Semi-fancy tactics in Strategic Combat?

[Hunpecked]

I'm playing my first-ever simultaneous move/strategic combat game (SE IV Gold, v 1.91, TDM ModPack 3.40) against five of the top six AIs in AI Deathmatch 3. Spoiled by the freedom of tactical combat in previous games, I'm now wondering if I can replicate some tactical moves in strategic combat.

Situation: It's turn 38 and I've discovered one of the AI home systems. The ships in my fleet (2 frigates, 7 destroyers, 8 light cruisers, plus minesweepers) are armed entirely with missiles and PDCs. The homeworld is practically defenseless. I don't have enough troops to take it undamaged, but if I can knock it down to about 5-10% (200-400M pop) my transport can take it when it jumps in next turn.

1. Is there a way to tell my fleet to just "semi-glass" the planet? Under "Strategies" I saw a place to set planet damage to less than 100%, but that seems to apply only to targeting priorities; when other targets are gone it looks like the planet will be, too.

As it happened, this particular fleet was unable to completely destroy the planet before time ran out; next turn I captured it with 50 or so small troops. This was just luck, of course, so I'd like a reliable strategy to "almost kill" a planet, if such a thing is possible.

The next turn I tried to capture a nearby colony defended by 69 satellites and 2 weapons platforms. The Sats and WPs were armed only with missiles--no PDCs. I set fleet strategy to "Capture Planet", targeting priorities to Sats before planet/WPs, and checked "Planet" in the "Don't fire at" window. Strategy for each armed ship was "Max Weapons Range". In the replay I watched my fleet fire a humongous missile salvo at the WPs, which glassed the entire planet. Then my ships closed in to PDC range (!) of the satellites, and I lost 3-4 ships before they killed the Sats. I tried a few replays with different strategies, but the planet was always glassed and my ships never fired a single missile at the Sats.

In tactical combat, of course, my ships would stand off from the Sats and obliterate them with missiles; lacking PDCs, the Sats would be sitting ducks. Then the fleet would fire just enough missiles at the planet to eradicate the WPs, or would simply cover the transport with its PDCs.

So in strategic combat,

2. How do I get my missile ships to fire their CSMs at Satellites while staying at max range?

3. Under these circumstances is it possible to just take out the WPs (after the Sats are gone), or alternatively, to spare the WPs entirely and cover the invasion force with PDCs?