Ok, trainees, it's time for some information for your nuggets to swallow.
I'm going to start with one of the most important aspects of AE, defenses. Firstly, we have some fleet and base defense requirements here in LUE, and you should read this topic for all the information [url='http://lue.faptastic.net/ae/index.php?topic=914.0']http://lue.faptastic.net/ae/index.php?topic=914.0[/url].
(economy^2)/10
In case you're not sure, you take your economy, multiply it by itself, and then divide by 10. That's your required minimum fleet. For example, if your economy is 1700, you take 1700 times 1700, then divide by 10, which comes to 289,000.
Minimum fleet per base is simple as well. Take the required minimum fleet you got above, and 4% of that needs to be at every base (if 4% is below 5,000 fleet, then you need 5,000 fleet there). In the example above, take 289,000 times 4% (289000*0.04), and you get 11560. Minimum fleet per base is required by, and after, level 20, although you should be able to slap at least 5k fleet on each base easily before level 15 even.
Required base defenses are pretty straight forward. If you're unsure how to determine what is equivilent of the required minimum defenses, from a defense that is more powerful, it's quite simple. Add up the power and armour of the required minimum defenses and compare that to the total power and armour of the defenses you have/are going to build.
For example, at level 20 you're required to have 4 Plasma Turrets and 2 Ion Turrets. At base stats, Plasma turrets have 24 power and 24 armour, and Ion turrets have 32 power and 32 armour. Remember, 1 level of turrets is actually 5 turrets, so 4 levels is 20 turrets. 24 power times 20 turrets is 480, and 32 power times 10 turrets is 320, for a total of 800 power (and consequently, in this case, 800 armour). If you wanted to build only photon turrets (64 power, 64 armour), you need 15 photon turrets (3 levels) to equal the required(64 x 15 =960) . One level of disruptor turrets( 256 power, 256 armour) would also be enough in this case( 256 x 5 = 1280).
On a final note today, Command Centers. They are your friends, they are the stuffed animals you still fall asleep holding, they're your hot and sexy mom.....erm..where was I?
Oh right, command centers are amazing. Each level increases your fleet's power at that base by 5%. It doesn't seem like much at first, but getting to 10 CCs per base is very easy, and even getting to 15 per base is only a slight challenge (if you're on a free account it's a bit more of a challenge). That gives you 50% and 75%, respectively, increase in power to your fleet. Only 6 are required by, and beyond level 20, but I suggest at least 10 even sooner than that.
Until next time, my sponge-minded young friends (hey, that's a good thing! It means you absorb knowledge very well), I bid you a good day. As always, feel free to ask if you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them.