I need advice....

[Cyrien]

Quickie mine defenses don't need mine layers. Just build the mines at the planets that are in danger and then launch them from the planet. Planets can launch any launchable unit from them as long as they have them in the planets storage. Most planets can build anywhere from 4 to 10 mines per turn with each mine easily being able to have 600 pnts of damage and upto 1200. More than enough to deal with most light cruisers on a one on one basis. So every mine in orbit of the planet if the enemy doesn't have mine sweepers is capable of taking out one ship in any attacking fleet. With a few turns of mine laying at threatened planets you can easily have a dozen or two mines in orbit of the planet. This provides considerable threat to the enemy. Even human players tend to back off when they run into mines until they have a fleet that can sweep 100 at a time (the limit of mines per sector). So mines make a very effective quickie defense.