I noticed that I was able to lower some sector defense to almost exactly what an endeavor can carry before having to use a little columbus to do a couple. Shouldn't a endeavor (or any ship) lose effectiveness once you run the SD. down to about 4 times what the ship carries or something ? Once you get it down that far it would be hard to damage a smaller ship anyway unless they had some nice sensor/cloak levels. But atleast they would have to take more of a risk. eh

Is the planets average tech versus ship techs having something to do with it ? Poor planet levels ?

Probably low energy on the planets. If the planets don't have enough energy to supply the fighters then the fighters without energy will die in possibly large amounts.

Wrt attack and run, I am new at this and trying to attack a planet.
I use the A&R tatics and kill some defenses, but then the sector defenses stop decresing and I just keep loosing all my fighters and torps.
Is there a summary as to what to expect (ie riskd benefits etc) on this attack strategy?
Is there a newbie write up as to how to attack a planet?

Need help please

Usually a good attack and run strategy requires 2 ships. (We didnt want this to be too easy)

But remember, the more fighters in the sector, the more damage you can take trying to get away.

Note here is a complete detail as to how A&R works note its based on the planet Sector defense levels.

See PJ's blog here: PJ's Attack and run info

What I've found is that the lower my average tech level is, the lower I can take SDs. If you nova your ship down to next to nothing, and then take all the techs important to AR up to really high levels, you'll probably be able to take the SD down to something you can manage in that ship.