Now, Ive never played against a human opponent, so I can't compare to these very long battles. But otherwise, I think my longest was a 2 hour battle with about 5 ships on each side. Way it worked out was all the fighters died off about the time about the same time both sides' big ship-killers got crippled, and both died off pretty soon. So both myself and the computer (I was playing as the rebels. its just fun.) had our gravity well ships, I had two gun ships, and an escort carrier. The Imps had a lancer and a carrack, with an escort carrier of their own. About 10 minutes before it all ended they teamed-up on my 7700 and took it down. Went to attempt to disable my escort carrier but were driven off by the gunships, and then gave up the fight. So sadly, I didn't get to annihilate their fleet...