Hangar defense: fighters or bombers?

Fighters deal 200% damage to siege frigates.

I spam fighters, even though bombers would hurt the enemy more per shot, I always have many left over after a battle. Bombers usually die too fast and are no good dead.

I use nearly all bombers, thourgh normally i have a defense fleet at primeary defense points so and have verry few things live long against 53 bomber wings. those don't die when the fleet shows up

You asid you hate Gun Platforms because they're immobile. Well, have you ever tried moving a hangar? I think not.

I usually build two hangars as defenses on a planet (and 3-8 gun platforms) and for on hangar I make 2 FIghter SQuads and 1 Bomber, the other the opposite.

4 hangars or 24 turrets backed up with repair plats? Admittedly, its cheaper to build hangars and strikecraft are replaced free of charge, but in Sins defense is already very very weak. At least with a few worlds with Phase inhibitors and masses of turrets n repair plats can hopefully hold the enemy back long enough for your main fleets to come to the rescue.

The best fighter for the Job?

Fighters.

They can hold enemy bombers, and kill off any Long-Range frigates and Siege Frigates.

And fighters are usually a good bet too, only in about 5 of my ICO game I've seen someone actually use an Anti-Fighter frigate, so, you'll be safe with 3 hanger defences with all Fighters, then just spamming defence platforms.

It depends what stage of the game you are playing at.

Early game when its only pirates your worried about, bombers will take out the pirate ships quickest.

But if your being attacked by an enemy fleet that has massed fighters, then your bombers are vulnerable and you need fighters. So mid game you need about a 50/50 mix. Late game your probably better with more fighters than bombers, as the enemy fleets get larger, but it depends on what they are composed of.

The other thing is that Bombers will target ships by themselves, where fighters need to be selected as a group and then told to attack ships. So if your busy directing capital ships, bombers are much better since they dont need direction to attack ships. Left alone, once all the enemy fighters and carriers are gone, your fighters will swan around doing nothing while there is still a significant fleet to attack, while the bombers are in there killing ships.

I choose fighter since I mainly use hangar to defend against siege frigate.

So, against pirates, a mix of 2/3 fighters and 1/3 bombers would be ok?
In all my games so far, the AI opponents usually use only few planet-bombers. Only the pirates tend to use a larger number of bombers. It is annoying when they beat the snot out of my planet because my cavalry was busy somewhere and could not come in 'time'. Then, if my fighters form Hangars manage to kill the pirat bombers quickly enough, my planet is safe. It takes quite a lot of pounding to destroy installations when there are a couple repair platforms healing damage in the area.
I am always keeping a keen eye on my enemies. What gives me fits are the annoying pirate attacks because they (the pirates) have the ability to 'conjure' a strike fleet out of thin air. And, in most cases, one of my planets is perched right on top of the pirate base. Only one, and a short phase lane is too little time to bring my fleet there in time.
On the other hand, the AI cannot just 'spawn' a dangerous fleet just under my nose. Usually, i will see it coming long before they are able to place a strike on me, and send my best ships to shatter their would-be conquering fleet. I will not wait for them to come at me like i am usually doing with the pirates.
Well, up to test the 2:1 setup for a while, it might be what i am lookig for. Thanks for your replys, keep them coming!

That 'out of thin air' aspect is why I keep pirates turned off. Its not real. Pirate fleets should spawn from the pirate base, and then travel the phase lanes exactly the same as everyone else. Subject to being shot at by everyone dependent on their relationship with the pirates. imho. 

Against pirate raids, bombers are most effective against their heavy cruisers (Pirate Corsair), fighters are effective against their siege ships and their light frig (Pirate Cutthroat). Neither are very effective against their flak ship, though they'll eventually kill them too.

The AI does like going carrier heavy (I'm still using 1.05), and more often than not, there are more bomber squads than fighter (like a 60-40 split).

apricot: Last I checked, you can't create a cease fire or peace treaty with the pirates... though I sometimes wish I could...

True, but I've noticed a lot of times when the pirates are left alone by the empire ships in the same gravity well and the pirates are not attacking them either, so there must be some sort of unofficial truce in effect. So if they had to run the guantlet to get to me, I'd expect them to find plenty of planets where they are not fired apon. In fact, I hazard a guess its only the planets/empires where they raid a lot that will fire at them as they go past.

As I play block point games, having pirates that can avoid these block points defeats the purpose of the map, as well as being totally unreal. If the pirates want to hit my home planet, they should ahve to fight their way up the whole arm to get there, not defy all the rules of jumping and just go there.

I don't know what you are talking about, you can always see pirates' raid route.  You can attack the group as they flying by your planets.

Something i about pirates while playing. When you're next looking at the pirate screen (e.g. putting a bounty on some damn Ai's head) have a look at the bar down at the bottom of the screen. This tells you how long you have until the next pirate raid is going to spawn. I also know that with everything else going on it can be rather rough keeping your head on top of everything, but if the pirate raid is not going to attack your base a computer will whisper you saying that pirates are no match for their fleet. This means that the pirates (who randomly pick who to attack and is possibly affected by your power and ranking in empire, economy and military strength) are not going to hit you for however long the timer bar down at the bottom of the screen indicated meaning that you can quickly use your counter fleet to go put some pain on some poor planet somewhere instead of letting it idle.

Quviron

I play a blitz style game. The structures still work even after the planet is destroyed so I normally lump a massive amount of defences in front of the planet around all my buildings. No hangar defence because you can have a lot more turrets instead. If they manage to bomb the planet the only thing I lose is a small tax income, most of my credits come from tradeports anyway. If you have a colony ship you can just send it to get the planet back. I can normally take 5+ planets in the space of time it takes for the enemy fleet to destroy my 1 planets defences. I use carriers in my attacking force and I usually use bombers solely so I can snipe enemy capital ships as soon as my fleet jumps in. Quite disheartening.

Following your idea, then, it should be viable the following tactic: to build several broadcasting centers protected by a swarm of repair bays, that way the culture strength of the planet would be prohibitive to the enemy for a long time, preventing them from colonizing it long enough for my relief fleet to arrive?I think i read about something liek that on another board or something.. What if they manage to colonize my destroyed planet? Wil my defensive structures just dissapear, or will still stay there operative? Once an enemy killed one of my planets, and my AI ally re-colonized it, but my surviving structures stayed in there for hours?

The structures stay there. But I not sure whether they're operational.

I use 1:3 (fighter:bomber), fighers to cut bombers, and bombers to cut their carrier vessels - though it's like a roll if forces seem to be even

If you lose a planet, any surviving structures remain and are still operative. However, all your constructor ships go boom, as well as any unfinished structures.

That is exactly what I use my defences for, delaying the enemy until my fleets arrive. Plus 20+ turrets in a blob can do significant damage before your fleet arrives and mops up. Maybe throw in a hanger bay or 2 for mobility but I still feel for dps output and survivability turrets are more spammable than hangar bays. This obviously only works against the AI and pirates.

... The pirate ships appear from phase space, like a interstellar jump, at the local pirate base.

Then they slowly go thru phase lanes and shoot up your planets. They tend to shoot up anyone in the way too.