Most of this has been gleaned from other sources, a lot of which seem to be for earlier versions of MOO. I've tried to weed out stuff that's wrong, but haven't really tested these. They sound logical, though!
Carrier/IF ships aren't meant to slug it out with other armadas. They stand off and deliver their payloads. Missles are more effective for point defence than direct fire. If you are using IF ships, you probably want to run the battles yourself. After they fire their volleys, they need to reteat, because they're now deadweight.
Don't mix cloasking/ECM eith ECCM, leave the ECCM to the escort ships. When used alone they must be fast and sneaky.
Include a single fighter and a single instance of the longest range direct fire weapon you have. This can make them more effective at not getting blown up in enemy systems. This can also efficently counter enemy ships to prevent conflict. Alternately, you can inclde a single LR ship with a couple recon for remote systems.
The only difference between interceptors and SR fighters is only the latter can assault a planet.
Create a bunch of IF ships with no armor, cloaking, and the smallest system drives available. Outfit them with as many missle racks as possible, with a single missle per rack. Create a bunch of squadrons with just these ships. To use them, create a task force, when they jump into a system, have them all fire their single volly at the planet you want taken out, then retreat.
FInd one that conveys the info you need when assembling a task force:
Building ships require production points, PP's come from industry and population. Each PP, to start, costs 1 AU, up to the capacity of industry+population. You can force more PP's from them, up to 6x, but they cost more the harder you force. In theory, the AI tries to build the biggest ship it can in a 'reasonable' amount of time, though what it thinks of as reasonable is anyone's guess. I've had it build marines on a planet that can churn out a battleship in 2 turns, and at the same time shedule a battleship on a planet that takes 12 turns for a destroyer.
Development plans, with a couple of excetions, only control the constrution of DEA's. Planetary Defense will encourage fixed assets, but possibly not orbitals and system ships. The military-plolitical economy screen controls how the total income is dispersed.
| All Planets | Infrastructure | Recreation | Government | |
| Unrest | Government | Military | Recreation | |
| Core World | Mine | Manufacture | Military | |
| Rich World | Mine | Mine | Manufacture | |
| Sweet Spot | Research | Farm | Government | |
| New World | Farm | Manufacture | Moral | |
| Secondary World | Manufacture | Military | Research |