Defense Build Strategies

Defense Build Strategies

Different ratios of defensive structures provide different kinds of defense, each suited to repelling different types of fleets. This article presents a series of different ratios explaining the costs, benefits and disadvantages of each. If you have an alternate strategy you would recommend, please add it to the end of this list; do NOT overwrite someone else's strategy.
If you don't have time for your account very often, you should build defense that would cause slightly more damage than the value of any resources that can be plundered in your absence.
If the amount of resources that can be plundered are much greater than your defense, then you can be certain another player will target your planet for the resources. A possible solution is fleetsave.


Early Game Defense
Ratios
Build Light Lasers as your fodder.
Build Rocket Launchers when you have spare metal but no spare crystal
Consider 2 Rocket Launchers as being 1 Light Laser
Build 1 Heavy Laser for every 10 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Ion Cannon for every 20 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Small Shield Dome when you reach 50 Light Lasers
Build 1 Gauss Cannon for every 50 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Large Shield Dome as soon as you can afford it
Fill a level 2 missile silo with Anti-ballistic Missiles when you reach 200 Light Lasers

That means when you acquire 200 Light Lasers, you should have:
~400 Rocket Launchers (depending on how much spare metal you had)
20 Heavy Lasers
10 Ion Cannons
4 Gauss Cannons
1 Small Shield Dome
1 Large Shield Dome
20 Anti-ballistic Missiles
This strategy aims to offset your opponents likely use of Cruisers (which have Rapid Fire against Rocket Launchers) and scare off any smaller fleets. An appropriate amount of defense built at this ratio (relative to how many resources you leave on planet) should keep away any player without a fleet of Battleships and Bombers but you should be working on a Big Gun Defense before you reach the '200 Light Lasers' number in this example!

Big Gun Heavy
Ratios:
Build Rocket Launchers as your fodder.
Build 1 Light Laser for every 2 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Heavy Laser for every 10 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Ion Cannon for every 25 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Small Shield Dome when you reach 10 Rocket Launchers
Build 1 Gauss Cannon for every 50 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Plasma Turret for every 100 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Large Shield Dome when you reach 100 Rocket Launchers
Build Anti-ballistic Missiles when you reach 100 Rocket Launchers
That means when you acquire 1000 Rocket Launchers, you should have:
500 Light Lasers
100 Heavy Lasers
40 Ion Cannons
20 Gauss Cannons
10 Plasma Turret
1 Small Shield Dome
1 Large Shield Dome
some Anti-ballistic Missiles
The Total Cost of this method is:
4,390,000 Metal
1,550,000 Crystal
340,000 Deuterium
+ costs of silos and missiles
Some critics of this setup would may point out that there are too many big guns (Gauss Cannons & Plasma Turrets) in this type of defense; however, in order to deter attack from higher level players, Gauss and Plasma Turrets are necessary in order to make sure a defender can damage an attacker's upper tier ships (i.e. Battleships, Bombers, and Destroyers), since upper tier vessels can easily break through defenses lacking in big guns.
The Heavy Lasers included in this strategy are included to clear a path through the Light Fighters that players like to use as fodder in their raiding fleets, and the Ion Cannons are there for their strong shields.

Fodder Heavy
Ratios
Build Rocket Launchers as your fodder.
Build 1 Light Laser for every 5 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Heavy Laser for every 20 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Ion Cannon for every 60 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Small Shield Dome when you reach 100 Rocket Launchers
Build 1 Gauss Cannon for every 150 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Plasma Turret for every 500 Rocket Launchers.
Build 1 Large Shield Dome when you reach 500 Rocket Launchers
Build 1 Anti-ballistic Missile when you reach 500 Rocket Launchers
That means when you acquire 500 Rocket Launchers, you should have:
100 Light Lasers
25 Heavy Lasers
8 Ion Cannons
3 Gauss Cannons
1 Plasma Turret
1 Small Shield Dome
1 Large Shield Dome
Anti-ballistic Missiles
Interplanetary Missiles
The Total Cost of this method is:
1,486,000 Metal
303,000 Crystal
36,000 Deuterium
At this point it would be very difficult to have enough resources sitting on a planet to make attacking profitable. People would only be attacking you to crash or ninja your fleet. Therefore this defensive strategy is suited towards supporting a fleet of ships in orbit of the planet. You will achieve much more fodder for a comparable amount of res spent because the resources you are not building nearly as many big guns - you have big ships in orbit instead. Your large amount of fodder makes it much harder for people to kill your ships and profit from the attack, while your defense is killing their Light Fighter screen in droves.
Note that any defense built at this ratio will be more vulnerable to Death Star attack as shots from Rocket Launchers, Light Lasers, Heavy Lasers, and Ion Cannons are rendered pointless against the Bouncing Effect.

