Best planet defense set up

repair bays and fleet.

Against human player, all else is futile.

against ai i just have 1 repair bay and as many hanger bays as possible

Being one of those 'grey area' people who can easily defeat a new player but is really still no match for a veteran, and one who seldom plays against humans anyway, I'm not sure how much value my opinion holds, but here it is anyway.

My understanding is that against human players, no defensive fortifications will hold off a serious assault for very long at all.  However, if you have a fleet ready to meet the invaders, the best way to support that fleet is with repair bays.  The turrets are just too slow and too weak to be worth building, even if you upgrade them (which is an even greater expenditure).  In online play, it all comes down to fleet composition, which I'm not really qualified to talk about anyway.

Against a computer, the goal of tactical structures is not so much to defeat invading forces as to slow them down and buy time for your fleet to arrive.  Any serious invasion force is unlikely to be deterred by any number of defense structures, and with the exception of a few early pirate raids, hangars and turrets aren't up to the task of beating them back.  The best formula I've found is to have at least 3 or 4 hangar bays, primarily with fighters (2:1 or 3:1), and at least 3 repair bays.  Fence these in with 6-10 turrets (depending on your tac slots) and you've got a lot of targets for the AI to choose between.  You might also consider a jump inhibitor, since the AI doesn't seem to interested in them and will often try to flee if your fleet shows up.  They can buy you the time you need to pick off a damaged capital ship or light carrier (which are oh-so-costly to replace).

This of course is coming from a player who has yet to best more than 2 hard AIs without any ally... so take it with a grain of salt   And with any luck, all of this will change when Entrenchment finally arrives...

Like the pupleone said they are mainly to buy you time and keep players from sendin over a few sige frigs and havin their way with you. I personally never build fighter bays because fighters can be nullified easily where as cannons take time and make them keep their distance if they dont wanna take damage which will buy you more time if they cant use the firepower of their whole fleet.

I build 3 turrets for every 1 repair bay. I circle them as close to the planet as possible and place my logistic within their defensive range. I do not build hangars at all. If they had more squads I would but they are just not worth it. I find asteriods to be the easiest to defend since everything is within a really close proximity to each other, so if you attack one turret, all my turrets are within range.

Wow, def build hangers, maybe a phase disrupter, repair bay and possibly turrets if i'm in the mood.  but i'd stay away from turrets if i were you.

against AI: two repair bays, next to each other, one/two hangars, all fighters, and a V shape of super dense missile platforms (maybe a phase jump inhibiter if I've go the tac slots).  the hangar bays would be to the side of the planet, and there would be enough space for a small fleet between the missile platforms and the repair bays.  the reason for this is that the AI will always go straight for any military ship/static defense platform (beam, guass, missile) you have in the well first, or flee.  My strat is mainly meant to counter the TEC's annoying as hell passive ability that summons rebels.  they often are destroyed by the static defenses alone (unless they have a stroke of luck and keep their javelis outside the range of my missile platforms).  I also have a roving fleet of around 3 HCs, 4 LFs, 2 LRFs, and a light carrier or two.

          ^
        /    \
       /      \

        R   R

          P

(R=repair bay; ^ or / or \ = static platforms; P = phase inhib.)

I've never been a hangar fan personally.  They use up 4-6 tac slots depending on your faction.  I always do 2 repair bays, and make the rest nothing but turrets.  They're cheap to build, create ALOT of targets for the AI to hit, and 25 turrets all clumped in a tight little area can wreak havoc on any fleet.  (As long as it's a computer player).  I can easily defend any planet, including asteroids and dead asteroids using this technique, against some VERY large fleets. 

While some people do hangars, I just don't think there are enough squadrons and planes flying around to be very viable.  Plus when a fleet comes in with a whole slew of fighters, they're pretty much screwed and now you have no Defense at all

While turrets don't infact have any anti-strike craft capability, the simple fact that there's so many turrets means you can easily rebuild in the fray of things.

