This follows the way style of analysis as for [url=https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=346&AID=116303] beam weapons [/url] and [url=https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=346&AID=116313] mass drivers [/url] But applied to weapons.
To recap, I compare defenses within each of it's own lines. Newer tech defenses should have higher Defend/size ratios, given that they cost more monetary speaking as well as the research points invested. So a old tech armor should have a lower defense/size ratio than a newer one, otherwise you can get more defense by packing in the older tech at a cheap cost to boot.
I compared all the defenses across all hull sizes from tiny to huge , and at 3 arbitary miniturization sizes 0, 40% and 115%.
Armor The first obvious thing to notice is that Tri-stronium armor I and II have the same exact stats!
Duralthene armor is also not very useful (worse because it has lower def/size ratio) compared to the lower tech kavnium armor III if
a) You have no miniturization and are using anything but huge hull sizes.

At 40% miniturization , you are using but large and huge hull sizes.
C) At 115% miniturization, you are using anything but medium , large and huge.
Adamanite armor the armor after duralthene armor is actually still worse than Kavnium armor III if you are using tiny hulls with no minitruzation but that occurs only for that settings.
The good aligned Arnorian battle armor has def/size ratios roughly comparable to Adamanite armor (admanite is better the bigger the hull you use and better miniturization bonus), but take note of the higher production cost 140 vs 110.
The RP saving for a good aligned race in this case versus a none good race is hence 6,600.
In terms of biggest jump in effectiveness between techs, without taking into account RP effort, there is an obvious jump between kavnium armor II and I.
Point defnese For all settings i calculated, PD scales nicely with increased tech.
However, like armor, there are 2 PDs and techs that have the exact same stats. Droid sentry II and III.
The good aligned telepathic defense has the exact same stats as PD combo in all areas. Both have a base of 4, mod size of 3, defense of 3 and cost 70.
So a none-good race, would have to research up to combo PD to match it. That is an RP saving of 1,700.
Shields [/b]
Pretty much the same story as PD, the newer techs scale nicely.
The first good aligned shield Subspace responders are roughly equal to barier III (barrier III is almost always better because of the small base size of 3 vs 6).
That's an RP saving of 2,700.
The second good aligned shield Dynamic shields are roughly equal to advanced force shield (on bigger hulls the latter is better) or superior force shields (better almost in all cases).
That's an RP saving (compared to superior force shields) of 4,200 RP.
Other components like engines and sensors
I carried out similar analysis for engines, and for most part the newer techs scale nicely. The only limited exception is that the last 2 engines techs, hyperdrive II and III is actually slightly worse if you are using tiny hulls with no miniturization. If you have some miniturization (40%), hyperspace II and III are slightly more efficient then hyperdrive I. Not too important.