oh ok thx 4 clearin up the confusion!!!

When I finally realised they already were, I felt even more stupid! Hopefully I dont do anything else dumb before my pride heals.

From what I have read so far, your ships are grounded on your planet. When you have an incoming attack they automatically launch and defend the planet. The only way for them to orbit a planet for defense is to have an ACS Depot to supply the ships with Deuterium when defending in orbit. I don't see the difference between defending a planet with your ships automatically launched vs. orbiting. Maybe one of the Mods can shed light on that.

-Nitro

ACS Defend is a function used by a player to send their own ships to orbit a friends planet to help defend them. While orbiting the players fleet will consume their friends deuterium and will take on their friends battle techs.

-Istalris-

I guess that means you don't have a deploy option to a planet you do not own. I suspect this is the way to help defend others without the gaming accidentally combining your fleet with theirs and then you no longer having control to reclaim your fleet. That makes sense since the game doesn't have tribes/factions where you have different ship types based on your ancestry.

-Nitro

Ok Silly question ......Can we populate other Planets and if so How do we get them there ?? I will assume you use expedition ships ...What ersearch is involved and How much ??

Never Mind I got it lol