1) Carriers carry the same number of squads, but the Advent has the best fighter/bomber bonuses (and also the most craft per squadron)

2) There are 4 different types of capitals, all greatly different from one another.

3) Star travel is pretty plainly phase space from one star to another, though yes it is accelerated.

4) The Vasari Kotsura cannon damages everything in the gravity well by 10% hp, while disabling all ships for a short while, and all orbital structures for a long while. The Advent's Deliverance Engine spreads massive amounts of culture, so it's more of a support superweapon.

5) One ship can slow down a group of enemy ships and make them unable to phase jump. Another can restore a good chunk of shields to all friendly ships near it. Another can make fighters/bombers crash into the target ship, dealing damage. One can do heavy damage to another ship/structure while repairing from it at the same time. Of course, one of the favorites is the planet sucker! Forms a massive vortex that literally sucks the planet, damaging it and giving you resources in return. Another race has a similar concept, except it just causes a panic that makes people kill each other

6) Light carriers are cruiser-sized and have no weapons. Like I said, they carry one squad, but the mobility of fighters/bombers makes them very useful.

7) First you bomb, then you colonize with a colony ship (or, each race has one capital that can colonize)

Advent Carriers can carry far more strikecraft then TEC and Vasari when maxed out.
The rough roles of capital ships are divided between the 5 per race, but they are completely different.

Aren't there 5 per race?

all caps have a max weapon lay out. well compared to frigates they do. a cap carrier can take out a squad of frigates 10 without their fighters/bombers. There is a colony cap that drains planets it is a visary cap and it is it's special power so you have to be lvl 7? i think.

when you get this power it can drain any astroid pop in one attack. This is vs sitting there and bombing said astroid for 10 minutes or however long it takes to bomb it.

Nope, colonizing ships are not consumed when colonizing. They simple use there ability to colonize and it cant be used for 30 seconds to let it cool down.

...don't the colony ships run out of colonists? Or do the colonists multiply on-board at a prolific enough rate to sustain a microcosm within the ship?

Thanks for the info I got the game and finally pulled myself away from it to post. just FYI the advent bombers have 2x as much but little damage and little health so all of em are actually equal