Repair bays are a must for defence,    early game hangar bays can do wonders,   also vs human controlled bomber frigates >.>      it's not a bad idea placing guns (1 or 2)  aroudn repair bays  theyre pretty cheap and can keep stupid lil raider fleets from attacking a repair bay

oh and phase jum inhibitors RULE ,  i dont build em often  but when i does go back n forth consider getting one,   jmup time x 7?   well  thats a whole lot extra ships ,   and with some abilities that have longer cooldown then phase jump ,, u can take out entire fleets with it

personally, I keep the hangars to kill the LRFs that come with the Rebels and other small raiding forces

Keep in mind that Tact structures are for detering small raids and delaying big ones, but heres what i find out works.

Vasari- 2 Weapon jammers ( cant destroy things if u cant shoot), 1 portal if u have a network, and the rest hangers with a phase jump inhibator. The hangers do well to keep scouts from getting further and do good at killing off the planet killing frigates.

TEC- Phase inhibitor and all hangers with one repair bay. This will just hold em off till u can get there and thats it.

Advent- phase inhibitor and ALL HANGERS, get the extra strike craft techs and I have seen these hangers hold there own against small and medium attacks. The hangers is the best tact defence i have seen that works really good for advent.

^ Yes, advent hangers rule, though I keep one or two turrents around the repair bay. Also, I've heard the Vasari repair bay isn't as good as the other two, so maybe you'd want to build fewer of them (I'm not a vasari player though, just a thought). I only use phase inhibitors if there is a military stalemate going on and I want to make sure when the enemy attacks my border worlds, he will not be going home easily without loses.

The Vasari repair structure only repairs 15.0 hull/sec, compared to the 30.0 from the Advent one.

The TEC Repair Bay has a base repair rate of 20.0 hull/sec, but can be upgraded to 30.0/sec and 40.0/sec. You'd need to make at least the first upgrade anyway to get Hoshis.

Against computers, just massing huge clumps of gauss/beam/missile platforms is the best thing to do.  They're stupid and don't go around them, and will attack with all their forces rather than just long range and strike-craft (and then will retreat all their forces once they suffer enough damage).  You can also rebuild them as fast as they're killed, unless the enemy has a REALLY big army.  I've fended off an attack that was large enough to fill up the whole "sidebar" thing on the planet just by spamming gausses as soon as I saw the attack coming. (If you've got a good amount made already focus on killing their cap ships first--they'll retreat much faster if they lose any capital ships.)

The vasari repair is good for repairing a fleet after the fact but it sucks for trying to keep them up in battle.

the weapons jammers are another story - you dont need t orepair if the other guy cant shoot

personally i haveto agree with LoRd-JeSuS and Xylan

against an AI opponent, i always build two repair platforms flanking the planet and cluster gun platforms close to the planet opposite the most likely route the enemy approaches from. that requires a little forethought and planning, but it works wonders.

i was playing Systems of War medium map against 3 Unfair opponents and kept getting attacked by a MASSIVE Vasaari fleet, enough to fill the planets sidebar. their flagship Jorskul destructor or devastator or whatever it is lost its shields in only four volleys of gunfire and seven more killed it.

My advice is that whenplaying against AI players, two repair platforms and the rest weapon platforms. group them together so you can easily select them and target them on one ship at a time, capital ships first, of course. Also, if playing as TEC research planetary shields, improve them as much as possible, and build one on every world. for the advent, antimatter regen can help if you have a defensive fleet. For the Vasaari, weapon jammers or phase stabilisers are a must, but only one or otherwise you wont have enough weapon platforms to make anything but a symbolic defence

ive also noticed that AI players, in large fleets tend to spam light arriers, in huge numbers. this is great, because the AI player is really really dmb and brings the whole fleet in close. once any capital ships are dead, target the carriers. that removes the threat from strikecraft ANd allows you to reap lots of kills, which makes the enemy retreat faster.

As for the people who say build hangers,wrong IF it's against AI

The AI spams light carriers and fills them with fighters and a few bombers. the fighters wipe out ANY defensive squadrons you have (im talking in excess of 50 enemy squadrons) and the bombers make mincemeat of your hangers, and then your screwed, to put it bluntly

If you're playing Entrenchment TEC, here's a fun defense against late game AIs:

TEC Starbase w/ one upgrade in Last Resort.

The AI always attacks your starbase, and will always bring its full fleet to an attack... imagine a proximity mine on crack