Fleeting w/Bases - causing one problem while fixing another

[tbontob]

Baron Munchausen says:

It's easy to pick off all the unarmed ships present at a major military base by just sending some ships 'around' the planet to the far corners of the combat grid to wipe them out.

Question from a newbie who is still running 1.67

How do you set your strategy to do this?

My ships do break formation but have the hots to pummel the planet...even when I set colony ships/carriers/transports as the first priority.