Fleet 'formations'?

[Remagen]

I know that formations ala AoE II etc aren't a good thing for this game, but I was wondering if there was anything better than the 'default' amobea for these huge fleets I've got, I call it the:

Amoeba of Do0m, a big blob of ships, tightly clustered.  When I run into an ai fleet, I just send my fighters/bombers in, with cruisers sitting back plinking away.  That doesn't seem too efficient to me, suggestions?

[Velox]

     I like to send my fighters ahead and off to the side a bit before I engage and pull my cruisers back to try to separate the enemy's cruisers from its fast-movers.  That way I don't have to get the fighters all beaten up by pushing them through the enemy bombers and instead can angle them in to cut up the AI cruisers without taking too much fire.  I keep my bombers just behind the cruisers (to deal with any enemy fighters that get too close for comfort) until the AI's cruisers are dust, and then I can turn them loose without fear of getting them plastered by missiles.  Available room to maneuver and the presence of other ship types complicates this, of course, but it serves me well as a general base tactic.

[laxrulz777]

It helps (me at least if you mentall separate your ships into 6 categories:

Slow, Weak vs. Fighters: Cruisers
Fast, Weak vs. Fighters: Deflectors, Anti-Armor
Slow, Weak vs. Bombers: MLRS
Fast, Weak vs. Bombers: Fighters
Slow, Weak vs. Cruisers: Munitions
Fast, Weak vs. Cruisers: Bombers

(18 speed is my personal cutoff for slow/fast)

Every ship should fall into one of these categories... Then, plan your movements like Velox suggested...

If you don't want to goto that trouble, I found that the a good "lazy" way to do it is just send my bombers in second... This will eliminate a good portion of your "stupid" losses