Fleet Orders

FLEET MANAGEMENT

All of your ships, be they orbital satellites, lone scout craft, gathered Battleships or newly constructed Freighters, are organised into fleets. It is important to remember that it is these fleets that you address in your orders, not the individual ships themselves. Even if a fleet consists of just a single ship, the identifying component in any order is the fleet number.

There are certain rules that are worth remembering when organising your ships into fleets, some of which can affect the way they are intended to carry out orders given to them.

* You may have no more than fifty fleets in total, and they are numbered from 1 through to 50.

* The fleet itself will take on the movement capabilities of the slowest ship within that fleet. For example, if a fleet consists of a Jump 5 Scout and three Jump 2 Freighters, then the maximum distance the fleet will be able to move is two sectors. In order to use the maximum movement speed of the Scout craft, it must be moved to a separate fleet before any movement takes place.

* Ships clustered together in a fleet will give the fleet itself a total attack capability and defence capability. However, the ships themselves will break into separate groups when it comes to actually fighting any other race, and will not operate using these figures. These are simply there to give you a measurement of the attacking potential of the combined ships.

* As with the above, the fleet itself has a combined carrying capacity for all cargoes, population, troops and/or fighters. If you split up the fleet at any time, you must also specify how the cargoes will be spread over the newly broken fleets. Failure to do so may result in the loss of certain parts of the cargo.

* If a fleet enters into combat, all ships within that fleet are deemed to be involved in the combat. If you have a Freighter or two nestled amongst your Carriers and Battlecruisers, then it could feasibly be fired upon by the enemy.

* All fleets should be given a standard defence/attack mode (see below) at all times, along with a retreat percentage. The former of these two items can be located in the Combat section of the rules later on, while the latter figure represents the amount of damage the fleet will accept before trying to retreat from the confrontation. A figure of 1% means that the fleet will attempt to withdraw as soon as any shot is fired upon them, while a 100% threshold means fight to the death! If a fleet is attacked without your expecting it then the ships within the fleet will fall back into the standard combat mode, though in attacks you can obviously issue orders to the contrary. If you do not choose a default defence mode for your fleets they will perform poorly if attacked by surprise.

The above all refer to fleets of ships, and as has been stated, you may move ships between different fleets to allow them better abilities. How is this done?

When new ships are constructed they are immediately moved into your shipyards. If you already have ships in the yard, then the new ships will join that fleet, otherwise the next available fleet number will be assigned to these new ships now in your yard. To move ships from either a shipyard or existing fleet to another fleet, you must use an order line on your Construction Sheet. This is written as:-

No Item Location Con Credits
2 Apache (Frigate T1 Mk1) From fleet 7 to fleet 8 - -

This order would take 2 Apache Class Frigates from Fleet 7 and place them in Fleet 8. However things to note are;

* Ships may be moved freely between any fleets in the same locations, but they must start at the same locations before any movement occurs. * When splitting fleets carrying cargo of any kind you must specify where this cargo will end up.

* If you do not specify a fleet number for the "TO" location on a split, then the ships will move to the next available fleet number.

* Ships with movement capability cannot be merged into the same fleets as Orbital category ships.

* All fleet-to-fleet movement must be executed before any movement of any fleets at all. Once you have started to move your fleets then no fleet-to-fleet movement will be allowed. FLEET ORDERS

There are many things that you can order your fleets to do during the course of the turn, shown below are the main order types. These orders are not an exhaustive list of everything you can do, but they cover the major options available.

Move: Move anywhere within the fleets range.

Star Search: Search for the possible presence of a star in a sector.

System Survey: Search for planets in orbit around a known star.

Planet Survey: Report on planetary details.

Mine Asteroids: Move the fleet to an asteroid belt (within the movement capability of the fleet), mine it for raw materials, return home and unload them.

Extended Star Search: Search a cube of space for stars (with a ship that allows it).

Trade: Exchange trade goods between worlds to make money!

Cargo run: Load various types of cargo, move them to another world and unload them.

Join Fleets: Move several fleets to the same location at once, but remain separate fleets.

Scrap Fleet: Move fleet into shipyard and scrap it.

Attack: Pretty obvious, huh? Move to somewhere and attack someone.

All Fleet orders must be given on the Movement Sheet, which is designed to ensure you keep to a set format for all orders. The examples shown below with each order will be formatted to fit the sheet. The sheet allows 20 orders in total - any orders done over this limit will count as a second set, and be charged for accordingly.

