For both defense and attack the game would be more interesting if one can select a strategic focus for ships.

IE focus fire power towards the ships with the weakest armour, highest armour or focus fire power towards the ships with highest firepower. If this can be done for each ship in advance of a firefight; the predictability of outcome becomes much harder, and a fleet with less firepower could overcome a fleet with higher firepower because of the planned strategy.

And an evade option for recyclers to try to stay out of the range of invaders if they are fast enough before their engines warm up to escape; But that is more for the purpose of making one laugh as they watch a battle. Maybe they can split up to give them a sporting chance.

This is a very good idea... 

That is already available as experimental research - you can improve firepower, shields, speed, cargo capacity, etc with hydarian crystals individually for each ship type.

SIon_nsk_region, yes you can make improvements to ships in experimental research. But I'm not talking about improvements or permanent changes to ships. Rather the option to select what the ship will target when it goes into battle.

Each battle can be different; say for example you have in defense of your planet you have a shield If attacked by a large selection of ships you may want to target the ships with the largest firepower since the ships with the smaller firepower would not be able to break through the shield. If you lack a shield you may want to destroy the ships with the lowest armor to cause loss to anyone who attacks and discourage them from attacking.

Either strategy is valid but since neither party knows what strategy the other party is using for his ships. It requires more thought and consideration of the goal.

For example, the current pirate with admire 10 strategy is to cause heavy loses focusing on (its perception of) the strongest or most expensive element in terms of resources ...  until that element is reduced to the level of the next strongest element and then splitting it fire between what it sees as the strongest element. This is a change from focusing on the weakest element until it is removed from the playfield. It is indeed possible to defeat the pirate with a force with less firepower but the loss of resources is not made up in the battle since the pirate does not protect a treasure.

To battle the admire 10 one must use ships with a higher class and fewer numbers so that the damage can not be done in mass to a large number of small ships. But small ships can assist if they are used in small numbers such to not trigger them to get the brunt of the admires fire. splitting the fleet into a number of attack forces may be effective, but one still needs to position these smaller forces behind a force of which has a higher class. Such strategy changes based on the number of different targets one faces.

☠ Snake for example will focus not focus on 20 Cruiser, or 22 Stealth if there are more than 34 fighters, but at less than 30 fighters snake will focus on the other ships if the fighters are not closest. The cruisers obviously have more firepower than the fighters but more punishment can be rendered by the destruction of the fighters. Hence if you sacrifice the fighters to snake you will win the battle and lose the war. Might be worth doing when I get to his home planet? Currently out of my range. ☠ Snake has a treasure on his planet right?

The reason to do this on a ship by ship basis is it is pointless for a ship with a small amount of firepower to fire on the largest ship where his attack is of little to no effect. It is far wiser for ships with strong firepower to fire on the most amoured element of the fleet, and those with less firepower on the least amoured element.

Planet-X, 
Do you really understand the "Speciallization" section in the data of each vessel? I have the feeling that you do not.

The automation you ask is questionable when we have battles between players. You need to adapt your targets based on the situation at each moment. More ships may enter or leave the battle, or even you may want to sacrifice ships to accomplish your goal. The goal is not always to kill enemy. It may be get maximum battle experience points even if you get killed.