Ok, just found out that planets could produce more armor than their armor tech level. Basically 10 times the armor of the tech level.

This has been changed so planets can have the same amount of a normal ship. The reason is because each point of armor on a planet can take twice the amount of damage of a single ship armor point in the combat routines. Since planet armor can take more damage per point there is no reason to have the 10 multiplier.