Ok I know how to use them, it is just the fact that they don't seem to do anything.
I try to do these when I have 100% friendly status with another race. What will happen is when one of my planets come under attack by enemies and my fleet is nowhere close I try to use the defense command for my allies to send a fleet and defend my world. Just to re-state, I have 100% status with my ally, we are in a peace treaty and have all the other treaties made. My allies fleet will arrive in system, but it will just sit there instead of attacking the enemy fleet bombing my world.
I guess one possibility could be that my allies are allied with the race that is bombing my planet. Now I havn't had the chance to try this is 1.1 beta, I've only seen this happen to me in 1.5. So if this was ever a game problem it could have been fixed. Anyone know what could be happening?