Most cost/effective way to play a defensive strategy early on.

[Interesting]

Im looking to know what is the most cost/effective way to defend my properties on DW.

[Interesting]

No repplies so far.
Well...

What Im looking for is to know if it would be better to have multiple little ships, one big ships (in terms of maintenance), or build a base or defense station, or arm my mining/constructions ships /statios themselfs.

See?
There are multiple possibilities to consider. I would like to know what you guys think. The cheapest way to have the minimum defense.

[JonathanStrange]

One thing that could be done relatively cheaply is to rely on good info -  obtained either via espionage or a screen of picket ships with long-range scanners -to locate enemy fleets locations and to deploy accordingly. In many strategy games, I try to rely more on a reserve rapid response force to deal with attacks rather than deploying the fleet as garrisons/patrols everywhere. But defense on the cheap has its drawbacks too, sometimes the AI's see your minimal military not as a money-saving measure but as a sign of weakness. And one may have to endure temporary loss of border colonies.

[Wade1000]

I agree. A rapid response/ mobile defense is good. Also, extra defenses to be stationed at key places. Defense is a constant balancing act with your funds and appearing too weak.
If you appear as a weak neighbor even friends might consider you a tempting, fast and easy target.

[HsojVvad]

When I build mines, I make shure there is 3 or 5 lasers on them, (forgot what it is called in DW) 1 or 2 armour on the and a shield. I hope that is enough to keep alive when the fleet arrives to handle the menace. Also I noticed, pirates don't attack me as much now. Maybe because in my other games, I never bothered with the amoured mines, but now that I have them, in a different game, they don't attack so much. So it's either they are aware of the armoured mines, OR they just havn't attacked me yet in my current game, and it can be different in my next game.

[forsaken1111]

Lots of destroyers/escorts are absolutely a better strategy early on as you can concentrate them anywhere you need them. Only build bases when you can afford their maintenance because if you're attacked anywhere other than the base location its entirely useless.

[Interesting]

Thanks for the repplies, but I can see how all the suggestions have its side effects. Very tough aspect of the game indeed.

[taltamir]

eh... early defense is not worth it... there are no credible threats.
I find it better to invest as follows:
1. Buy the location of an independent colony from pirates for 5000 credits
2. Colonize independent colony.
3. Repeat.

if you haven't found any yet, then spam colony ships and take over as many planets anyways... fighting pirate raiders isn't worth it compared to colonizing more planets.

[BigWolfChris]

Personally I just have a number of Escorts most on automatic (which are usually assigned to protect Private Sector ships), any manual are put on protection duty anyway
Then maybe a dozen Frigates, half auto, half manual
Then a couple of destroyers, all manual

Of course, scale the numbers up depending on how well your economy is

The manual ships I tend to have waiting around the nearest refuelling location to the centre of my empire, ready to deal with any threats
How many I send depends on the scale of threat being dealt with, the Destroyers tend to only be used on larger scale threats due to them being slower, and by the time they arrive, my Frigates have already won

If I happen to come across an abandoned cruiser or capital ship (which I'm finding to be WAY too common), then they will be manual regardless until I can actually build them myself

[Cindar]

I just go ahead and pay off the pirates early on if they are being a bother. From there most races, even the aggressive ones, won't start declaring war until you anger them at least a little. If you just off with just a few small donations or trades, even the opposing evil races start to warm up as long as you keep out of their area. This is true at least up to the unstable galaxy setting, where my Securan race played most of the game with the Dhayut as their close friends. From there keep expanding, amassing money, start trading techs and you can usually do fine.

I'm very heavy into macromanagement. Just get enough money, buy off anyone powerful whose starting to cause trouble, then eventually just overpower everything with ridiculous numbers of units.

[Fishman]

The most cost effective solution early on is to arm all your merchant cruisers with a torpedo launcher or two. At that point they become self-defending, and anyone attacking them is going to get a pain facial. Set them to fight to the death, so that when they become obsolete, someone will help you scrap them and then they will go buy a newer, better one. This is extremely cost effective because you don't have to pay for it.

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

The most cost effective solution early on is to arm all your merchant cruisers with a torpedo launcher or two. At that point they become self-defending, and anyone attacking them is going to get a pain facial. Set them to fight to the death, so that when they become obsolete, someone will help you scrap them and then they will go buy a newer, better one. This is extremely cost effective because you don't have to pay for it.

That's so ingenious, it's like a self-refitting army. I wonder if its possible to play entirely without a navy, just using civilians for defense (starts another game).

[Interesting]

You might think of it as an exploit at first.

"Oh, why not use my 2000K Private GDP Budget to outfit all freighters/passangers/miners like Capital Ships?"

You will learn that there is a serious side effect to it.

The Artificial Inteligence scans the ship and notices it has FIREPOWER! Then they react as if the pacific merchant freighter was an impending menace. You start getting multiple annoying messages "Move your military out of my territory now!" multiple identical messages from all races to wich your freighters hyperjump through... The longer your "military" troops remain on other AI's systems, the bigger the negative reputation effect.

Soon enough, believe me, you will get other races hating you, just because you thought "Oh, why not add weapons to the freighters so they can defend themselfs?!".

I suggest adding more engines/thrusters/shields/fuel to the freighters. For Mining Stations/Ships, its ok to have weapons.

[taltamir]

its worse then just races hating you, a negative reputation lowers your planets morale...

[Cindar]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

its worse then just races hating you, a negative reputation lowers your planets morale...

It shouldn't lower your reputation, just make some civilizations hate you. But since they declare the war on you, your own reputation won't suffer. War weariness, of course, can take effect if you pissed off someone and can't either patch things up or kill them off.