MOVE

Moving ships between locations is the most basic of any command issued to your fleets, allowing any ship/fleet to move up to it's maximum Jump distance in a single turn. Whether this involves movement between planets in the same system or between different sectors of space, the format for the orders is much the same.

Fleet No, Move, Start loc, End loc

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
1 Move [2,2,2]3 [2,2,2]2

Would order Fleet No. 1 to move between the third planet in system [2,2,2] to the second planet. This order could also be written as;

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
1 Move to orbit 2 [2,2,2]3 [2,2,2]2

The same format applies to other movement orders:-

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
12 Move [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]1

Would move Fleet No. 12 from the third planet in system [2,2,2]3 straight to the first planet in system [1,3,3]. A ship can be ordered to any orbit in a system, even if there is no planet there - if in this case system [1,3,3] had no planets in its orbits, the ship would end 1 orbit distant from the star itself.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
12 Move [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]0

Would move from the third planet in system [2,2,2] to the Star itself in [1,3,3]. If the planet number is omitted from a destination, the star itself is always assumed.

In all cases of the movement order, if the destination given is beyond the movement range of the ship, it will generally fail to move at all. However ships have been know to explode if their engines are pushed too hard, or perhaps worse still, jump into uncharted parts of the universe as their Hyperdrives malfunction.

STAR SEARCH

At the start of the game, you know a little of what is around your homeworld, including all the sectors within three jumps in every direction, but other than this the universe is unexplored. You may move any fleet into a sector and order it to search for stars, and then on into an adjacent sector, continuing it's search until it has reached it's maximum movement limit. This order has the form :-
Fleet No, Star Search, Sector list, End loc

So, let's assume that Fleet 10 has a 5 Jump capability and wishes to search an area of space for stars:-

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
10 Star search

Search sectors [1,2,2], [1,3,2], [1,3,3], [1,3,4] and [1,4,4]

 [2,2,2]0 [1,4,4]0

This order would take the fleet in sector [2,2,2] and move it through all of the sectors listed, scanning each one for a star as it goes. Any star would simply be reported as to its presence, its name and the star category. Please note that unless the Star Search sector is given, then a ship can move into a sector containing a star without reporting its presence.

SYSTEM SURVEY

Once you are aware of the presence of a star in a sector, you can order your fleet to undertake a System Survey. This has the fleet scan the entire system, reporting the basic details of each planet within the stars orbit. The innermost orbit (zero) will always be listed as an asteroid belt, debris and the star itself. Any planets will be show along with their basic classifications of Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, Gravity and size. You may also be shown any lifesigns within the system, recorded as Electromagnetic energy patterns.

You may move to the sector to do the survey but the actual survey itself requires 1 movement point from the ships allocation. You must know the star name to be able to do survey, these names being gained through Star Searches. Also, regardless of how fast a ship is, a System Survey always completes the movement order for that turn; this means you may move to a System and survey it and end movement there, or you may start in the same sector, survey it and end movement in the same location. This order has the form:-

Fleet No, System Survey, star name and location.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
14 System survey

Move to [1,4,4]0 and survey the Clarixx system

 [2,2,2]0 [1,4,4]0

Would have fleet 14 move from its starting location of [2,2,2] a total of 2 movement points to [1,4,4] and then use one more movement point to Survey the system. Provided the ship has a 3 Jump capability, this order will work perfectly. However, if the ship had a 5 Jump capability, the ship will still be forced to end its movement at the surveyed system.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
9 System survey

Survey the Clarixx system

 [1,4,4]0 [1,4,4]0

This would achieve the same result as the above order, with Fleet 9 starting in system [1,4,4] and simply ending its orders with the system survey.

PLANET SURVEY

As with the System Survey order, you may order a fleet to survey a planet within a system in more detail. You may order the fleet to move to a planet BEFORE doing the survey, provided that it has at least one movement point left with which to perform the survey (as star survey). The ship so ordered will move into a close planetary orbit with it's target, trying to learn as much as it can about what lies on the surface. If the world is populated then the survey will reveal all it can about what units are on the surface. If a populated world also has PDF units stationed there, the survey will be less complete; no scout is going to try and get too close to a ground-based laser cannon without decent supporting fire! Each survey costs 1 movement point from the ships allocation, but does not end further movement as the System Survey does.

Higher technology craft will be able to judge the environs in even further detail, perhaps even suggesting what the potential growth rate on the world would be if it were colonised.

