Upgrade Defenders???

I myself don't. On top of that I don't even give them weapons/defenses/engines so they don't cost me any maintenance. If you only have a few planets it is no big deal but when you have 100+, with at least five per shipyard/orbit, having defended planets with no maintenance costs is a lifesaver on finances. I just make sure to supplement with a few "heavy fighters" that can dish out the damage to those stupid enough to attack me.

Yeah, its a great strat, I JUST can't do it yet...love the gun on there.
I am trying to work my way up thru the diff levels (Tough now). I plan to implement the "EVIL STORM" defense plan as soon as needed. Thanks for the tip.

Question, perhaps I am missing something ES. What is the stretegic advantage to having 5 defenseless defenders around your planets? I don't usually use defenders of any sort, only when I think there is an off-chance that the AI could actually get a transport to my planets(AI still lacking a bit there IMO). I can see that work if the AI only sends out unarmed transports, but even a 1HP, armed transport could eventually take out a fleet of "empty" ships. The 5 rounds it would take to get them all would sometimes make his transport run out of moves, but not always.

I'm curious because I want to know what advantage this tactic has, in case I want to use it myself.

I had the impression that you needed weaponry in order to boost your military standing and so prevent anyone trying to extort money from you or going to war with you before you are ready.

I tend to build more powerful defensive ships in the time that it takes to come up with the technology for a realistic patrol ship.

The earliest example is usually a medium fighter with an ion engine and a pair of lasers. In the event that one of my regular fleets needs a bit of cannon fodder for a local incursion, these defensive ships make good throwaway ships.

Sure, they do have an ongoing expense, but at the very beginning security is a prime concern. The more weapons each defensive ship has, the more likely it is that you'll be left alone.

I upgrade defender's every time. There my last line of defence on my good industrial planets seeing as they normaly dont have that high population. A good defender class ship can make or break a defensive battle, using the standard type is just stupid, No offence!

Fate,

I don't build defenders. About the time I'm ready to build a fighting fleet, I've researched up to Lasers III or V, and so can triple the weaponry on my small ships from that which the defender can give.

But yes, I do work to upgrade the ships defending my planets. That way I have a ready reserve of offensive punch when I need it.

I also don't defend my planets deep in my own space.

Short Answer:
No, build better ones!

Long Answer:
Defenders serve several purposes, but not the ones you might think.
The main purpose of a defending ship is to tell rival civs that the planet it is guarding is not the easiest target. In this case, any ship is better than no ship and Evil Stormbringer's empty hulls work quite well.
The second purpose is that any defender blocks a transport from being able to invade a world. Again, even an empty hull works quite well.

The last purpose, and the most obvious, is to fight off enemy ships. My experience, and that of others from what I read on the forums, is that this almost never happens. In my experience 99 out of 100 defending ships NEVER fire a shot! This has lead many to abandon the idea of the defending ship entirely.

I have come to a different conclusion and now use a different strategy. I begin building each of my worlds one defender as soon as they become available. As I gain military technology, I design better defenders and have these built. I used to then upgrade all the older defender designs to the newest design, but I found this extreemly expensive and unproductive. When I get larger hull classes, I build defensive ship on this hull and have ALL of my worlds build a new defender. As each larger defender is built, I convert it to and offensive ship and send it to a rally point. This allows you to convert your fleet without the massive expense of converting them all at once, while doing a complete conversion.

If 99% of them are never used, what is the point of all of this? The AIs in GC2 are written to look for weaknesses and exploit them. If you have no defending ships, they will send a wave of unescorted transports toward you worlds in the hopes that any ships that get through will give you problems. If all of your worlds have one defender, the AI will send a fleet to pick off your defenders one by one, and then sends the transports.
The purpose of this method is: Every world builds its own defender, which allows your stronger worlds to concentrait on other more important things. With each world having a defender, the AIs don't see easy prey and so concentrait their forces, which are more easily countered. Larger hulled defenders can usually due a good amount of damage to even a large fleet. After two or three encounters, they will stop attacking as they have been weakened to the point that they no longer see any battles that they can win or they are destroyed by a defender. This blunts their offense until you can get your own fleets into position.

How to build a defender:
The 'Defender' design is actually not a very good defense ship, as it is actually a heavy fighter. An optimised defense ship contains the following:
NO engines or life support! These are wasted if the ship never leaves orbit.
One of each of you best defensive systems.(Note: early in the game this is not possible due to space limitations) This can be further refined based on your enemies weapon choices. If no one has beam weapons, shields are dead weight.
Put as many weapons in the remaining space as possible, balancing them between the weapon types as best as possible.
This type of ship has a distinct advantage over enemy ships due to the fact that they need engines and life support just to reach you. You will usually have a 30% advantage in firepower and defenses compared same tech and hull size ship. By the time I get to large hulled defender, they tend to devistate enemy fleets by themselves.

