Ok, I ([_]-Aggroed) may not be famous for my micro, which is fair, but I've beaten or held back everyone in that teir 2 list so I am at least not skilless.

While I had a fairly weak ship fighting experience initially, one thing that changed that very rapidly was a conversation with JJ.  I asked about how to fight and how to build a well balanced fleet.  His response was that balanced isn't important it's about countering.  I payed more attention to the fleet of the bad guy and suddenly my fighting prowess improved.  My micro didn't immediately improve, but that comes with practice and watching better players.

So, what are the basic counters?

Light Frigate kills carriers

Lrms kill light frigates

Carriers kill Lrms with fighters and bombers can destroy Heavy Cruisers caps and structures

Carriers with fighters and anitmatter beat carriers with fighters without antimatter since antimatter replenishes fighters as part of the squad dies.

Bombers get their asses handed to them by fighters.

Heavy Crusiers kill LRMS, light frigates, heavy crusiers, and carriers if someone just let's them get smoked.

Healers prolong cap life and can save carriers, and heavy cruisers too.  They don't do much for ships that have fewer HPs.  They are better on ships that have enough health to take advantage of full heals and have armor.  So, don't try to micro heals on your light frigates.  They'll die too quick.

Subjugators, Guardians with repulse, and Hoshikos with the bots are all good at taking HCs out of fights.  They have short ranges though, so LRMS outside of the distance can kill them.

That's it.  It's a big game of rocks paper scissors, but this time it's not as simple as 1 of 3 choices.  The goal is to get the proper mix of rocks vs his scissors, and paper vs his rock

But, Micro is about the process of controlling those different strats while fighting. Hopefully some of the pros can post some goods on how to control ships individually so they do maximum damage.  It's very situational, but the bottom line is don't just let the comp do stuff.  Try to think about the counters and set them on it.

Here's an elementary example of how to get this started.  You got map effed and had to get 2 eco structures up as tec to get started so you could colonize the only planet out of the gate.  Your ice.  You send your cap and it starts killing stuff.  You get your Ice, and then realize that the bad guys are only 1 jump away.  You upgrade planet health on the ice.  A scout you had roaming around shows that he's got 1 cap and 6 assailents.  and eh's coming for you.  You realize you're in trouble, so you scuttle your two civics and start putting up 2 military labs in their place.  Now he jumps for your ice. 

  First thing you do is retreat your cap.  1 cap vs 1 cap plus small fleet = dead cap.  He takes his cap and leaves it on the planet to start bombing.  He sends his fleet to kill your cap.  You jump and he doesn't immediately follow, but after 20 seconds he sends his fleet to your HW to kill your cap.  You finished getting your military labs up and face a decicion.  Carriers or LRMs?  Lrms<assailents, and it's always a losing battle when he has more 2nd level frigates then you at the outset without major feed.  You're not going to beat a prexisting fleet with a smaller number built one at a time.  The smarter thing to do is switch to carriers asap.  6-7 assailents can get pretty well pwned by 1-2 carriers. 

  When he gets to your planet starts to kill your factory so you can't build any more ships.  Your cap starts attacking his assailents, and your first carrier pops out.  You move the carrier away and set the fighters to single target down 1 assailent at a time.  You see 2 more assailents appear on the ice plaent coming to your HW.  You've killed one of his assailents and your frigate factory pumps out another carrier.  But it's almost dead.  You get your constructor dude to make another frigate factory, but on the opposite side of the map so they'd have to cross in order to get over there.  By now you have 2 full fighter squads, and two more on the way.  You've killed 2 of his assilaents, but those two just got replaced by the ones that were on your ice.  You get don't get the third carrier out before the factory is destroyed, but you're new factory is almost made, adn you just killed another assailent, but you see 1 more coming on your ice.  The bad guys move to kill the constructor, but he finishes the factory before they kill him.  You start with another carrier.  They decide to attack your cap, but by now you have 4 full fighter squads attacking.  He starts going down, but you see that's he's bringin skirmishers in.

  Time to research repair bays and then LRMs.  Your cap gets them down to 4 assailents when his cap stops bombing and comes into the frey with 2 skirms.  No need to panic.  Since you aren't going to kill his cap quick target down the remaining assailents and get your repair bay up.  Work on the lrms.  By this point your cap is down to 1.5k health.  His is fresh.  he has two assailents, 2 skirms, and 2 more skirms on teh way.  You finish off his skirms, and start pumping out lrms.  Don't make your carriers run now.  Just get them close to the factory and the repair bay whcih are all next to each other.  Your ships will get heals (especilaly if you micro it) and your lrms can just sit there banging on his skirms.  His assailents are dead, your lrms kill his skirms and he starts retreating.  It's probably time for a counter, but that's a story for another day. 

  That's not a standard pro match, but that's one way I've beaten punks that don't think about their fleet in terms of counters and are a little too aggressive.