lol answer ur main question...no...use LF/SC/HF as a a shield basically....ur weakest ships will get destroyed in a fight so if u sent 1 LF and 200 HF that 1lf will get destroyed and HF fighters wont...but if u send 205 HF abt 3 HF will get destroyed...and LL best when u done for the day and have left over resources...and if u no wanna waste deut, make ions...simple as that.

Ah, pretty numbers. But you left out the most important number pwnage. At 4:2:1 trading ratio, 100 PC equals 17,857 LL. Your simple "add 100 PC" actually increased the cost of your defense by 178%. Had you put that amount of resources into LL, you'd have been better off than wasting your resources on PC. I don't care what kind of fleet you send at it, on an equal cost basis, the defender is always better off if he builds only LL.

550 bombers versus 27,857 LL makes for almost total win for the defender, while 550 bombers versus 10,000 LL and 100 PC defender loses pretty badly. Be my guest, build as much PC as you wish.

Fully agreed about IC being worthless on defense, but I long ago gave up trying to convince others of that. It's easier to farm them if the build IC instead of LL.

ETA:
As for ships, I recommend ignoring any advice given by someone who calls for regular sacrifice of ships. This, like many other games, is a resource management game at heart. Throwing away a portion of your resources as fodder, even when there is profit to be gained, normally is detrimental. On huge hits with massive payoffs, a small amount of losses is acceptable. But anyone attempting to support the claim that it's ok to use LF or any other ship as fodder on a regular basis is ignoring the opportunity cost of using the resources to make the LF in the first place, and assuming incorrectly that the fleet sent with fodder to make a hit could not have been used to make a hit elsewhere for no loss. However, I've beaten this dead horse as well. CriticalMass, if you are unwilling to do searches of the forums for the varied advice given by numerous different people, then you could always do a search for my posts. I'm not going to rehash here what I have already spelled out elsewhere.

Shaftoe wrote:At 4:2:1 trading ratio

Actually, the trading ration from player-to-player is legally 3:2:1. But at least you got the point.

pwnage wrote:

acewoonder wrote:Overall,, light lasers are the best. The rest are a big waste of money, erm, resources. THe one thing that is worst to build though would be Plasma cannons. At the same cost, and with MUCH higher shielding, ion cannons have the same weapons power. Everything else is better in weapons, and ions are still the best with sheilding.

The only reason to build any of the rest would to be to build one of them all on each planet, since one could throw off the rapid fire systems and one can never be destroyed. That's basically the law of the land.

You forget to use the battle sim to back up your assumptions:

Let's say you launched 10k LF at 10k LL, since LL are best suited for tackling these ships:
The attacker has lost a total of 30.000.000 units.
The defender has lost a total of 2.309.000 units.

Yep, the attacker goes to h#!!, now if we replaced the LF with 300 DD and keep the LL the same, a miracle happens:
The attacker has lost a total of 13.200.000 units.
The defender has lost a total of 10.000.000 units.

The losses are half than that of the 10k LF, now if we just replaced 150 DD with 200 bombers:
The attacker has lost a total of 8.130.000 units.
The defender has lost a total of 10.000.000 units.

Keep in mind that these battles have the same techs.

Moving on to Ion Cannons, they aren't worth a damn on their own, 1 PC translates roughly to a little more than 13 IC. So...

10k LF versus 1333 IC's
The attacker has lost a total of 7.050.000 units.
The defender has lost a total of 0 units.

The reason this happened was because of the IC's high shields, now if we changed the LF to 450 bombers we have:
The attacker has lost a total of 75.000 units.
The defender has lost a total of 0 units.

They don't have any punch in them, best to back them up with some heavy weapons, such as by adding 100 PC to the defender's side and 100 bombers to the attacker's side:
The attacker has lost a total of 18.525.000 units.
The defender has lost a total of 100.000 units.

There you have it, you need varied defenses to combat various types of threats for you don't know what the enemy has.

Yeah, erm, the point was that Ion Cannons were a good defense. I mean, you didn't see much loss on the attackers side without any other defense, but they still get the job done of defending from an attack. The point I was alson trying to get across is that you need to combine light lasers with Ion Cannons for a defense, since the best shielding + the best attack at the least cost gives you a great defense. Add one of each other defensive weapon to throw off the rapid fire, and you have a steady defense to work with...

CriticalMass wrote:One can never be destroyed?

No, since Zorg rounds off the tenths. 1/0.7 = 0.7. Round that, and it equals one.

acewoonder wrote:Actually, the trading ration from player-to-player is legally 3:2:1. But at least you got the point.

