I like to use a mixture of both, but i prefer to make more hangars than turrets.

If the current state of strikecraft carriers from 1.1 beta stays as it is that small fleet attacking your planet may be a swarm of strikecraft from super carriers. Fear the advent ones most!!!

I can only speak for SP, and the impression I get is that the strategy (or is it tactics) is very different. For SP, I find a mix of hangars and guns with 2 repair platforms can slow down a lot of ships. I also like to have ~2 phase jump inhibitors. Hangars alone don't have the punch per tactical slot that turrets do, but turrets alone even the AI will outmanuever them.

Having Hangars with turret defenses forces the AI to engage your hangars in range of the turrets. But ultimately you need to have the fleet to respond with, and thats why you want the phase jump inhibitors. If the AI jumps in and feels confident it will engage, but as soon as it sees a superior fleet it will haul ass. The best situation is where the AI fleet is fully engaged (with cap ships stuck deep in your buildings) when your superior fleet arrives. With 2 PJIs you will be able to take a massive chunk out of them while they are trying to run. Otherwise you will have to follow them into another planet and fight them on far more unreasonably fair terms.

I find the best ratio is 1:1 of hangers : repair platforms , with turrets for the odd tac slots, and abviously place them all beside each other.

So with 35 tac slots, I'll put 4 hangers + 4 repair platforms all close together, then 1-3 turrets beside them.

This easily defeats pirate raids without loss and delays Ai fleets considerably. Often you can defeat a sizable AI raid just by spamming frigates at the local factory when the fight begins and rebuilding the hangers/platforms mid fight.

I play only medium or larger maps and I only play the PC (AI).

I find that phase Jump Inhibitors and Hangers make the best defense against the AI. Once I am mid-to-end game I typically install 4-7 hangers with only 1-2 as fighters and the rest bombers. It stops any casual traffic between that gravity well and others except for capital ships.

This game has too much micro-management anyway, and I HATE loosing planets that I have colonized.

The last game I played (3 players, me + 2 AI took over 15 hours to complete) was on the Huge Map (4 stars, 101+ planets) and I ended up with a fleet with 16 capital ships and over 100 cruisers (capital ship fleets and carrier cruisers with a total of 56 spacecraft wings (4 fighters + 52 bombers). That was fun seeing a single pass of my spacecraft destroy capital ships (and before they could turn to flee).

right!!! you have 35tactical slots 4 your planet when fuly upgraded right. now if you have played halo2 you will find this easy.... first you think of which spacelane they will take then start your first lot of gause 'guns'..... you first place your first gun directly infront of the space lane the you now place the rest equaly from both sides of your first one (remember you can only place nine cannons at first and---TIP:try over lapping them so when you place the next gun your previous gun can reach it if it needs help....always construct the cannons on the far reaches of the planets gravity well. then onece complete you can add 2 more cannons to each one like halo... then you have enought tactical slots left for 2 fighter bays (i recomend sticking them as far away from any space lanes and supply them with fighters only-this is because your cannons can hold off every ship but scouts and they cant cause any damage,while you fighters can take out enemy fighters/bombers.) once complete they should collectivley hold off enemy fleets long enought 4 you to get your ships thereand dont listen to  sorainglion because repair stations waste recources are useless without massive fleets and wastes tactical slots compromisising offensive defences. Any further help you can contact me at plattslukas@googlemail.com

From what I gather, lukas's plan involves 2 hangars and defense platform spam along the outer edge of the area available for structure placement (it looks like a slightly improved version of a Pirate Base's defenses).

I usually keep 3-4 repair bays, PJIs (1 for asteroids, 2 for planets), as many hangars as possible, and defense platforms covering them, clustered close the the planet. Sometimes I replace a hangar with a Shield Generator as TEC or a Nano Weapon Jammer as Vasari on planets the AI loves to attack (particularly when a bot loses 8 capital ships at that planet over multiple succesive attacks and continues to try and take it).

