I'll field this.

In the original armada 2, ships could field large distances in seconds with warp, making regular patrols unnessecary. In FO, warp was disabled, encouraging regular patrols.

Example.
In armada 2, an undefended base comes under attack. Easy. Two clicks, and a fleet is there in seconds to batter off the attack.

in FO, you need ships at EVERY outpost, no matter how small.

I'm evil with Transwarp. I put a nice fleet capable of taking on most anything (it's borg and klingon). I send a NuQ'DuJ to go into the enemies base. I drop a transwarp gate. the nuq'duj baits the enemy fleet. It goes into the gate. one by one, the enemy fleet is singled out and destroyed.