At 3:2:1 100 PC is the same cost as 15,687 LL. However, even with the reduced number of LL, the conclusion remains the same.

Of note is that 1k IC at 3:2:1 is equal to 7845 LL, and at 4:2:1 to 8928 LL.

IC wins in shields, LL wins by five or six times in attack depending on exchange rate. And as one who has farmed numerous people, the defender should be focused on attack in order to not be hit in the first place. One IC is worth 1.5 LL in attack. If my fleet is hitting you, I don't care about your shields, I can overcome them in six rounds. In order to reduce my losses though, I must have enough shields to deflect all of your first round attack.

So please, spend 2.5k metal and 5k crystal for IC for exactly the same protection as 1.125k metal 375 crystal and 75 deut in LL. It just makes my goal of a no-loss attack on you that much easier.

Shaftoe wrote:

acewoonder wrote:Actually, the trading ration from player-to-player is legally 3:2:1. But at least you got the point.

At 3:2:1 100 PC is the same cost as 15,687 LL. However, even with the reduced number of LL, the conclusion remains the same.

Of note is that 1k IC at 3:2:1 is equal to 7845 LL, and at 4:2:1 to 8928 LL.

IC wins in shields, LL wins by five or six times in attack depending on exchange rate. And as one who has farmed numerous people, the defender should be focused on attack in order to not be hit in the first place. One IC is worth 1.5 LL in attack. If my fleet is hitting you, I don't care about your shields, I can overcome them in six rounds. In order to reduce my losses though, I must have enough shields to deflect all of your first round attack.

So please, spend 2.5k metal and 5k crystal for IC for exactly the same protection as 1.125k metal 375 crystal and 75 deut in LL. It just makes my goal of a no-loss attack on you that much easier.

Ok, so your suggestion is to build ONLY light lasers, correct? If so, then I can stop at the few thousand I've already built of ion cannons, and just keep building the lasers.

I still suggest to build one of each, though.

So pretty much don't waste too much resources on RL, HL, GC and PC, and don't rely on a sacrificial offence, (unless of course it will provide you with a more profitable result than the fodder cost?)

I searched through a couple of your other posts Shaftoe and from all the discussions and sims basically I see the best course of action being to use a large amount of BS with some BC thrown in for the shields, if I understand correctly. And maximize attack power with defences to chew through the attackers shields before the 6 rounds are up, but have some IC's in there for their shields also.

CriticalMass- if you're just starting out, you kinda have to go with what you have available to you. BS are nice because they cost no deuterium, only a little crystal, and they have large cargo holds. They move quickly (unlike the destroyer), and are a good all around ship. But if you can't build them in quantity yet, don't worry, that will be your goal. BC are nice because for the same amount of cargo space and fuel use on a mission, when compared to BS, they have 4 times the shields. So you will use them to hit harder targets. However, they cost a lot of deuterium up front to build. So especially starting out, they are a luxury item, and later in the game, they won't pay for themselves unless you use them regularly. If you only make a few raids a week, you're probably better of sticking with BS. LC are a necessity obviously. SC are more costly based on cargo storage, and less fuel efficient, but they are faster than LC. RIPs by far are the most powerful ship, and they are required to pop moons, but they are very expensive. Someone starting out really only needs one or two RIPs to help slow down the fleet and conserve fuel on fleet saves. But don't worry about RIPs until you can rapidly build the solar sats necessary for 300k energy for graviton tech. I don't like destroyers, but others do. As far as I'm concerned, LF, HF, and cruisers are worthless unless you are just starting out and can't afford the big ships, so don't worry about going heavy with them.

If you plan to turtle or mine primarily, rather than raid and/or fleet, then basically just focus on having enough LC to carry your resources on a fleetsave. Most of my posts and advice are geared more towards raiders or fleeters, if that is not your intended style, then you'll have to adjust.

Play around with the combat sim and get a feel for how battles develop. Keep in mind that while a lot of us reference trade ratios, they're worthless unless you actually have someone to trade with, or you use rubies for the merchant. It takes a little planning in the beginning to get mine production to match needs, but usually you can put excess resources into technology upgrades if you find yourself with a large surplus and unable to make use of it. Focus on getting yourself ready for when you hit 10k points, because it's a cruel, heartless world out there. Above all, remain unprofitable and you'll never be attacked.

Well put, Shaftoe.

Right, I think I got it all.

Is it possible to have you planets turtled and yet still be able to support fleeting as well?

The more money you put into something, the less money you'll have for other stuff.