defending your empire's borders: what do you do?

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by Rojero:
I usually gather a group of ships and they go on a suicide mission. My borders arent super strong, but what I do is i go on an incursion usually hitting enemy planets and destroying them. I dont stop to invade, just slaughter their economy so they would not be able to support a military

This is a good idea. But those ships are expensive. Even a decent light cruiser is going to take 3 turns to build at a space yard III facility. Then you've got to marshall them, get minesweepers, supply ships ... yikes, even a suicide mission thus turns into a major operation and losing all those ships at the end of it seems like a poor pay-off.