So we've been talking in the legion I'm currently in over if it's best to put defense on a planet or not, many think it's not worth it, but I'm not entirely sold. With my current defense set up it takes up 14 spaces, more on my best planets. So that's a decent amount of production added up. So what do you think is it worth defending a planet or not for the extra resources?

depends on planet and its size... and cloak...

if you have decent amount of cloak you can leave def as secondary... since only high ranks can find that planet... and they usually have high enough att to get over fairly good defended planet if thy want

But hardly any of my planets have any cloak at all, never mind any sort of mega cloak, but yes it is something to think about.

use this as guide for your best planets (arti ones of course others are not worth of effort)
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19405&start=20

I'm not at the level for 15x yet but I am nearing towards it so thanks, but what your saying is don't defend research and mining planets?

And as well, I'm low enough rank where I can hardly get one or two of the said cloak modules, passives so is it worth putting defense on it?

well low end research and mining plants (like ex rich etc) are fairly common... i had few... just push last drop out of them and send flowers to guy who took it with best wishes... and colonize another one...
VM gas planets= usually rich (if i am not wrong that its roof for them naturally) no def what so ever...
any smaller is crap any way so dont even look on them

just en example

Ok, average, mega rich+ terras? Very Massive, 1x mega research? Very large 15-16x toxic's? Should I put defense on these?

It's a mettalic lol, can't make a plasma and no I'm not planning to upgrade it, and my research usually caps so I don't really need it no. And I take red means don't defend them? If so what's the baseline arti planet to defend?

PMed you with some of my understandings... well that doc is 3 month old... my low end has gone up since than.. but it is OK guide i guess

Protect your arti planets... well. Arti Planets are the only ones I use p fluxes or mini fluxes on. The ap is harder to find and worth protecting.

As has been mentioned, research planets are a dime a dozen. Kick all the shields off and enjoy pure production. If someone takes it, you can always find another. The only caveat to that rule is simple. Gas giants are more likely to get stealth cloaks. If you get a gas giant with a stealth cloak, they're well worth protecting. Those are the kind of planets you plasma after maxing them out. Then you turn them invisible so no one can find them.

As for mining planets, I would take defense off any planet that wasn't V Rich, preferably E Rich and V large. Anything smaller or less resource rich is replaceable and so you remove any defense and enjoy pure resource production.

Thanks Gorog, and romanoid, thanks A LOT because of your formula I've managed to squeeze out another 400 research and 200 mining so thanks. And I'm still unsure as to whether a 1x mega Very Massive research is worth protecting, I've taken some of the defense off it but most is still on.

14 space is a lot, but you should defend a lot of them to some extent. A lot of my planets just have one researched attacked and defense on them; enough to keep off anyone who would bother invading such a regular planet.

Hmm, that's an idea, but to be honest being a non CCer I want people to take some of my planets lol.

Well yeah, if you don't want to keep a planet then don't defend it of course, I'm even turning my Volcanics into Demons in order to entice people to take them, I was referring to planets for which you have use and would not like to need to replace, but into which you haven't put much effort and could replace without too much trouble if necessary.

Generally, you can take:

Barren/Volc - dont bother
gas or metal, very massive rich (or near rich) only.
desert/icy/ocean/terra - very large / rich+ or close.
toxic - very large, easy to upgrade(more than other res types)

Note size matters more, because when you later want to apply an upgrade like a terraformer, base production matters most, for which largest planet will have the highest. adding +1 AP is the same on a 3x mega very large vs. a rich very large, but it is smaller gain on say an average size planet.

Don't bother defending anything that is not mega rich. You will lose more in production losses than you will get from potential theft in almost all cases. For non AP dont bother defending it unless you upgraded it.

This is before end game, at end game we assume you got the ability to cloak well; in that case for me I just put att/def passive on 15x toxics and pure production, 2 inverse flux on a 15x gas RP for around 4k cloak, and for 15x AP 3892 passive cloak + 1-2 inverse flux and other cloak buildings that add AP, for around 12k cloak.