Number of ways one can allocate resources allocation with constraints in a Galactic transportation context Emperor Palpatine dispatched a flotilla of M ships to transport the clone army from the factory planet Kamino.
Successful maneuvers in the unknown asteroid fields of this sector of the Galaxy require the allocation of a separate ship in the flotilla to coordinate the maneuvers; such a ship should not transport soldiers. How many ways are there to place N clones on these ships, if each ship, except for the coordination one, must carry at least one clone? (Any ship in the flotilla can become the coordinator.)
I do not understand where to start with the choice of coordination ships. After that, choose already clones on the ship? Or, on the contrary, put clones on ships and count their number in order to understand how many coordination ships are needed?
 A: Presumably all of the ships are uniquely named.
Presumably all of the clones are being treated as identical (though it can be interesting to consider otherwise as well).
Begin by selecting which ship is the coordinator ship.  $M$ options.
Continue by placing one clone to begin with on all other ships.  (Just one option here)
Now, we still have an additional $N-M+1$ clones yet to place on the $M-1$ non-coordinator ships (since the coordinator ship "should not transport soldiers").  Decide how to place these according to stars and bars.
Apply rule of product and conclude.

As an aside, in Star Wars canon the clones merely share the same physical traits.  They do still express individuality in other ways, such as their choice in armor, nicknames (if they were lucky enough to have one), or at least at a minimum they all had unique identification numbers encoded in their DNA.  For that reason, a true star wars nerd might say that it matters which ship each clone was on.  An answer to this alternate reading of the question will involve Stirling Numbers of the Second Kind.
Well written math problems should never rely on outside esoteric knowledge like this which makes me expect the first reading was the intended reading.
