I feel like I missed an important thread, but I'm a bit confused over fleet saving...

Now the object is to save your fleet by putting them on what? Mission or trading thing. But how does this work? And if I'm gone for more than 12 hours? I realize that Moon to Moon missions are the safest, but from my experience I don't see them lasting more than how long I need them to. In general, I guess I don't get the fleetsaving idea. Could anyone please explain it in a more direct way? I understand the goal. But what should I do to be successful at it?

I need to protect my small fleet

tl;dr no idea on fleetsaving.

Basically, fleet saving is the best way to stay unprofitable while you're offline so you don't get attacked. The point is to send all your ships and resources on a long mission that gets back after you get online. Probably the easiest way to achieve this is to attack an inactive moon near you, that way the mission cannot be phalanxed (someone seeing your fleet, what time it lands at the target/gets back to your planet.) The most useful ship for fleet saving is the RIP (Death Star) as it's the slowest ship in the game and uses very little deuterium to move. There are also other ways to FS such as moon to moon ACS Defend, moon to DF (debris field) recycle, or moon to moon deploy, but the best one remains moon to inactive/friendly moon missions as one of the moons isn't yours and therefore is less suspect if someone wants your fleet and starts popping your moons.

Hope this massive wall of text helps

but how do we know a trip that is long enough?

You can change when your fleet gets back by playing with the speed. Right now it's set at 30%, but usually it's 100%. The time it gets back really depends on when you're going to be on the game again. Say you think you're going to not be playing for 12 hours; you want your fleet to get back at least 12:05h, so you'll be online when it lands.

The more you play, the more it seems to run your life

Awesome !!!

I've been raiding so I've had that baby set to 100%

Thanks Weresloth!

It's what I'm here for.

and dont for get that the time you see is THE TIME UNTILL IT REACHES THE TARGET double it to calculate when it will hit your base... or fugure out when you will be on again and find the cloesest avalable time to that. (again dont for get to double what you see.) if you can find a good time, find another inactive moon. Either closer to you (shorter Fleet Save, lower speed, less deut) or farther away, longer fleet save. and fo god sakes dont forget to esp an unkonwn moon before you save to it. 99% are perfectly safe, but there is the odd moon with a few thousand Light lazers on it. Small fleet go POP. Allso, when you fleetsave Dont forget to take all your rez with you, or it might not be there when you get back.