apologise in advance if this question has been answered before.

I've got the game recently and so far it's pretty amazing, however I can't find out how to increase my fleet capacity and those damned pirates seems to be bent on annihilating my planets. I realise this is a pretty stupid question, but I haven't been able to find my answer on the intertubes and well, it's frustrating to be limited to a small fleet.

-Cheers mates.