| When do you get to see the ships in the seperate screen? |
Check the settings in the interface options, namely:
Show player ships in full battles (checked)
Battle length (Full Battles)
Full Fleet Battles (checked)
Show full fleet battles only if both sides are fleets (unchecked)
Auto-play full battles (checked)
| Also do you get to tell your ships what to do etc? |
No, there is no tactical combat in the game. The battle viewer is just that--it lets you view the battles to gauge the performance of your designs in action.
| btw all 5 of my barges died, wtf mate. |
Cargo hulls only have one hitpoint. Defenses are a random opposed roll, so no matter how much you put on it just takes one bad roll (or an enemy with more attack power than your defenses) and the ship is gone. It's generally not a good idea to use cargo hulls for combat vessels unless you only use them to attack unarmed ships (constructors, colony ships, freighters, etc).
