I often tell newer players that fleets are not planetary protection. If anything, they encourage attack. I just completed an attack that was a perfect demonstration of how a fleet invites problems.

I found a target who, compared to the fleet I had on hand, had a fair amount of defense and a reasonably good size fleet. After running the sims, I saw that I could not defeat him but that I could attack him with with relatively small damage.

In the attack I lost one battelship and got no loot as the battle was a draw. The battelship costs 45K metal and 15K crystal. But I created and collected a debris field of 89K metal and 88K crystal. Big win.

And I never touched the resources on the planet. I would have gone back for them in a second attack but, unfortunately, I knocked him back into noob status and I can't attack him.

The point I want to make is that I attacked him only because he had such a large fleet sitting on his planet. Without the fleet, I would have needed to attack him multiple times before I could defeat him and get his resources.

This is why I tell people not to think of ships orbiting your planet not as protection, but as flying resources to be pillaged..

-E1