defence Guide Part II:

These are sample base defense setups. . Do note that no defense is ever unprofitable when you park your mobile on it and that this guide is for your average base, not your main JG.

Early game setups
Covers the first 45 levels or so of any player

2 ions + 2 photon setup
Cost: 4 area/14 en/4 pop/~2k cr's
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 250 fighters

Comments: A setup only for the first twenty or so levels. After that it simply becomes too cheap to use and gets dreadnought'd too easily. Abysmally weak in both offense and defense; its only saving grace being that it absorbs alot of droppables, not that you'll need it at that early in the game. If you get anywhere above level 20 with this, take it out immediately.
Comments: Probably even above lvl 15 this defense wont cut it. Photons are only useful in the very very early game, but they are simply too week to do any damage to usual built fleets like cruiser/fighters. Get rid of that shit really really fast and do not offer people long range trade routes if your base is defended like this.

2 disruptor setup
Optional addon: 1-2 Ions
Cost: 2 area/16 en/2 pop/~10k crs
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 2k fighters + 1 HC

Comments: A setup that will tide you over nicely for new bases but also for level 20-30 players. Its a little bit costly at first though and becomes obsolete as soon as prings becomes available. However, it is powerful for its time and unlike photons this setup will guarantee profitless attackers if your base econ is low. An improvement over photons for sure. If you decide to add the ions then you add fighter drop resistance to your base which starts becoming useful by that stage.Take out when you get prings.
Comments:That's the mandatory defense for any base with above 80 eco, imo. Add in additional ions to help protecting your trade routes, but again, long distance trades (above 3k) will be very very profitable until you have pringles up. Still, 2 disruptors, 2 ions and 2k fighters are probably the best you can do until you finally get the real defenses available:

1 pring setup
Optional addon: 1-2 Ions
Cost: 0area/24 en/1 pop/13/25/50k
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 5k fighters + 1 BS

Comments: When you put this up, you can basically disband all the other defenses you own; pringles are that good. Only as the game approaches higher armor levels and base econ starts increasing alot will a single pring be no longer sustainable.
Comments: WE TOLD YOU NOT TO SETTLE ON PLANETS, YOU IDIOT! Now all you "oh planets are great for research!" faggots can wait 600 hours to finish your damn pringle... have fun!
If it's not a Rocky Planet, don't waste your time building a base on it... Oh and one word to the "I keep up my disruptor because god told me to" morons: FUCK YOU! Get out your damn calculators and see how your disruptors do an incredible 1k more damage to a fleet that can crack pringles, WOHOOO, that sure is worth the 10k buildcosts, 16 energy and 2 spaces on your fucking astro!
Oh, and add in 5k fighters for that defense, it will keep you warm and save, along with one dreadnought to prevent fighter drops to take your trade routes!


2 rings + 1 shield setup
Optional addons: 1-2 level of Dizzies (planets), 1-2 Ions
Cost: 1 area/64 en/3 pop/40/80/160k~
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 5k fighters + 1 BS

Comments: This setup will tide you from the time you get about 150 econ for a long ass time until you get to the stage of the game where you have 200 econ bases with 7k+ prod. The shield is useful as by that time top players will have enough fighters to take 1-2 level of prings with only fighters. Its definitely optional though, and the rings are the most important part of your defense as always. For planets sometimes it can be helpful to add 1-2 dizzies to that setup to hold off from building the third ring for a little bit while (112k hurts). The only downpoint to this setup is the massive amounts of energy needed to sustain it; it will be a huge reason you'll curse at your monitor when you're staring at 200k antimatters.
Comments: Did you just say "Hold disruptors"??? /facepalm
Now, people might argue here, but I would not suggest that setup OTHER than you are broke. The building time for a second pringle is maybe a few hour more, but you will take down the pshield anyway at some point. I would suggest to bring up a second pringle on your moons and roids and go for a shield on your planets since the second pringle there is immensly expensive at this stage in the game and takes forever to build.

Mid-Endgame Setups
Setups are tailored to veteran AE players

2 rings + 2 shield setup
Optional addons: 1-2 dizzies, 1-2 ions
Cost: 2 area/80 en/4 pop/~50/100/200k
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 10k fighters + 1 DN

Comments: This is a pretty weak setup tailored for the people in secured galaxies. It will get crushed for profit with any base above 180 or so econ. It's cheap though and if you can afford the added risk definitely go for it.
Comments: Yeah, put 10k fighters amd a dread over that setup and youll be fine, I would recommend to take down the disruptors, though.

3 rings + 1 shield setup
Optional addons: 1-2 dizzies, 1-2 ions, 1 more pshield
Cost: 1 area/88 en/4 pop/~65/130/260k
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 10k fighters + 1 DN

comments: Average setup that I use for all my bases on beta. Its a little shy on fighter buffer but otherwise it does a reasonable job on all bases except those with the highest of econs. The fact that its not much more expensive than 2 rings + 2 pshields makes it an excellent versatile and balanced setup for nearly all places.
comments: Again, I prefer the 3 pringles, 4 ions, 0 pshield at that stage since the pillages dont matter much when you have the moneys to build stuff like that. But to be honest, it simply doesnt matter. If someone attacks a base with 3 rings and 1 shield, 15k fighters as defense and just to break even on traderoutes... well, you obviously have messed with him and he will crash anything into you.

4 rings + 1 shield setup
Optional addons: 1-4 ions, 1-2 dizzies, 1-2 more pshields
Cost: 2 area/128 en/6 pop/~110k/225k/450k
Recommended Defensive Fleet: 10k fighters + 1 DN/2-3 DNs/1 titan

comments: Heavyweight setup suitable for hostile galaxies. Its highly expensive to maintain and build but it deters nearly all attacks on all bases. For the paranoid people as most people shrudder at the sight of a base with 4 layers of rings.
comments: Yep, 4 rings will make peole not think twice but 3 or 4 times. Again, the dizzies are useless here imho and I would personally use a titan as flying defense instead of fighters, but to be true, thats a thing of believe and faith.
Definetly the defense to go for in the long run, once your base looks like this, you can call yourself a real turtle.

5 rings + 3 shield setup
Optional addons: 1-4 ions, 1-2 dizzies, 1-2 def shields, 1-2 photons, 1 more pshield
Cost: 3 area/168 en/8 pop/~175k/350k/700k
Recommended Defensive FLeet: 20k fighters+ 1 DN/2-3 DNs / 1 Titan

comments: Fucking expensive. (and I mean fucking expensive) But noone will ever attack a base like this if you don't hae a huge fleet parked on top of it.
comments: Yeah, wow, noone will attack this, even on alpha those defenses are only up on large gates and hidden fortresses. Go for it and brag about them in highschool, if you play long enough to even think about 5 pringles/3 shields you will probably never have sex in your live. Get over it and oh, dont build take down the disruptors

100 barracks
Optional addons: 50 more barracks
Cost: 100 area/100 pop/alot of credits

Comments: The ultimate defense in the game. You'll crash the server if you build this