On many worlds in the galaxy there are signs of "previous occupants", some of them very ancient indeed while others might simply be the wreckage of starships that have crashed there. These items are given the generic term "planetary finds", and there is much that can be done with them. See the later section of the rulebook for how to deal with these.

The Planet Survey order has the form :-

Fleet no, Planet Survey, start loc, end loc.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
7 Planet survey

Move to Orbit 1 and survey planet

 [1,4,4]0 [1,4,4]1

Would simply take a fleet at the star itself, move it to the first planet in the system and perform a planetary survey. This action would cost just 2 movement points.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
7 Planet survey

Move to [1,4,4]1 and survey planet

 [2,2,2]3 [1,4,4]1

Would perform the same task, but would take a fleet from the third planet in system [2,2,2] and move it directly to the first plant in system [1,4,4] before surveying it. The action would cost a total of 3 movement points (two for the journey between the planets and one for the survey itself).

It should be apparent from this format that a ship with a sizeable Jump capability will be able to survey more than one planet during its turn. To survey multiple planets the format can be varied slightly;

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
7 Planet survey

Move to Orbit 1 and survey planet

Move to Orbit 2 and survey planet

Move to Orbit 3

 [1,4,4]0 [1,4,4]3

Would take a fleet from the star itself, move and survey both planets 1 and 2, before moving to planet 3 and ending its turn there. For most basic, low-tech scout designs with a 5 jump capacity, this is the utmost limit of their actions in a single turn. Of course, the multiple surveys can be spread over more than a single system by ordering;

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
7 Planet survey

Move to Orbit 1 and survey planet

Move to [2,2,2]1 and survey plane

 [1,4,4]0 [2,2,2]1

Which would take a fleet at the star in system [1,4,4], move and survey the first planet in that system (2 movement points) before jumping straight to the first planet in system [2,2,2] and surveying that too (3 movement points). All of this action takes just five movement points in total.

MINING ASTEROIDS

All planets have some raw materials within their crust, but before too long you may find that certain colonies have stripped the worlds bare of such bounty. If this happens, or if you simply choose to slow its eventual occurrence, you can order your fleets to strip the raw materials from asteroid belts.

All ships that have cargo capacity are equipped with standard loading/ unloading mechanisms and these automated manipulators are also suited to simple mining techniques. Any such cargo ship sent to an asteroid belt will begin stripping it of whatever materials it can find there and then return them to your world. These materials are simply a mass of raw ores that are dumped on the surface, ready for your mines to process. This order DOES NOT refine the ore and place it into your stockpile, but merely provides more resources for your mines to work with.

To undertake a mining process you simply move a fleet that has free cargo space to an asteroid belt, mine it for hrm ore, then move fleet back to start position and unload. The fleet MUST start at one of your OWNED (i.e. colony or home world) planets and move to an asteroid belt within a range that allows the ship to move both there and back in the same turn. For example, on the default Freighter design (2 Jump capability) you can move to any asteroid belt within 1 jump of the beginning world, mine it and return with the ores. The order is simply written:-

Fleet No, Mine asteroids, start loc, end loc

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
16 Mine asteroids

Mine asteroids at [2,2,2]0

 [2,2,2]3 [2,2,2]3

Will simply move to the asteroid belt in the same system as the world itself, mine the ore and return. Note that if a star existed in system [1,2,2] then this asteroid belt could also be mined from the same location if desired, as the entire journey would cost the same number of movement points as the order above.

As the game progresses you may find that you have depleted the ores within the nearby asteroid belts and that the closest stocks of ore are more than half maximum distance away. If that is the case then the mine order can be altered slightly to allow it to be completed over more than a single turn.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
16 Mine asteroids

Move to [2,4,4]0 and mine asteroids

 [2,2,2]3 [2,4,4]0

Would take fleet 16 from its beginning world and move it to the star in system [2,4,4]. There it would load as much ore as it could. On the following turn the fleet can be ordered to return to the world and unload as normal.

EXTENDED STAR SEARCH

Once technology allows your race to design a Surveyor ship, you can start to search the areas of space with increasing ease. The Extended Star Search allows you to do this. Only Surveyors can undertake this order, and it is written as shown below:-

Fleet No, Extended Star Search, start loc, end loc

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
11 Extended Star Search

Move to [5,5,5]0 and Extended Search

 [2,2,2]3 [5,5,5]

This order will take fleet 11 from the third planet in system [2,2,2] and move it to system [5,5,5]. The ship will then perform a complete sensor sweep of every sector within a single jump of its location, producing a 3x3x3 cube of search patterns. Any star within this cube will be reported in the same manner as a normal Star Search. Provided the target sector is within the movement range of the ship this order cannot fail. No further orders can be issued to the fleet once it has been instructed to perform an Extended Star Search.

