Guide:Defending your base
From Astro Empires Wiki
There are many theories to base defense. Some are practical, some are quite silly. Most are at least loosely based on the math AE uses to calculate fleet losses during attacks. This guide will cover the most common base defense compositions, listing pros and cons as well as overall practicality.
Defenses are based on several factors:
1) Cost effectiveness 2) Practicality 3) Profitability (how much profit will be made if you are hit) 4) Profit denial (denying the enemy as much profit as possible, or making it cost so much to hit the base that it simply isn't worth it; also in this factor is if you are able to be online to cancel trade routes)
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Early Defenses
While Fenix has changed some of the early-game dynamics, the early defense rules still hold true: at no point should you ever bother with building barracks, laser turrets, or missile turrets, with the caveat being you are, for whatever reason, unable to build plasma or ion turrets by your 3d day of playing (since most players won't be level 10 or higher until this time).
At this point, unless you have corvettes or better and are already hitting bases for occs, you don't need more than 1 to 3 command centers on one base.
Mid-range Defenses
Past the early stages of the game, the goal for mid-range defenses is disruptor turrets and deflection shields. Most people have mixed feelings about photon turrets. The same goes for ion turrets; while prior to the numerous updates of the AE algorithms, ion turrets were useful in fending off fighter drops, this is now no longer the case. However, many people still feel that a solid mid-range defense is 2 sets of ion and disruptor turrets with 2 sets of deflection shields, with 2 sets of photon turrets being optional.
At this point, because you probably have at least one base that serves as your main gathering point due to a higher level jump gate, you may want to consider starting a fortress base (this will be covered in detail later on). Thus, you may want to build 10 or more levels of command centers on this base in order to better protect your gathered fleet, since command centers increase the damage your fleet inflicts by 5% a level.
End-game Defenses
The final goal of base defense is the combination of planetary rings and shields. It is important to note that at no point do you need to build more than 2 sets of planetary shields, as anything more than this only causes the shields to heal themselves instead of your rings; as such, more than 2 levels of shields is essentially a waste of energy.
Planetary rings are the "end-call, be-all" of base defenses. They can cause large amounts of damage and are even able to kill titans and leviathans. While they are not unstoppable, and many players WILL hit high-level rings just prove a point, rings are the mainstay of any end-game base defense. They vary in cost depending on the type of astro your base is on (with asteroids being cheaper per level, moons being medium-range in cost, and planets being the most expensive per level), so it may be impractical or prohibitively expensive to build more than 3 or 4 levels of planetary rings. However, they are the only base defense (aside from p-shields) you need to build; anything else is a waste of space and energy, sucking up shielding capability and being no more than a speed bump to end-game fleets.
Thus, once you have 2 levels of p-shields and at least 3 levels of p-rings, it is safe to disband all other physical base defenses. It is important to note that p-rings are vulnerable without p-shields; frigates and cruisers, in large enough numbers, do quite well against p-rings. Most players typically work on a 2-for-1 ratio of rings-to-shields; that is to say, for every 2 levels of rings, build 1 level of shields.
Defensive Fleets
There are many theories to base defense fleets. Unfortunately, due to wide-spread use of faulty Excel battle calculators or, even worse, rigged browser-based calculators, many of these theories are absolute rubbish.
Thus, we can set aside all theories except for 3:
1) The no fighter/high shield defense: this defensive fleet has no fighters. Instead, it relies on, typically, 1 to 3 dreadnoughts or 1 titan as a defense fleet. That's it. Nothing more. This prevents the enemy from being able to fighter-drop your fleet away, eating the trade routes and essentially ignoring your base defenses. Instead, they must hit your fleet with strength and trigger your base defenses.
2) Low fighters/high shield defense: same as theory 1, with the addition of 1000 to 4000 fighters. This protects the high shield unit more, forcing the enemy to commit more fleet to the attack, thus taking even more losses from your defenses.
3) The pure fighter defense: usually anywhere from 1000 to 20,000 fighters (or even more). This defense is incredibly vulnerable to shielded units from heavy cruisers on up, and is also vulnerable to fighter-drops. Typically, bases with this defensive fleet in place will also have a high number of command centers; 10 or more command centers will usually be enough to allow the fighters to damage heavy cruisers, while 20 or more command centers is absolutely brutal.
Defensive fleets are a matter of taste, but usually fall into one of the above theories.
It should be noted that part of the profitability of a base hit can come from defensive fleets. So keep unnecessary fleet off your bases, keep them on your fortress, or keep them with your guild.
Fortress Bases
A fortress base usually describes the most heavily-defended base in your possession. This is typically also the base that has the highest level jump gate, and is often the center of your fleet-gathering. Fortress bases are often moons or asteroids because it is much cheaper in the long run to build higher levels of p-rings on these types of astros.
While there are many detractors to command centers, math and history have proven that command centers can be situationally very effective. This is even more so on fortress bases. Because each level of command centers adds 5% to a fleet's attack power, this means that, with 20 command centers, fighters (already the most cost-effective combat unit in game) become ferocious whirlwinds of destruction. With high enough laser tech, a fighter can do 10 damage, easily cutting through heavy cruiser shielding and wrecking havoc on enemy fleets should you become occupied.
Thus it is common to see one base with 20 command centers. However, if you are far away from your guild, have bases deep in potentially hostile territory, and/or are frequently at-risk of being attacked, it is not unheard of for all your bases in those scenarios to have 10 or more command centers. As such, all your bases may become fortresses.
Closing Points
Remember, no matter how strong your defenses are, you will be hit. It may be during war, or it may be for revenge, or it may just be for fun. However, someone somewhere is planning to hit you.
How do you minimize risk?
1) Ensure your bases defenses are strong. Get rid of lower level defenses as soon as you build stronger defenses. No one cares that you built 35 levels of barracks for the "lulz;" in fact, in most circles, you will be mercilessly mocked. If you are in a war renember to downgrade the small defenses after youve built the bigones. Try to keep it average as you dont want a weak base in the middle of a war zone.
2) Minimize profits. Keep unnecessary fleet off your bases. And no, no matter what your battle calculator says, adding an outpost ship or scout ship will not improve your defense ratios. Hide money in research bases or by building that 9th level of multi-level platforms; canceling research or construction doesn't cost you anything.
3) If you are online and see your enemy coming, start canceling trade routes. Do NOT allow your enemy to profit any more than necessary. Often, canceling trade routes lets the enemy know you are online and can frequently force them to look elsewhere for targets. Of course, sometimes your enemy is very dense, so you can change the name of your defense fleet and/or base to hammer home the point if you desire.
4) Prepare for the occupation. In the event that you are hit and your base occupied, start building fighters and bombers to harass your enemy. There is no honor in just "rolling over" and peacefully surrendering the debris. Make your enemy suffer. Hit their recyclers, spam them with attacks by 1 or 2 fighters every minute, have your nearby bases build corvettes or destroyers to harass your enemy.