Scincerely,
Scintor

I don't bother protecting planets with defenders. It's cheaper to intercept enemy transports in space. A fleet of fast ships can protect many planets, but you have to put defenders on every threatened planet. And the fast ships can be used offensively, too.

Hi!

My first military ships are planet defenders (tiny,1 laser, no defense/engines).

My first military ship is a fake defender: cargo hull with 3 different types of attack-1 weapon. In orbit it shows an attack value of 6. In early game this raises my mil score high enough to convince most AIs to leave me alone.

After that I don't build ANY defender for a long time. In late game I find usefull a "patrol boat": tiny or small hull, single small&cheap attack-1 weapon, 1-2 range extenders, rest (cheap) engines. With Eyes it sees 15 parsecs, and can travel ~20. That's more than enough to check AI's space for ambushes/mil starbases, and to intercept lone troop transports in my space, and is still cheap enough I can park one of them on each planet without other ships in orbit.

However for serious defense I use serious warships, that just come out of production, or out of repair, but one or two fleets of them are usually enough for the sparse universe I like to play.

BR, Iztok

I agree with ES's tactics.

In this game, the best defense is a good offense. Instead of wasting time and credits on static defenders, put empty hulls in orbit - the hitpoints are calculated when the aI is figuring your strength - and build lots of mobile fleets to defend instead.

Same principle is used with starbases - don't waste constructors on defenses - instead use the constructors as a reserve to re-build the starbase quickly, or build more starbases, and instead guard your bases with mobile fleets.

This way when you expand and your bases/planets are safely in the rear, you can move the fleets to defend newer bases/planets as your front lines expand.

I'm curious because I want to know what advantage this tactic has, in case I want to use it myself.

I wouldn't call it a tactic per se... some of you guys put me to shame with the strats you use  I just find it a more financially friendly option. I never really did find out for sure, but I believe it adds to my military ranking, which is always a good thing, I think. Like I said, I don't rely on unarmed defenders, I build roving fleets, or just a few bad ass capital ships. By the time my economy can handle the ship building with no sweat, it is usually late enough in the game for me to build some worthy ships with very good speed, enough to cover the ground necessary to intercept any attackers/invaders. Sorry if my reply is kind of rambling, but it's been one hell of a day at work    

While I agree that defenders are a good thing to have,,my approach is a bit different.

Well,,first of all,,I only play on big maps,,and I never bothered playing anything below Tough (Hey,,I had to learn the interface and stuff in my first game!).
That means you will most likely NOT be able to secure your borders,,especially not one HyperWarp is commonplace tech (for instance,,my own transports usually do at least 40).

Since all plantes needs to be protected against surprise assaults even if they have low military production,,the ship needs to be cheap.
Having low maintance is preferable too,,since you'll end up with a ship on each and every planet you have.

On every planet,,I have a Police ship:
Tiny hull
Cheapest gun in the list (usually a mass driver)
Cheapest engine that still can get crammed into the hull along with the gun
Perhaps a sensor depending on what the map looks like

Why bother with an engine on a ship that can only do one damage,,and that only if the target doesnt have any defence?
Simply because more often than not,,the AI will aim for a planet that is inside the outmost ones.
Having a gun let you smack any and all unguarded Transports within reach,,and that engine more than doubles your reach.
You can also hit traderoutes going by,,as well as starbases unless they find time to put guns in them.
Finally,,you can opt to have planets in a starsystem without any shipyards at all,,as you can rebase them within a single turn.


Then why not something sturdier than police craft then?
1) Maintance.
There's always better places to spend your cash.

2) Effect.
The police is there to prevent cheapshots,,not to deal with regular military class ships.
What you have to realise is that no matter how good your defences are,,a determined attacker WILL take them down. However,,you CAN make him pay for it...

Now,,when I encounter a well defended place,,I seldom lose more than one ship.
Why? Because that's why I have my sacrificial anodes: high attack,,low def/hp ships that will take the first volly giving the rest of my fleet free way.
Yet defenders cost me a great deal when attacking...
See,,the price the defender wants to exact isn't hit points but movement points.
Five defenders on a planet without an Orbital Fleet Manager (which by chance is the first building to go on every planet I conquer) will cost the attacker five moment points to clear regardless of how powerful his fleet is.

Applied properly,,the attacker will become bogged down long enough for your real fleet to take care of the problem.