1) select fighter
2) put tip of mouse on back of fighter
3) right click
what you are actually doing is telling the fighter to move where it is already at, so it auto targets. in defcon, when a unit auto targets, it fires first, then starts the countdown. when a unit is manually targeted, it starts the countdown first, then fires.
keep this in mind with other units too. so don't micromanage bomber and battleship targets, because if you do, it will skip a shot (sometimes u want to micro, like if your battleship is shooting another battleship instead of a full sub that is launching, then it is acceptable to skip a shot to shoot the sub).
so now, even if your fighter discovers a bomber with only a few pixels of fuel left, you can still get at least one shot off at it.
now, for stopping ships on a dime, it will take some practice. what you have to do is click in the middle of the fleet, but more so in the opposite direction of where its moving. for single ships, u click as close to the ship as possible in the opposite direction. so, put the speed on 1, zoom in all the way, and click where you need to and your ships will stop without turning.
pics:
i sent all the ships moving pretty much in a south east direction. the position of the tip of the mouse is where you need to right click for the ships to stop instantly.
for one ship fleets, click as close as you can make a movement order as possible, in the opposite direction as the ship is moving, like this:
for two ship fleets, click in the middle of the two ships, but a little bit more toward the opposite direction as the ship is moving, like this:
for three ship fleets, click under the top ship, as close as possible, but either left or right. if the fleet is moving in any direction right (up and right, down and right, or straight right), click on the left side of the ship. opposite is true for the ship moving in any direction to the left. always click as close as possible to the top ship, like this:
for four ship fleets, is is middle but slightly in opposite direction as the direction of the ships, similar to two ship fleets, like this:
five and six ship fleets are the same:
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so now, you can stop ships. ships don't accelerate in defcon, so for one moment, you can be moving full speed in one direction, and in the next, you can be moving full speed in the opposite direction. it is also much easier to keep ships just in your radar range.
this is also why i use 4 ship fleets max. using this trick requires double the clicking, so essentially moving four ship fleets around this way is the same as moving two ship fleets around the regular way. i find it too difficult to do it with two ship fleets and impossible to do it with one ship fleets when things get busy.
