I think there is very much a place for a campaign system for Starmada. I for one would buy something that follows the MJ12 tradition of elegance of simple and playable design that creates a structured, on-going game universe. I've tried VBAM in the past, but personally found it tedious and unsatisfying, taking too much of the little time I had for playing. If there was a more streamline Starmada specific system that I think that would be great. I gladly offer to give what help I might be capable of if you would be interested. If nothing else I am available for playtesting! 
Cheers,
Erik

Is this still happening?  I've just discovered the post after searching for VBAM.  Also is Sovereign Stars still in the pipeline?

Yes, it's still on... usually when I ask something like this, people jump in with both feet and say "Ooh... I want THIS and THIS and THIS and..."

Since that hasn't happened, let's start with the basics:

Do you prefer a campaign system in which you track individual ships or maintain generic "fleet points"?

I'd second that.

As for what I'd like to see, it's got to be capable of dealing with everything behind the scenes but be simple enough that the main joy is actually playing out a scenario.

One thing that I thought of yesterday (without actually seeing this post) is a way to simulate supplies in a relatively quick way, although it would mean a lot of ships aren't compatible. Simply put, every ship consumes (CRat/100) cargo a day, round up. So ships with CRat up to 100 would consume one cargo point a day, 101-200 CRat vessels consume 2 cargo points a day, etc.

Didn't work the idea out too much, so others could come in and tear it to shreds if they want and nominate a better system.

I really like being able to track individual ships in my games, but also appreciate having the option to track fleets for games that get a bit out of hand ship wise. If I had to choose one it would be individual ships with a ship cap per fleet.

One of the things I played around with in a starmada campaign system, was trying to tie things like supply to already existing rule mechanics in the game. Here's a snippet from one of my homebrew tests
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Supply:
Fleets need to stay supplied to remain combat effective. Once a ship leaves player controlled space, during the end phase, a supply roll will need to be made for every ship within a fleet. To do this, players will count the number of hexes to the closest piece of friendly territory. This will be the target number. Each ship will then roll aiming to meet or beat that number. So if a ship is 3 hexes away from a friendly hex, every ship in the fleet will need to roll 3 4 5 or 6. This effectively limits fleets to a range of 6 hexes from friendly space. Freighters may be used to modify these rolls, even extending the range beyond 6. However including freighters in a fleet takes coveted warship slots.

Cargo:
Cargo can be used to give bonuses to a fleet operating away from controlled space. This is done by granting a +1 bonus for every 100 cargo in a fleet. This bonus can be applied to any ship before the rolls for supply are made. The Federation Police Cutters cargo does not count for these purposes, and is not calculated as part of its cost.

Unsupplied:
One ships within a fleet fail a supply roll, they gain the unsupplied status. This will need to be notated on the fleet management sheet. Once unsupplied and ships strategic speed is halved (rnd down) & they only have access to half of their consumables (drones, marines, shuttles probes);rounded down. Further more, Tactical engine ratings are reduced by 1. This engine “damage” is not considered damage.

If a ship is unable to supply for a second turn in a row, additional effects take place. All consumables are considered unusable during scenarios, and each weapon gains the “non-piercing” along with another stacking -1 to engine rating.

If a third turn in a row takes place and supply still has failed, then each ship must roll a number of d6's
equal to it's current damage control rating, during the end phase that the roll was failed. A ship must make a 5 or 6 or be removed from play.
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I ended up not tracking individual ships in a fleet, and went to tracking supplies for the entire fleet.

Using much the same mechanic as transporters use in Klingon Armada, it made it easy for the players I had try it to remember the rule. I would love to see a supply system for fleets that kept it simple and easy to resolve. I found my system to work fairly well, but I know it has some serious limitations and would probably switch to something official in a heart beat.

I always personally liked the idea that you had to have ships to keep other ships in supply, and ships to protect those ships were necessary if you want your supplies to reach their customers. I put something like this in the campaign system I hacked together because I like forcing myself and others to have to spend their campaign currency on "non-combat assets", just to make the decision making process more interesting. If I remember correctly VBAM had a rule that you needed to have Supply rated vessels placed on either end of a supply route and it was assumed that they were continuously moving back and forth to the supply depots as part of the supply chain.
Cheers,
Erik

Well, if you want to force people to spend curency on "non-combat assets" why not just levy a supply charge on fleets based on distance from the supply point and size of the fleet. Sure it's abstracted, but can represent fleets of supply ships. And an opponent can still run a supply raid to deny your fleet necessary resources... so you could spent more on supply assets to account for loss or for increased supply line defenses.

i was thinking today. one of the first things is the campaign the game or does it exist to give you game scenarios? i would like a campaign game.

youve got to decide ifems that  the campaign is the game or does it exist to generate scenarios. i have seen some
systems that you keep your armed forces the same thruo tught out but count victories and losses as a point system.
these syystems are primarily a system for generating scenarios. where if you are trying to win the campaign you will generate the uneven battles that happen in real life. The desperate battle to knock out a base to force a break thruogh
or the decision to build a lot of cruisers to patrol a large area or that super deathstar battleship.

I'm very interested to help too.

Hm.  I think I agree with you mostly.  We addressed supply with the "You can't repair or re-arm small craft except at your own production centers", and limited task force / stack max sizes based on the quality of their commander.  Espionage is always tricky - implementation really depends on how much data is available on enemy ship locations to start with.  Our economy had resourcing, production, and infrastructure on each planet, so it might be about the complexity you're after.  We didn't hit ground forces...  kinda assumed that if you had space superiority, you could bombard enemy ground units into submission (though given how well that has been working out in recent American wars...).  Not sure what you mean by operational C&C; could you clarify / provide an example of the type of thing you're after?  We did do tech, and I agree that ship crew experience is just a bit too detailed / fiddly, especially when you have a full imperial fleet of ships...  Also thanks for reviving this thread; I had hoped someone would .