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[Bremen]

Can I get a rundown of the whole frigate/cruiser/destroyer/corvette/dreadnought/etc role/size thing please? I can't find it anywhere.

There's no official standard, though there might be a general consensus (~IE, 30,000 tons is battleship range).

Personally, I like to have classes based on the role they play rather than size, as size tends to be flexible as the game advances. So, say, a fairly hefty ship designed for heavy firepower would always be a battlecruiser, regardless of if it's 10,000 tons or 40,000; a heavily armored command ship would be a battleship, a ship designed to provide anti-missile/anti-fighter point defense would be a frigate, etc.

A full list of classifications I've been known to use:

Frigate: Lightly armored, cheap, small (relative to the other ships) ships that use most of their tonnage on point defense systems, and aren't meant to operate on their own.
Destroyer: Fast short ranged ship with an emphasis on armor and firepower, designed to operate in squadrons
Destroyer Leader: Similar to the destroyer, but mounting better sensors and armor but fewer weapons.
Cruiser: General purpose ships, basically; medium size with a balance of everything (range, armor, weapons, etc) but less speed.
Heavy Cruiser: Though the AI very seldom defends warp points, I use heavy cruisers as a nominal assault ship class, with heavy armor and beam weapons designed to be the first through a hostile jump point.
Bombardment Cruiser: Cruisers with very large size missile launchers; I use them for either long range bombardment or as mine layers.
Battlecruiser: The big guns of a fleet, designed to sacrifice just about everything except armor in favor of big anti ship guns or missiles.
Battleship: Heavily armored sensor platform, with a flag bridge if I'm using them. Usually sacrifices some guns and has a few battlecruisers in its traskgroup instead.
Dreadnought: Probably the most size specific; jump drives become exponentially more expensive for larger ships, so "Dreadnought" is my term for a ship too large for a practical jump drive, limited to a jump gate network. Huge system defense ships, basically.

[Gamerlord]

What exactly do flag bridges do?

[Bremen]

What exactly do flag bridges do?

Mechanically, they let you put a task force commander (I prefer to think of them as Admirals) and his/her staff on the ship. Colonies can always support task force commands, but since they only give their bonuses to ships in the system it can be worthwhile to put them on a ship in their task force.

I believe they work sort of like Sector governors do for planets, applying a portion of their skill bonus to all ships under their command.

[Gamerlord]

Okay, but how do I assign task force commanders?

[Bremen]

Okay, but how do I assign task force commanders?

You can do it from the commanders window (F4) and get a summary of current Task Force organization with ctrl-F4.

[Gamerlord]

I've only got Staff Officers, no Task Force Commander assignments possible.

[Bremen]

I've only got Staff Officers, no Task Force Commander assignments possible.

If you're just starting a game, you should have a staff officer position for Commander - Fleet Headquarters, which is the name of the starting task force. You can rename them or create more with the ctrl-F4 menu.

[Karlito]

Only officers rank 3 or above can command a Task Force.

[Girlinhat]

Ship classes don't matter.  As Steve said it, paraphrased, "A WWI Battleship isn't the same size as a WWII Battleship.  Ship sizes change as the game goes on.  Whatever you name it is just for you to name it."

Docking a ship does four important things:
1: Allows resupplying of maintenance materials, fuel, missiles, and reloading box launchers.
2: Allows repair of all damage, including armor.
3: Allows the crew to use the mothership's crew berths if the docked ship has less than 15 day deployment time.
4: Docked ships incur no maintenance at all.

My first plan in a new game is to build the "borehole" PDC.  Basically just a MASSIVE hangar platform sunk into the Earth that can store about unlimited ships for free.  High startup costs, but then no maintenance, no upkeep, and no crew complaints.

Ideally, I like to do two things.  The first is to make a ship with an enormous hangar.  The second is to make a PDC big enough to dock the hangar ship.  The hangar ship is to capture a Swarm Mothership, because under player control the failure rate is so high that it'd instantly explode, so it's tucked into a hangar to preserve it.  The PDC hangar is to not pay maintenance on the hangar ship.  Once captured, the mothership can be stripped and the parts replaced into a hull that's human-compatible.

[Gamerlord]

Arrggg how do I change Task Groups to different Task Forces?

[Karlito]

In the Task Force menu, but really, there's not much of a reason to use more than one Task Force.

[Flying Dice]

The only game where I have had a large enough navy to conceivably need two ran for more than a century, and most of my ships were still in small, dispersed detachments. 

[Girlinhat]

...what are you talking about?  Did your military ships run along with your cargo ships?  By default everything is in the "Shipyard" group, so do you just leave everything in there?

[Karlito]

We're talking about Task Forces, not Task Groups.

[Flying Dice]

...what are you talking about?  Did your military ships run along with your cargo ships?  By default everything is in the "Shipyard" group, so do you just leave everything in there?

Task Group: Discrete group of ships.

Task Force: Flag officer and their board of advisors (and the ships they control), assigned to Fleet HQ or a ship with a flag bridge.