To travel from star to star, you have to have researched the ability "Long Range Jumps" or it's equivalent name depending on culture. It's infocard description will tell you that it allows you to perform interstellar jumps. I believe all of the technologies that allow this are found within the Civilian Research tree.

After researching this ability, you move your fleet to the star of the current system in which it resides. Select all of your units you wish to move, and then click on the star where you want them to go - and they will. You may have to play around with the camera zoom to locate other star systems.

You can also use your home star as a choke point, as all enemy fleets have to arrive directly at the star in question if they traveled to your system from another star.

Hope it helps.

-Itharus

Yeah I had the same question, I knwe about the stars and stuff but not about the research.

Thanks

phase lanes between star systems?

Stars don't show they're phase lanes as they're all interconnected. A few maps don't have ways to reach the system's star, but those generally have wormholes.