Endgame (against rips)
One thing you should be very careful with is the fact that only plasma turrets and shield domes do not have a rapid fire from RIPs against them. This means that if you have no or very very little of these compared to the rest of your defenses (lots of fodder) the rips will really go to town and can fire up to 160 times a piece in a single round shredding everything to bits. Whenever a rip hits a plasma turret or a shield dome, its turn will end however. (test this on a simulator if you need to)
Therefore the rules change when rips come into play, albeit this sort of defense won't disappoint against bombers either as their rapidfire can be annoying too.

Ratios

Build Light Lasers as your fodder.
Build Rocket Launchers when you have spare metal but no spare crystal (Consider 2 Rocket Launchers as being 1 Light Laser)
Build 1 Heavy Laser for every 3 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Ion Cannon for every 3 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Gauss Cannon for every 4 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Plasma Cannon for every 5 Light Lasers.
Of course, you should have both domes and as many ABMs as you can fit.
That means when you acquire 3000 Light Lasers (or 6000 Rocket Launchers), you should have:

1000 Heavy Lasers
1000 Ion Cannons
750 Gauss Cannons
600 Plasma Turrets
1 Small Shield Dome
1 Large Shield Dome
Total Cost of this method:
57.560.000 Metal (65060000 using Rocket Launchers)
50.810.000 Crystal (49310000 using Rocket Launchers)
19.500.000 Deuterium
You now have a plasma to fodder ratio of almost 1 to 10 and the point here is that the plasmas are numerous enough to actually be hit by rips, but have enough fodder to be fairly safe from the rest of the attackers' fleet.
The above defense by the way will kill 23 attacking RIPs (with no other ships as fodder) and kill most when 24 were to attack. More importantly, the attacker needs a minimum of 155 RIPs(!) to even have a chance of winning in one battle. Needless to say, you'll be needing massive amounts of ABMs.

Big Guns Mid-to-Late Game
This defense strategy is the one that will protect you against the most Battle Ship based fleets and Destroyer based fleets, you'll have enough fodder that will protect your big guns while they destroy the attacking fleets effectively.
Ratios:


Use the Rocket Launcher as your fodder.
1 Light Laser for every 2 Rocket Launcher
1 Heavy Laser for every 20 Rocket Launcher
1 Ion Cannon for every 20 Rocket Launcher
1 Gauss Cannon for every 20 or 40 Rocket Launcher (For every 20 will protect you better of mixed fleets with Cruiser on them, since they can destroy a Cruiser in one hit)
1 Plasma Turret for every 100 Rocket Launcher
1 Small Shield Dome when you have 50 Rocket Launcher
1 Large Shield Dome when you have 100 Rocket Launcher
Choice Anti-ballistic Missile
By the time you have 1000 Rocket Launchers, you'll have:

500 Light Laser
50 Heavy Laser
50 Ion Cannon
50 or 25 Gauss Cannon
10 Plasma Turret
Small Shield Dome
Large Shield Dome
Some Anti-ballistic Missile
The cost of this strategy is:
With the 50 Gauss Cannons:

Metal: 4,710,000

Crystal: 1,960,000

Deuterium: 400,000

Plus the cost of the ABM's you chosen to build.


With 25 Gauss Cannons:

Metal: 4,210,000

Crystal: 1,585,000

Deuterium: 350,000

Plus the cost of the ABM's you chosen to build

This Strategy covers most of fleets made by an average Raider with fleets of Cruiser, Battle Ship, Destroyer and shouldn't have much problem to take out Battlecruiser.

Late-game Value for Money
This strategy is the one I find the most effective against any kind of fleet, while costing as little as possible. It will fare decently against all types of late-game fleets, inflicting a decent amount of damage.
Please note that this kind of defence is not appropriate in the early stages of a universe (if you don't have the plasmas it is very weak against Cruisers), and should be considered for fleeters who want to invest a minimal amount of resources in their defence, but still hurt anyone who would want to harm them.

Use the Rocket Launcher as your fodder.
15 Heavy Lasers for every 50 Rocket Launchers
1 Plasma Turret for every 50 Rocket Launchers
Both domes and about 1 ABM for each PT.
RL is used as fodder to counter Destroyer fleets. HL are included to quickly wipe out Light Fighters in the case of fodder-based fleets, and also to help finish off dessies which aren't killed by the PTs. Lastly, the PTs are there to kill any Cruiser/Battleship/Battlecruiser/Bomber in a single hit.