I've only played the demo(but i plan to buy the game SOON!!). So i could only be the TEC and coldn't tech quite a few things but i found that when i combined the hangers,repair bays, and a few defense platforms worked WONDERS. This only lasted 90 minutes and i only foght one big AI fleet(is about 30-40 ships from all the other AI concentrated on one planet considered big?(3 AI)). It worked wonders. Unfortunatly i only had only 3 hangers and 1 repair bay when it started,no turrets and a few light frigates. I was like"HOLY ****!!" I was able to buil a nice lil group of about 12 or so Light Frigates and my only Cap ship(forgot it's name, the one with the awsome missle attack that nearly kills everything in sight) the cap ship was level 7 and i just sent um in there in mid battle. I actually almost won the battle. But they kept summoning reinforcments whenever they almost fled. Happy to say i did obliterate all but one of theyr cap ships:). corse i kept building more hangers and i mixed it evenly between Fighters and Bombers. Game ended just as i failed and was being forced into my other planet wich actually had BETTER protection><. I sent only one other small group wich had a few Heavy's. Curse that time limit!! So i'd segust getting a bunch of hangers after youve put defence platforms around your key buildings. And make sure to put a repair bay or 2 where the main fighting will take place. When i just had a repair bay and a bucha hangers  on the other side of the soler system it still repelled quite a large force(about 30 to 50) of pirates. Yes i hade a small group of frigates but only about 5 or 6. They did a job they werent ment for....tanking><. I destroyed more then a 1/2 of they're fleet before i needed to replace the frigates. Reason the frigates survived so long was the repair bay,the Fighters and Bombers, and the ships were attacking them multibly. ha ha ha total annihalation!!

With the TEC against AI, the gun turrents typically only phase Pirates and ward off small raiding fleets early on. As you all know, defensive structures are only good at holding the planet a short time against a determined force. A typical planet killing fleet consisting of 2-3 cap ships and several smaller craft can defeat the defense of a planet quite easily. Repair platforms and hangers with guns either around these and other structures or at predetermined entry points are typically the best. My basic playing style includes creating 3 small defense fleets while building up a frieght train economy, then fortifying my planets and building ships. Against a rush human this system fails, but for the slower human or AI this system works perfectly, especially against those who don't know how to play the Vasari.

Great stuff, thanks.  Noobie here, so this works for me.

Early med. + large map games, repair and hangers are good to research AFTER I have a CAP ship and some frigates pushing forward and have improved their weapons/hull.  My fleet should be able to cover most attackes at this point or I'm not putting enough resources into fleet.  The best defense is a good offense.  Plus, I can "jump" a close opponent caught napping with my fleet. 

I wait to see what the "field" of battle looks like before placing static D.  Choke points are very important here.  The scouts should have done their job and I know about which direction the attack might be coming from.  Once I have established which planets make good choke points I start to beef them up. 

With the AI, I'll pack my defense into a massed group.  The 2 repair platforms are just great at keeping everything working until I can determine whether or not I have to reinforce with ships.  I will put the group in a flight path so someone trying to get through will take a beating.  I put the hangers in the back, next the repair platforms (always us two or more so they repair each other) then a screen of DPs.  The numbers on them very depending on how "hot" the area is.  I like at least one hanger with all fighters and 2 RPs and 4 DPs.  That may not sound like enough but it'll slow an AI up until the cavalry arrives.  Go up from there, add a hanger (1/2 bombers) and 2 more DPs.  I make sure the DPs can hit enemies that try and take out the hangers and make sure the RPs can fix everything.  If my planet happens to be in the middle of a trade route, throw in a PJI and a extra hanger with fighters to take out the trade ships.  Yes, it seems the pirates like to hit my trade platforms so I may put my D close by it if I think there is going to be alot of pirates hitting me.

Agains a human, I rely more on a mobile D.  It seems that what ever I do it's not enough.  When I attack, I almost always send a scout in to see what I'm up against before attacking and bring in more than needed and then some.  My static D does help slow the attack so I can reinforce.

Max