how to balance defense and fleet

Hey guys I have always liked fleeting but i tend to attract high ranking players and get crashed even though I try and fleet save on a constant basis. Any advice on a good balance of defense and fleet?

Good question. If I knew I'd tell you

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I'm probably not the best authority on this as I have almost no defenses on my planets. I'm not much of a fleeter, but my fleet has been growing. I think my best defense is my moon. Since it can't be phalanxed, people have a hard time figuring out when my fleet will be around. Also, the planet offers protection to the moon, as I can bring a ninja fleet to the planet, then deploy it to the moon seconds before they hit. I can also fleetsave to the planet easily. At 10% speed, my fleet takes 1 hour to make a round trip to the planet and back, at less than 10 deut. This makes for very efficient fleetsaves when I'm gonna be afk for a short time.

I'd try to make your defenses strong enough to defeat your fleet. That way the enemy needs a fleet able to destroy your fleet twice over.

in regards to the best defense. It depends on your point of view mate.

Best defense for production value on the planet is easy to figure out.
Use this calculator > http://tools.ogamecentral.com/defence-calculator-2
It calculates out the minimum needed to keep your planet un-profitable for 'X' amount of time while your resources stockpile over-night. Don't include your fleet-save or the resources with that fleet. Its not meant to keep your fleet safe, but just the resources that are mined while away for 'X' amount of time!

Best defense for your fleets, is, a fleetsave. If your having a hard time with keeping your fleets safe, please double check the nuances of fleetsaving from the link > http://ogame.wikia.com/wiki/Fleet_saving

When I fleet-save, I send my fleets on deployments to other planets that I control. My Galaxy 5 ships fly to Galaxy 1 and vice versa. I also set the flight time to 10%. I ALWAYS include at least 1 recycler along with the fleet to insure that it goes as slowly as possible.

If I want the fleet to arrive to the destination at a certain time so that I can be online for it landing to ensure that nobody phalanx'd it? > I look at the flight times of all speeds, and determine which one I should use. when doing this I also see the flight times as if I did not include the recycler. It gives you MANY options time-wise for your fleet-save.

The second part that I do is simple. If I don't want the fleets to land to the other galaxy, but I still want the max flight-time possible? I send on deploy, 10%, make sure I have recycler, target the farthest planet from me, launch, then wait. *****After waiting, I calculate when the best time to TURN THE FLEET AROUND is at***** This is the most important thing to do when fleet-saving. If you don't hit RECALL from the fleet movements page, you can be phalanx'd by someone in range. I make sure I hit recall when the time to come back is a time that I can be online for, or near to it.

If I set a timer or a memo for this, It woul be flawless fleet-saves every time.. but I realy get lazy and just approximate things. So bigfoot has had a few hours to probe me and grab my ships, oh well. I stagger my fleet-saves so that not everything is grabbed at once.

I am not nearly as experienced as many of the others here, but what I would add is that I think another factor is your lifestyle and how much time you have to devote to the game or maybe more important how often you can check on the game. Since I have fairly long periods that I am away, I decided to go for strong defenses. Of course, not having that large of a fleet is a major factor as well and also not yet having a moon to fleetsave to as Tacticus does.