By the time you have 1000 Rocket Launchers, you'll have:

300 Heavy Lasers
20 Plasma Turrets
Small Shield Dome
Large Shield Dome
20 Anti-ballistic Missiles
The cost of this strategy is:
Metal: 5,020,000

Crystal: 1,660,000

Deuterium: 640,000

As a demonstration, the following (rather large) fleets have been simulated at equal techs against this defence. The numbers in ( ) are the losses to the attacking fleet. For example, the 500 destroyer fleet will lose 4 of them, totaling 240,000 metal, 200,000 crystal and 60,000 deuterium.

10 Deathstars (lossless) -- note: 9 will win at 98%. If you want to protect against RIPs you should use the above set-up, or at least increase the number of PTs in this one.
500 Destroyers (240k, 200k, 60k)
1,000 Battlecruisers & 300 Bombers (450k, 475k, 195k)
2,000 Light fighters, 400 Cruisers, 200 Battleships, 100 Bombers, 100 Destroyers & 200 Battlecruisers (811k, 302k, 25k)
5,000 Heavy Fighters & 300 Bombers (350k, 225k, 15k)
As you can see, these are already rather expensive fleets, yet your planet needs to have at least 2 million resource sitting to be profitable. The only way to make a flawless hit against this set-up (without using RIPs), is by sending at least 2,000 Destroyers.

Balanced Defense
Build Light Lasers as your main fodder.
Build 1 Rocket Launcher for every 5 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Ion Cannon for every 5 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Heavy Laser for every 10 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Gauss Cannon for every 10 Light Lasers.
Build 1 Plasma Turret for every 20 Light Lasers.
You should have both domes and lots of ABMs.
So, for every 100 Light Lasers, you have 20 Rocket Launchers, 20 Ion Cannons, 10 Heavy Lasers, 10 Gauss Cannons, and 5 Plasma Turrets.

In this setup, the Light Lasers are good fodder because of their balanced cost and good cost/performance ratio. The Rocket Launchers are there as extra fodder, and having both LL and RL as fodder decreases the rapid fire usefulness of Cruisers and Destroyers. Ion Cannons are necessary for their strong shields. Heavy Lasers are useful to crush Light Fighters, and work well against Destroyers. The Gauss Cannons are your basic big gun, useful against all ships. Finally, the Plasma Turrets are your best guns and help against Battleships, Bombers, Battlecruisers, Destroyers, and Death Stars.


Late game dmg absorbance
Use the Rocket Launcher as your fodder.
1 Light Laser for every 2 Rocket Launchers
1 Heavy Laser for every 10 Rocket Launchers
1 Ion Cannon for every 10 Rocket Launchers
1 Gauss Cannon for every 30 Rocket Launchers
1 Plasma Turret for every 100 Rocket Launchers
1 Small Shield Dome as soon as possible
1 Large Shield Dome when you have 50 Rocket Launchers
Choice Anti-ballistic Missiles

With 10k rocket launchers you will get a def like this
10000 Rocket Launchers
5000 Light Lasers
1000 Heavy Lasers
1000 Ion Cannons
333 Gauss Cannons
100 Plasma Turret
In late game attackers wil come with thousands Destroyers and Bombers backed up with Battleships and Battlecruisers. These ships are dealing tons of dmg. Thats why the large mout of Ion Cannons is in this set up since they have 500 basic shield power. The Heavy Lasers are there to clean out the flodder of the attacker so the Gauss Cannons and Plasma Turrets are able to attack the bigger ships. The choice of Rocket Launchers as flodder is becaus Destroyers have no rappid fire against them and ther will be less Cruisers in the attacking fleet. Since Cruisers are getting down easy in large fights.
S.I, Sheild, Weapon balancedEdit
Been a turtle since my first uni and this is the ratio i have perfected. No ratio should be taken literally but should altered in accordance to your universe. i.e newer universes should focus on light lasers as fodder but rocket launchers are priceless in the late game. (look up rapid fire)
270 Rocket Launchers for every Plasma Turret
180 Light Lasers for every Plasma Turret
45 Heavy Lasers for every Plasma Turret
5 Gauss Cannons for every Plasma Turret
15 Ion Cannons for every Plasma Turret
1 Deathstar for every 100 Plasma Turrets
Both domes and lots of ABMs
This factored variance involves the combination of several statistics and dealing with simulations.
The ratio works great untill the endgame as fodder usually just increaces your losses against RIPs and therefore you should think about halving the fodder.