I've just started getting this weird behavior in the last week.  It wasn't like this before (capital ships would be prioritized over frigates and cruisers).  I don't know what's happening.

However, you can press "tab" to change which unit's abilities are visible.  I find this useful when putting my capital ships in one group, I can just press tab to cycle through them all.

I've noticed the same thing!  What is up with this????  It is very annoying...especially if you have hoskikos in your fleet...those damn things always seem to end up being my flagships...the voice sounds like a creeper and makes me cringe...

It's not just fleets, it's when you're making control groups.

I have no clue what's caused this all of a sudden.

also, if you make a hotkey group into a fleet, will ships still be part of the fleet if you remove them from the group?

Yes; fleets and groups are two separate features.

is the overseer's jump degradation worth it?

No

One of the few times I'll dismiss an ability without any qualifications.  Simply never worthwhile.

reading the forums i found mentions of "battleballs" which are apparently tightly grouped advent fleets but isnt this potentially disastrous against vasari because of volatile nanites?

VN is not as great as it seems. It used to be able to take out an entire fleet by itself...

Now it is just a mediocre ability. It can help you to get the upper hand though.

Darvin can fill you in on the finer points of VN.

does the halcyon energy aura stack?

and why is meteor storm so weak? i used a level 2 meteor storm on some vasari cruisers and frigates and it couldn't even take their shields down.

Energy Aura does not stack...most AoE abilities don't...

Meteor Storm is not weak, trust me....

Level 2 meteor storm does 750 damage per use...shields will mitigate that so 57% shield mitigation is going to bring that to only 323 damage per use...now, against an individual target that really isn't that much...however, meteor storm affects infinite targets...against large fleets, it is the most damaging thing in the game (save a kostura or the red button)...now, Vasari skirmishers and enforcers have an ability (must be researched) that heals their hulls be a significant amount...thing is, the ability has a fairly long cooldown and it shuts down the ships weapons....

Meteor storm won't do much in just one or two uses...you'll need 4 or 5 uses to really start getting anywhere...after a while, the enemy must either retreat or will end up losing their entire fleet with another meteor storm attack...

If meteor storm doesn't seem powerful, then the fleets you are facing likely aren't very big...

so, ruthlessness doesn't stack either right?

also, do phase missiles ignore shield mitigation as well as shields? this is becoming odd because on multiple occasions i had capitals left with less than 1000 hull but with 2000+ shields presumably because of phase missiles...i really hate the vasari ability that stops your hull from regenerating, it seems to last pretty long

additionally, is it ever viable to start with a kortul or radiance or kol

Ruthlessness does not stack either...and it does not affect SC...generally speaking it is regarded as something not worth researching (unless you have nothing better else to do)...

Phase missiles bypass shields and shield mitigation...I've had capital ships die with full shields because of phase missiles and Vasari bombers...

The Vasari ability that prevents passive regeneration is tied to Phase Missile Platforms...once researched, any ship hit by the phase missile platform will have no passive regeneration for a long time...it is rather annoying...

With the current version of the game, I recommend never starting with a Kol or Radiance...the only strength of the Kol is that it is hard to kill, and that strength really only comes into its own when you get the Kol to level 6...the Radiance has only one strength as well, and that is Detonate Antimatter...it is very handy to have in certain situations (attacking a starbase with abilities or a really annoying capital ship) but most of the time it's not very useful early on...the Kortul is not a bad choice since all three of its abilities are solid and two of them are very effective at disabling enemy SC...however, the Kortul is not the best choice to start off with...the Skirantra is right now the most powerful capital ship because of scramble bombers, so even though the Kortul is a very good ship it simply is overshadowed by the Skirantra...

One shot won't destroy anything; three or four shots will, and this thing affects the entire enemy fleet at once.  Very powerful ability, no sane opponent will get in range of a starbase that has this.

Kortul, maybe.  Radiance is a pretty big stretch, but doable in some situations.  Kol, absolutely not.

does the starbase dock upgrade give more income than a regular trade port?

also, there appears to be something nightmarishly wrong with the ai's use of drone hosts, it just spawns mines and doesn't deploy them, this is even worse than its behavior of sending its light carriers into the thick of the battle