[Roanon]

I'll try to give a few hints. The 3 most basic things are:

1) Formations are useless. As you cannot determine which ship is on which position, it doesn't make sense to select any formation, and as pathing is one of the worst things in this game keeping a formation just makes the fleet act silly. So you usually choose "Wall" or, if defending a warppoint and you want a more spread-out fleet "Spider" or "Turbine" to have a good start. Then all ships should break this formation, see 2).

2) Strategies are useless for fleets. You do not want all your ships do the same, but every ship do the best for their intended role. Therefore, and due to 1) above, you should create a strategey "Break Formation" where each ship is marked that it should break formation, and apply it to every fleet.

3) Strategies are the most heavily bugged part of this game. Do not expect any fancy strategies to work. About half of the time, after some battle turns every ship assumes "Optimal Firing Range" regardless of what you want them to do. "Point Blank" can mean that a ship starts his turn next to an enemy, then flies as far away as possible, then fires. "Maximum Range" can mean that a ship well in range of an enemy flies next to it and then fires. Non-"optimum range" strategies often work as intended, but do never rely on it especially in a critical situation, or design the majority of your fleet so that it requires a special strategy to actually work.

For more detailled hints, like when to use "Capture Planet", or that colony ships should be given "Ram" as an option, check the FAQ.