I have played for a long time, but I don't pop moons. Does defense get taken into account when popping a moon? I am talking 120k light lasers on a moon that has a diameter of 4,436.

I'm not sure, but then again I have a pretty dense cannister for a head! But, I would imagine that any defence would make a difference. But, if you were sending enough of a fleet to pop a moon, unless there was any massive amounts of defences, then perhaps 120k light lasers are like firing a spud gun at a nuclear missile? It must come down to the rates of fire and so on. The same as a fleet sitting at the moon. The first salvo would be answered by returning fire, once all that fuss is out of the way depending on rates of fire, then the moon destruction comes to the fore.

someone else can probably better answer this question (looking at you, heavy fleeters!) but afaik, moon destruction occurs after 6 rounds of combat. at that point whatever is left attempts to destroy the moon.

if you try to pop a small moon with 120k light lasers, you really wanan watch for lunar guardians, as the lightlasers themselves can be fodder, being weak to d-stars

I"m not sure.

Yeah...I think they do.
As those defence in bulk do have some RF against the RIPs..
so I guess they can bring down your chances of "pop-ability"

Thanks guys. I just wanted to make sure. I was guessing defense wouldnt get in the way, but I was guessing that it would however.

if you really wanna try to stop rips, they obliterate light lasers by the million. plasma cannons actually put up a good fight. it sometimes helps to have fodder though

From what I know ach is correct,
there is a normal battle and and the moon destruction (and backfire chance) is calculated after round 6.
so any defenses left standing will not protect your moon from the destroy chance but they will contribute to killing the RIPs ... not that defenses kill RIPs very well ...

exactly! so the only defenses worth putting on a moon would be the ones that can as a group last, so a scattering of all defenses (not so much on light lasers, deathstars kill them almost literally 1 million+ to one, i think. i havent checked in a while or done any math lol). so if you are really gonna try to defend a moon, it would be a ton of fodder + plasma cannons as the attack force. btw, ion cannons seem to make nice shields

now, to be very frank, gozar you cant do much about besides fs really carefully (sprog was right about the unpoppable moons. i searched the galaxy and found some, and you can find them in an hour i think). however, in the other servers, lunar guardians work much better as moon defense units, provided that you can actually hide them. if a potential attacker knows you have a lot of lunars, they will be very cautious about attacking.

now, if you had a puny moon you plan to get rid of eventually... well. let's just say that planets are not destroyed so easily (except in v-mode)... it is possible to abandon moons, so if you had a lot of defenses on your main planet... ^_^

I've never actually popped someone's moon before...