mass target
In many cases focus fire is the worst solution, it brings up shield mitigation fast, meaning more part of your damage will be lost, compared to low shield mitigation (splitting your fire). Sometimes it worths more to split your fire.
i dont see the point of having a varied fleet of escorts and cruisers and capital ships
Me neither. Having only a few ship types is way more effective than having ships from all types. Just you need to know what ships are extemely effective in what part of the game.
mass target the juggernaught, followed by the capital ships, then the enemies cruisers followed by escorts, and only in that order
Yes, titans are a serious threat, but sometimes it is better to get rid of the smaller enemy ships first, it causes way more damage economically. Of course assuming he does not have many extremely dangerous capital ships or a titan. Just think about it, if you manage to save your capital ship, thought heavily damaged, but your opponent can save his capital ship in a good condition, BUT lost his whole fleet while you only the half of yours? Isn't it better?
Luckily titan area attacks usually get rid of anything but corvettes really soon, and AI never mass spams corvettes (never goes above 100).
have each ship class target the ship it counters (ie, le the LRF target the light frigates)
Sins of a Solar Empire tries to do this every time, you can see it when you attack a neutral gravity well, the LRM's always attack the light frigates even if you send in your capital ship first (speaking only of a small cap+LF coloniser fleet), and Heavy cruisers always try to kill LRF's first.
Damage-wise it is somewhat more effective to attack something that your ships counter well, you get rid of those ships faster this way, but practically it can mean your defeat if your opponent's titan manages to destroy your fleet due to the lack of your focus fire on it.
