[Randallw]

Well first off the fleet orders have to match the specific ships orders. Say, for example, you want a freighter to drop troops the ship itself must have "capture planet" as well as the fleet. I think capture planet doesn't work until all the planets wp have been destroyed so probably your armed freighter would bombard the planet until all the wp are detroyed and then drop troops, however I don't believe I've ever heard of an armed freighter supposed to do what you have in mind. You can give a ship type primary orders and then secondary orders. The ship will not carry out it's secondary orders until it can no longer do the primary ones. As an example, a strategy I use for kamikaze races is to choose optimal range for the first orders and ram as secondary. Once it has taken enough damage that it cannot possible carry out such an order, usually having no weapons, it will ram the enemy ship.