TRADE RUN

Trading between planets is a way of supplementing income from taxes. This trade takes the form of "exchanging" various goods between worlds, those items produced by people deemed unemployed at the start of a production run. Each type of goods produced has a relative value equal to that shown for the stats on that world. These goods are transported to another world, where the populace there buys them and the money is added to the Empires treasury provided the planet has at least one starport. An important thing to remember is that it is the people themselves who are purchasing these goods from their own pockets - this money goes straight into your Empires treasury as a result. The actual value of the goods is determined by the difference in values on both the vendor world and the receiving world. For example;

World X produces Widgets of value 100, while World Y produces Gromets of value 50. Any exchange between these two worlds results in an income of 50 credits per item (100-50), regardless of the way the trade is carried, i.e. from X to Y yields the same income as trading from Y to X. Thus if 120 goods were taken from World X and sold at World Y, the empire would gain a total of 6000 (50 x 120) credits. This trading can be done as a two-way trade, using just one order. The format for trading is:-

Fleet No, Trade One Way, start loc, end loc

or

Fleet No, Trade Both Ways, with location

With the former of these a ship is ordered to load up with goods and carry them to the target world before selling them, while the latter orders that a return trip is to be undertaken too.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
9 Trade one way

Trade goods at [1,3,3]4

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

Would load the ships in fleet 9 with as many tradegoods as they can hold (or as many are on the planet if this is less) at [2,2,2]3 and carry them to world [1,3,3]4 where it will sell them. If the order had been;

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
9 Trade both ways

Trade with [1,3,3]4

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

then the fleet would have done exactly the same as before, but would then have loaded all the goods from, [1,3,4]4, or as many as the fleet could carry, and then convey them back to [2,2,2]3 and sell them there. You may only use the Trade both ways order if the fleet has the movement capacity to travel between the two planets and back again.

A point worth remembering about the trade order is that a fleet will always take as many goods as it can in one swoop. However, a planet can only buy a maximum number of goods equivalent to one tenth of the population and 2000 times the number of starports present. So, if you were selling goods to a 40000-population world, you would be able sell up to 4000 goods in a single transaction, provided you have 2 starports present at the planet, while a 100 population world, assuming a starport is present, will be able to sell just ten of them. Any goods left on the trading fleet will remain in the ships hold unless the order has been issued to trade both ways. A fleet can only hold one type of goods at one time; a both way trade that leaves goods in the hold will see the original goods flushed into space to make way for the newer items. This can be an expensive mistake to make on some occasions! If this is likely to be a problem then it is probably best varying the amount of goods you load by using the Cargo Run order instead of the Trade order.

Of course, trading between your own worlds is just one way of initiating an income boost - you may always choose to sell your goods to another race. Trading with another player and/or NPC is done in exactly the same way as Solo trading, but there is one exception. You may stipulate what the receiver of the goods gains in credits from this trade too, simulating a sort of "sales tax" for the population. This profit is above and beyond the normal range of credits gained from trading, and allows the receiver a benefit he would otherwise not normally have. This sales tax can have any value between 0% and 50% but will be set at a default of 10% if none is specified. The format is much the same;

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
9 Trade one way

Trade with Kashtav Empire(27) at [3,3,3]1 granting 40% profit

 [2,2,2]3 [3,3,3]1

This would move a fleet from [2,2,2]3, packed with trade goods, to a world owned by the Kashtav Empire (player 27). There it would offload the goods, gaining the normal profit for the treasury while insuring a 40% sales tax gave the Kashtav Empire a credit benefit too. Of course, the Kashtav Empire will have to have agreed to this in advance, otherwise the people below will simply refuse to trade at all. A Trade Both Ways orders of this type will generally not be allowed without prior consent of both parties.

It is worth noting that goods can also be carried as part of a normal Cargo Run too, as shown below.

CARGO RUN

This is easily the most flexible of all the fleet orders, and the example will try to give an overview of what can be achieved with it rather than show how each and every use of it is written. Generally it enables the ordered fleets to load and move various types of cargoes between your worlds. Con points, processed HRM and LRM, raw ores, Troops, Fighters, Colonists and Trade goods are all classified as cargoes, along with a few more esoteric examples you may find as results of planet surveys.

