neither...ever...

well ok one time i built an ofm, and it was cool. But only because I had an odd-ball planet deep into enemy turf and couldn't muster an offense. (early in the game)

I've never needed planetary defense. Was thinking that if it did apply to soldiering, you could try to build high pop planets with a few and not build much militarily. (of course get as much soldiering bonus as well)

Don't build them Either. Waste of Space, money, time, etc..

Amen

BOth are a waste of a slot- except in rushbuild situation for the Planetary defense.

Maybe if Orbital manager gave unlimited logistics, and planetary defenses would be +100% and stack, they'd be worth something.

I had a PQ26 (aptly named Citadel) that had both Dregin and Yor bordering with it, and hostile Arceans about a sector away. It is my firm belief that the fleet defense super project and the 2 planet defenses were a major part of my victories against, at times, vastly supirior fleets. Yes, the two advance farms also helped with keeping my soliders up, but I still think the PD's and the super fleet manager were invaluable holding off the many fleets that never made it to the ground. The Yor broke their backs trying to take that planet and helped bring along their defeat. The Dregin and Acreans lost a couple of fleets to this planet also, though they tended to avoid it allowing me to place ships deep into dregin territory and break into Acreanian space. If you have a high level planet that is basicly surrounded, PDs and fleet managers can be a good investment in overcoming narrow battles.

Since the forum won't seem to let me edit my previous post...

I believe the planetary defense improvements lessens the effect of invasion tatics used against you. So, say that the enemy use orbital bombardment on you and would do 75% damage to your troops before the invasion. The PD imporovment would lessen it's effect by 25%, so now it would only do 50% damage. This is my understanding of it, which may or may not be wrong.

UMmm Orbital fleet manager is handy if you want MORE THAN ONE SHIP AT A TIME defending your world against a FLEET of enemy ships. that way you can actually WIN the battle.

I Don't know about you people, but i don't leave any of my planets without a defensive fleet that i'm confident can cut through at least one enemy fleet. Each defense fleet usually contains at least 3 corvettes, 2 destroyers, and 2 battlecruisers.

And typically i build military starbases throughout my territory so that they cover each planet, and i fully upgrade each of them with ship assist defense and offense. And i stick and economy starbase right next to the military bases, so all my planets have starbase factory bonuses. I call it my DefNet, or Defense Network. Once my DefNet is in place it's virtually impossible for the AI to attack me successfully in my own territory.

And for offense i line my borders with what i call Alpha Fleets, which are my main attack/defense fleets for non-planet combat. typically i will have 12-24 of these fleets. which in the end game usually consist of 3-4 battleships, 2-3 Battlecruisers, and 2-3 Destroyers and possibly various corvettes. And finally i will have 2 white fleets, which are super alpha fleets with more speed for quick one turn sorte's in and out of enemy territory. A typical end game white fleet is 7-8 Battleships, or 8-9 Battlecruisers. And i usually throw my flagship (no not the surveyship, my REAL flagship) into one of the white fleets.

I don't have serious orbital 'fleets', I've always found that the fact of the matter is if I can't secure the space around a planet, then I must be way behind in logistics or ship technology and therefore any ships left on planet defense are toast.

I always build fast ships, ships that are fast enough to avoid fights they can't win. They can buy me time, primarily by killing off the much weaker enemy transports. If I'm able to kill all the incoming transport fleets, that does me way more good than leaving a few ships in orbit to die.

Of course, ships left in orbit just to die can be useful-- if you don't have a planetary defense system, killing each one consumes a movement point.

If you have a fleet in orbit that's strong enough to take out an enemy fleet, why the hell aren't you using it to take the fight to them? Well okay, I see some point given that some of these improvements give a bonus to your ships.. technically yes, that could mean the difference between victory and defeat. I just don't like the uncertainty, letting the AI choose its battles with me isn't my style.

Sometimes i built them, for PQ10 with indus. improvements all over them (or anything higher)

IMO the planetary defense sucks. It is a waste of space on a planet and the tile can be used for more worthy builds. Now if the planetary defense was modded to actually do something more than nothing, maybe we would have something there. But as it is written now, there seems to be no point to building either improvement because they do nothing tactically, save for adding yet another number to be crunched by the computer. So tactically, they are pretty worthless, statistically, I guess they add a little bonus to your defense numbers, but not enough to be worthy of use.

boy, if this game had multiplayer, you guys would just die against me. theres something to be said about covering your @ss... and covering both cheeks seperately, doubling your chances.

why have orbital fleets strong enough to take out an enemy fleet? Because i already have enough fleets to wipe them off the face of the galaxy, but i'd also like to cover my @ss in case they slip one by. I always KNOW even if a fleet slips by, they can't harm me. like i said, attacking me in my own territory in any given game, is suicide for the AI.

i take pride in the fact that out of 10 fleet battles, i may loose one corvette. I don't attack unless i KNOW i can win with only 0-1 losses. which means when i attack, you're already dead, you just don't know it yet. I have about a 1-35 kill ratio. for every 35 enemy ships killed, i may loose 1. (be4 you ask, i play on crippling).

planetary defense is a waste, it makes your soldiers 25% better at that world, so your odds during an invasion are better.
instead, use the tile for an extra farm, the extra people also make the odds better during an invasion cause you simply have more soldiers (not better) and they also pay tax

I don't waste my ships (or my money maintaining so many ships) defending my planets

I don't waste ships defending my planets. I also don't use planetary defense or OFM. I do get the max soldiering bonus and Tir-Quan training. I also keep my pop up to make it more difficult for an opponent to take my planets, but I find it a waste of time to try defending my planets in any other way. Sure if an AI takes one of my planets and leaves it without a ship in orbit, I'll retake the planet with an unescorted troop transport immediately. But otherwise I just won't bother.

It's not important if your opponent takes a planet or two of yours, you just need to take his planets faster than he takes yours. Generally, it just slows down my attack if I try to protect or spend any real effort re-taking my planets. I just take his planets at a rate of 5-10 per turn until he's decimated. Then I'll go back and re-take any of my planets that he's taken. Finally, I let him surrender to some one else so I don't get labelled as a conqueror.

Hi!

So what do we do to protect our planets ?

I destroy his ships and/or transports close to my space before they became dangerous. With Eyes and quite fast ships that's very successfull tactics. But I usually leave one ship in orbit (tiny hull, 1 cheap weapon, 3 engines), just to make them come with real fleets, not just transports.

What are other planet defense strats ???

Being at peace as first. All else was already mentioned here.

BR, Iztok