I used to issue a lot of orders before 0.8. Unfortunately 0.8 removed a LOT of orders and made it impossible to issue orders to fighters directly. As a consequence it's impossible to assign a seperate position and target command to carriers so they get suicidal the moment you tell them to engage. IMHO, 0.8 has made the game much less tactical.
In 0.72:
- Recon with interceptors to get the lay of the opposing fleet
- Capture nearby points while waiting for intel
- Rally a group somewhere between bulk of their forces and my back line to screen my carriers; just a delaying action.
- Rally carriers behind escort group
- Assault a mid point that is NOT the bulk of their forces; try to catch and eliminate one of their strike forces
- Move my initial capture groups up as hunter/killer squads to capture lightly defended points, and take out stragglers/snipers/carriers. Support w/ fighter/bomber cover to let them punch above their weight (using fighter rally points to avoid flak).
- Wheel my assault group into the flank of their main body while pushing up with my carrier escorts and coordinated bomber strikes
- search and destroy to mop up
- Throughout I may be reinforcing or assaulting different points where I feel it gives me an advantage
0.8: AI only flies in a deathball now and it can be very dangerous to break portions of your forces off with the carrier changes and lack of furtive [e.g. recon] commands. So it's much less interesting
- Capture near points
- Assign everything to escort me (no more recon command to get forward info, or easy ability to reinforce strike groups with fighters so lone frigates get toasted by fighters/assigning a carrier to defend makes the carrier suicidal....only option is to recon in force). Enemy fleet is likewise highly compressed
- eliminate closest target
- repeat
MUCH less satisfying in my experience. I've actually regressed back to 0.72 for the time being.