SEIV Fleet Strategy Question

[Suicide Junkie]

Have you set the fighter strategies appropriately to match the ships?

Also, if you send the fleets in together, they should shoot the planet until all of the armed platforms are dead, then stop and wait for the troop transports.

You could include a small, slow, well armored troop transport in your assault fleet, too. It would force the rest of the fleet to back off once the platforms are gone, and you could follow up with the main occupying force later.
Presuming you are playing a mod in which ground combat is not always over instantly like stock has...

[JeffGeorge]

I was going on the basis that the Fighters would follow the fleet strategy since I the fleet set to not break formation, including fighters. Does this not apply to fighters launched during combat, but only to fighters that are an integral part of the fleet? As far as the capital ships, I'm afraid that if I allow them to attack the planets, in order to remove WP, that they will not stop when the weapons are gone. That's why I had to set the strategy to not attack planets; I kept wiping out the planets I wanted to capture. I have the Planet Capture fleet as a separate fleet because it's a little slower than the other fleet, allowing my attackers to clean up a turn before the troops arrive, in case I need to leave them to stop a riot for a turn.

I am playing stock and ground combats do last more than one turn some times, especially on heavily populated planets, though I haven't yet come up against an enemy troop throughout the game.

[Suicide Junkie]

Ah, but that would only apply if the fighters were in the fleet.

In order to do that, you would have to launch them before combat and then add the fighter group to your fleet.