[Slick]

(1) How can I ensure that the enemy won't go past my warships and kill it?

This is not a real answer but there have been numerous discussions on setting up proper ship & fleet strategies. Read those, and experiment a little. Use the simulator. I am no expert, but here are a few tips that I would use in creating a SM protection fleet:

- Keep your SM fleet behind your front lines for defensive SM like planet building, etc.

- If the SM ship is offensive (planet destroyer, sun destroyer, etc.) put it in a large fleet. Note that sun destoryers will destroy all planets and ships in the system, even yours, so set up your plans accordingly and remove the ship from the fleet when appropriate.

- I personally like using a Battleship hull for SM ships because I can use all the extra room for weapons or defensive systems. Usually the extra cost for the larger hull and components is small compared to the SM component, so build cost and time is not much longer.

- If you are worried that your SM ship will break for the corner while the escorts will engage the enemy and possibly some enemy ships will get through, you need to do some risk analysis. If you give your SM ship an offensive weapon and set it's strategy properly, it will attack, but probably stay with the rest of your ships. This will allow mutual protection. If all your ships have the same speed, that's good too because you can break formation and they stay together. Alternatevly, you can stay in formation with your SM ship as the leader and use a formation that protects the leader. There is no canned answer here because if I was after your SM ship and faced any of the options above, I would work on a counter tactic. You would then have to change your defense or lose that ship on the next combat. That's what is great about this game.

Slick.