Fleets are groups of ships. They move at the speed of the slowest ship in the fleet. (Unit speeds are listed in the unit tables.) Fleets are able to move between planets and stop moving when they arrive in the orbit of the destination planet. Fleets cannot normally move to open space and stop. If a fleet includes transports, the transports can carry resources or ground units.

Fleets appear to be treated as being “in transit” and stop being able to use their weapons at the instant that a movement order is issued. However, they will remain in orbit of a planet until their speed would take them >1 LY away from the planet. For jumpships this can be nearly instantaneous, while starfrigates and starcruisers take up to 5 watches to leave orbit. Transit time is calculated from the second that the movement order is issue. Players can issue new destination orders to moving fleets at any time.

Fleets in transit that are not also orbiting a planet cannot be attacked by other fleets. They can still be attacked by jumpmissiles.

Fleets cannot enter rift zones, but may be able to pass through the gaps.

Starship and ramjet fleets take several additional watches after being ordered off a planet to leave orbit. Slower fleets can be seen to arrive in orbit in the combat visualizer several minutes before their claimed arrival time. They must pass one watch in orbit after arrival before they will accept attack orders.

Starships cannot enter nebulas. They only move through open space.

Ramjets cannot leave nebulas. They cannot pass between different nebula types (this is a bug). As of Era 3 they are rarely able to move at all (this is a bug).

Jumpship fleets (containing 100% jumpships) can only move to planets within 250 LY of a jumpbeacon. Areas in your empire with an active jumpbeacon can be seen by selecting a jumpfleet. Jumpbeacons only exist on jumpship yards and on the imperial and sector capitals under the Fire & Movement doctrine. The jumpbeacon is a property of these designations' primary structures (the fleet HQ and jumpship yards structures) and can only be removed by redesignating the planet.

If a jumpship fleet ends up outside beacon range (e.g, if a nearby beacon is captured,) it can still jump back into the range of any owned beacon. Jumpfleets can cross space outside of beacon coverage as long as their destination is inside a beacon's range. Pure jumpfleets are unable to travel to destinations outside of beacon coverage, but jumpships can be moved outside of beacon coverage by transferring or deploying them into a “mixed fleet” that contains starships or ramjets.

If you put jumpships in a fleet with starships or ramjets (producing a “mixed fleet”), the fleet will move at the speed of the slowest ship in the fleet and does not require a beacon. If a mixed fleet containing both jumpships and other ships turns into a jumpfleet while moving (e.g., if it gets hit by jumpmissiles and all the slow ships are destroyed), it will stop moving and you must issue it a new movement order. This is the only way that a fleet can stop moving in open space.

Fleets will not always use the best route to get to a destination if there are obstacles (e.g. nebulas or rift zones) in the way. You may need to manually order fleets to travel a planet that is on the way to the destination, then give them a new movement order once they arrive. Fleets often have trouble finding paths through rift zone gaps.

Fleets can move outside the boundaries of the map. Nebulas that extend to the edge of the map are not absolute impediments to starship movement if the starships are able to go around them. Some nebulas extend beyond the boundaries of the map but fleets can still pathfind around the invisible parts of the nebulas.