All the normal fleet movement restrictions must be followed, and if a fleet cannot reach the destination given, it will not initiate any part of the run. The fleet being instructed to load the cargo(es) must obviously have the capacity to carry what is stated on the loading order. The order has the following forms:-

Fleet No, Cargo run, start loc, Load listed items, move to location, [unload], [return to start].

The latter parts of these orders are optional - there is no reason why your cargo run cannot simply load goods onto a fleet and move them to some waypoint only. You may wish to take them direct to a target world and unload them immediately. You may even wish the ship to then return to the starting location, provided it has the movement capacity to do so. As a rule common sense will tell you how best to write the order each time, but a few examples follow:-

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
15 Cargo run

Load 200 HRM, 100 LRM and 400 COL

Move to [1,3,3]4 and UNLOAD ALL

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

Would take fleet 15 from [2,2,2]3, load it with 200 HRM units, 100 LRM units and 400 colonists, move directly to the 4th planet in the [1,3,3] system before unloading everything. If the ship does not have the cargo capacity to move all these items, it will load as much as it can before undertaking the movement, in the order listed. For example, a fleet with just 120 Cargo capacity and 100 Colonial bays would take 120 HRM and 100 Colonists only, ignoring the surpluses.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
21 Cargo run

Load 100 COL, 100 CON, 20 LRM and 20 HRM

Move to [3,4,4]2 and UNLOAD ALL

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

Is a pretty common sort of cargo run, normally used for initially colonising a new world, or adding to a recently colonised one. The Colonists are offloaded first and then the Con pts allow the construction of adequate housing. The Building of the outpost - of course - should be done on the construction sheet.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
2 Cargo run

Load 100 COL and 50 Trade Goods

Move to [3,4,4]2 and UNLOAD ALL

Load 75 Trade Goods

Move to [2,2,2]3 and UNLOAD ALL

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

Another common order format, this one will take colonists and goods to a world, offload the colonists and then trade the 50 goods. The colonists offloaded with this order will count towards the maximum trading limit of the world, increasing the number of goods it will accept. The fleet will then load goods from [3,4,4]2 before returning the starting location and selling them there. Lucrative and time-efficient.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
2 Cargo run

Load 100 COL and 50 Trade Goods

Move to [1,3,3]4, UNLOAD ALL and RETURN

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

Would convey the Colonists and goods from [2,2,2]3 to [1,3,3]4, offload them there and then return back to its starting location empty.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
2 Cargo run

Load 50 FGHT3 and 150 MIL3

Move to [4,4,4]0

 [2,2,2]3 [4,4,4]0

It's the sort of order you'd expect to use when moving your fighters and troops between worlds, either as an invasion force or as part of a defensive convoy to an under-protected colony of your own. This order instructs the fleet to move to a "waypoint" in system [4,4,4]0. This system may or may not have a star there, but the movement can be continued on the following turn to convey the cargoes to a new destination if so wished. Cargoes that are left in ship holds will remain there, as goods, ores, fighters and the like are all kept in conditions that prevent them from perishing.

As has been stated, this order is quite flexible but please try to be clear with your options. Provided your fleet has both the cargo capacities and Jump capabilities to achieve what is asked of it, then the order will be carried out. Options to this can include things like "Load as much HRM as is at the planet", "Only do this order if no Zephyrim ships are present" or other quantifiers that could be added to the order, but the GM will only be able to operate these if they are clearly stated.

JOIN FLEETS

More or less a multiple fleet movement order, allowing you to gather fleets at a final location in one order slot. All fleets specified in the order (to a maximum of five fleets in total) will try to reach their given destination. The format for this order is :-

Fleet Nos, Join Fleets, End loc

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
1, 2 & 7 Join fleet

Join fleets 1, 2 and 7 at [3,3,3]0

 - [3,3,3]0

This will simply take fleets 1, 2 and 7 from wherever they start their turn and try to move them to [3,3,3]0. If they can all reach the given destination, they will all mass there, remaining as separate fleets.

SCRAP FLEET

All ships may be dismantled down to re-usable components once their useful life is over. All this work is done in shipyards, and before any ship in any fleet is scrapped, it must be moved into a working shipyard. When a ship is scrapped you will regain 10% of the credits it cost to build plus (10% x ship tech level) of Con points too. The method of achieving this is:-

Fleet No, Scrap Fleet, Start loc, End loc, [ships to scrap].

