1)The limited number of ships is meant to simulate resource upkeep and maximums, and this also limits the number of ships that the processor has to manage.  1300 ships is a pretty big load for a "normal" processor.

2)This keeps defences within reason.  an uber planet could in theory hold off three fleets, which is unrealistic.

3 )This is planned on being upgraded in the next expansion, the name of which has not yet been released.
but a temporary solution: click something owned by the empire who you want help from and you will have two (really 3, but one is "cancel") options.  attack something, and defend something.  click one of these buttons and then click what you want attacked/defended.  be aware that their treaties may affect how they react.

HOPEFULLY, they will add more advanced multithreading for the thrid expansion.

Maybe even logically treating the cpu as a single core..

@kamchadal

There is one nearly finished expansion: Entrenchment. Right now, it is in its final stage before release... And I really mean "final"... It is supposed to be released tomorrow (february the 25th 2009) for 10$. It is really worth the money. You'll get starbases and mines and some other stuff.

You will need Impulse for downloading it, there won't be a boxed version of it for the time being.

There are two more expansions planned. The next one is supposed to focus on the non military aspect of the game. The contents of the third one are not known yet (I heard sth that it is supposed to focus on  single player, but I have no source to link to that. Just a reply in one of the posts and this was not from one of the devs...).

As to your post:Stardock and Ironclad try to develope their games in a way that also low end systems can handle them.  And don't forget: this is not only a singleplayer game. If you start to mount defences in a no limit gravwell, the game would be unplayable in multiplayer. It would take hours and hours...

Have fun!

Who wouldnt want 300 Star bases pre gravity well? and 3000  at the sun? of course at least 1 billion space mines and then 150,000 captical ships of each type, at least for starters, for a semi defense. 

I'd say each ship takes a certain amount of resource income (It'd have to be really small, but still there) it'd be more realistic and would help you rebuild when your fleet is blasted to hell.  then put a max ship number (much higher, tho, just put a max in-fleet to promote strategy, as you'd force them to use more groups) and this would mean smaller attacking numbers as people spread their defences more realistically (except for Vasari - phase gates rock!)  and make the game much better overall.

Personally I think that it's a pity that Fleet Supply (or whatever the hell it's called) doesn't behave sort of like research stations...

Ie: If you have maxxed supply, it hits you for the full upkeep... but if you are suddenly reduced to less than the minimum supply of a bracket, it would scale back your upkeep %age to the appropriate bracket... and then just rev it up a notch to the appropriate bracket when you have enough ships to get back into the higher brackets.

Would make too much sense though, I suppose.

That's what I thought it was.  Yeah, kind of annoying.  I wouldn't mind a ship-for-ship upkeep setup, but again...only if the production costs are reduced, or income rates are increased.  Not a lot...but a bit at least.