I have scanned a lot of indy planets, and they seem a bit larger than even regularly are. They also seem to be defying normal levels.
I see several that are around level 28 maybe 29 average, and are sporting like 32 mil or higher in armor.
At 30 armor, it should only be like 2.8 or so.
Even my big planets that have been building for a while only manage like 5 or 6 mil in armor points.
Also it almost isn't worth the work to try to take them now. Most have level 27 or higher, some even in the 30's for attack levels, and have almost no money on them.
Is this the way indy's are going to go?

When I initially set up the main I adjusted the armor to be a bit tougher. I thought it was silly to be able to take a planet in one hit. The bigger the planet the more armor you will see.

As far as Indys go.... what is happening is indy planets upgrade themselves and planet levels are cheaper than ship levels, so they tend to spend the credits they have in thier own defence. I had an indy happen right in the middle of my SG and I had to nova it to take it (Ended up blowing it up) in the end it was worth it as it kept dropping mines on me. Nothing like those evil indys to spend my money.

PJ has talked about having indys work like a real player woulld play, hence they will start keeping thier credits at around 80% max which means they will make good money, but they will also spend it on thier upgrades and defence. In the past indys were a cheap way to increase your score, I'd rather see them become a much smaller part of the game, that is unless indys can defend themsleves better

Actually the amount of armor can be alot higher than 2.8 mill at level 30. The amount of armor produced is based upon the number of colonists devoted to producing ore and goods. Some people put the bare minimum to producing those items or they don't produce any at all. This greatly impacts how fast a planet can produce armor. If you notice the indy planets tend to have alot of people producing ore and goods. So thier armor going up faster and they make more.

And just be glad indy planets spend their money as fast as they make it every 6 hours. If they held onto their money and didn't spend any unless they were over the 80% mark and only spend down to say 70% then those planets would be even more powerful. They would be making more money, faster and that would give them more money to spend on upgrades that they current have availible.

The funny thing is if more players played like the indies they would have much more powerful planets. Not much cash on hand but some damned powerful planets.

odd, I thought armor was based on total levels on planet, not what could be built. also, I thought all you had to do was have over 10k in ore and goods to make armor. did this change? So if I have 30 and 30 for ore and goods, even a level 20 planet could have level 40 armor?

No, its still based on overall tech, but the armor multiplier is a little higher.

The 10K is the starting amount to enable planets to build armor. If its less than that or 0 armor will stop building.

This is what I do on many of my "Door" planets. And in the end players just look at these planets and break out the god-like Nova's and just nuke it.

Nothing is quite as silly as a planet sitting there doing NOTHING while someone tries to Nova it OVER and OVER and OVER in a little level 16 Endy.

At least the player occupied based ship should attempt to make a go at the potential world destoryer, if not have the planet treat the attack like a strafe attempt and fire its beams.

Course I do tend to agree with this a bit. Perhaps something that if you damage the planet it retaliates. Not much you can do if you get a lucky roll.
That way if you are noving from an endevor, I doubt you would survive the retaliation.

I know PJ has some adjustments to do with the Novas. Its still tougher to nova than before.

Only if you want to try to destroy the planet. If I want to keep it, I just sector nova, then you have no way for the planet to protect itself.

There should be no perfect way to protect your worlds, just make them tougher to take.
Any perfect defence, just makes it easier for the top people to stay there.
Perhapes I am bias since I need these things to get up in the world, but fair is fair, everyone can use them against me too, and I manage to stay ahead.

Yup sector novas therw would be no way for anything to retaliate. But I agree here as well. We have to balance tha ttacker with the builder or there will be no way to take a large player out... The whole design of the nova was to give a smaller player a chance to take out the big player.