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
12 Scrap fleet

Move fleet to shipyard at [2,2,2]3 and scrap 2 Apache T1 Mk1 Scouts

 [1,3,3]4 [2,2,2]3

The additional quantifier on this order is the ability to scrap some of the ships in the fleet rather than all of them. In this example only the 2 Apache scout craft will be scrapped - of the fleet has other ships in it they will remain, otherwise the fleet number will be removed totally. Remember that unless this quantifier is appended, all of the ships in the fleet will be scrapped.

ATTACK

Another highly flexible order, the Attack option allows conflict between fleets. However this order is also used for other similar combat tasks, such as invading a world, landing troops or even just strafing units below. The use of the order is simple enough, but for a more detailed explanation of how the results are calculated it is best to read the Combat section of the rules more thoroughly. The main order forms are:-

Fleet No(s), Attack Fleets, player number/name, battle mode, location

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
4 & 6 Attack fleet

Move Fleets 4 and 6 to [1,3,3]4 and attack Stormflayer(2) in CONE mode

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

This order will instigate a fleet-to-fleet battle with any ships owned by Stormflayer Empire (player 2) at [1,3,3]4. The attacking fleets will utilise the Cone attack modes (see later) in instigating the clash. If no battle mode is given, then the fleets will use whatever mode is currently assigned to the fleets as default. If this provides a mixed choice, the option assigned to the majority of fleets will be chosen. A maximum of 10 fleets from either side will be selected to join the combat, moving from the lowest numbered fleets through to the highest.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
4 & 6 Attack fleet

Move Fleets 4 and 6 to [1,3,3]4 and attack Stormflayer(2) in CONE mode [if no Draggonian fleets present]

 [2,2,2]3 [1,3,3]4

The extra conditional on this order allows the attacking player to commit his ships to attack only under certain circumstances. The example shown here would hold back any attacks if Draggonian ships were present at the battle location, but this conditional could be virtually anything. "Only attack if defender has no Cruisers", "Don't attack unless all fleets reach destination" or even "Only attack if no other fleets in the system" are all acceptable. Provided the GM can understand what is written, and the conditional does not require the GM to use his own judgement ("Don't attack if I'm a smaller fleet" or "Only attack if I'm going to win!") then the order will be processed.

Fleet No(s), Attack Planet, location, [Strafe units/Land troops]

There are a number of ways you can order your fleets to attack a world, but there are conditions that must be met before this can happen. No enemy fleets must be in orbit around the target planet - if there are then the Attack Planet order becomes an Attack Fleet order instead. However, a world that has ships in the shipyard is unable to launch them in time to act as an adequate defence, so this is allowed.

When attacking a planet your ships are basically being told to attack the defending, ground-based units; the fighters, PMB and PDF units. If a world has none of these then the order will jump directly to the two optional parts of the order, Strafe/Land. Strafe Planet allows the attacking fleet to standoff in near orbit and pepper the units below with fire. A purely destructive act, the only thing this accomplishes is to reduce the population, housing, tradegoods, troops and units on the surface. If the fleet intends to land troops and capture the world, there is little reason for this action. However, should the attack merely be aimed at reducing the assets of an enemy (particularly if the attacking fleet has no troops in it) then it is an effective tactic. As should be obvious, you cannot strafe a world unless all of it's defending units (PDF/PMB/FGHT) have first been destroyed.

Land troops is an obvious order - you instruct your Troop transports to unload their marines and attack the planet below. The troops will clash with any defending troops in an attempt to capture the world; you cannot specify which troops to unload - it's an all-or-nothing action, You can however specify the mode of attack (or defence) for ground combat. If the attacking troops win the battle, by destruction of all the defenders, they capture the world.

Fleet Fleet orders Start End
4 & 6 Attack planet

Attack with Fleets 4 and 6 and Strafe Planet [do not land troops]

 [1,3,3]4 [1,3,3]4

This would simply order the two fleets to engage the planetary defences and then, should they win the battle, strafe the planet below. It is always wise to give an additional Planet Survey order to a fleet after a battle, to try and judge what troops are there (if any). Of course, the fleet will have to have sufficient movement points left to do so.

In all fleet-to-fleet or fleet-to-planet battles you will receive a reasonably detailed battle report. The attacking player will have this report appended to his turn, while the defending player will receive the report in the same post, free of charge.