Ships must be grouped into fleets in order to control them. A fleet may contain a single ship, but all navigation and combat is based on fleets.

They are created from the "Ungrouped Vessels" link, existing ones can be modified through the configuration link in the Fleet Command. Fleets can only be reconfigured at friendly or owned colonies. Adding or removing ships will also modify the able crew available at a colony accordingly. A ship design or hull blueprint will tell you how many crew a vessel requires.

Fleets may contain foreign ships, usually added through a reinforce mission. Those become unavailable to the owner until the fleet is disbanded. Additionally, confederacy empires may share control of Confed fleets.

Fleets are classified according to the type of ships assigned to them.