Profitable setups (using fighter & HC to attack)

Turrets: 10/10 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 1 dread
Hit with 11158 fighters, 59 HC. Profit = 10k.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 1 dread
Hit with 11551 fighters, 59 HC. Profit = 9k.

Turrets: 10/10 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 2 dread
Hit with 11158 fighters, 119 HC. Profit = 1k.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 2 dread
Hit with 11551 fighters, 119 HC. Profit = 200.

Profitable setups (using fighter & ion bomber to attack)

Turrets: 10/10 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 1 dread
Hit with 11158 fighters, 466 Ion Bomber. Profit = 11k.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 1 dread
Hit with 11551 fighters, 466 Ion Bomber. Profit = 10k.

Turrets: 10/10 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 2 dread
Hit with 11158 fighters, 937 Ion Bomber. Profit = 2.6k.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 2 dread
Hit with 11551 fighters, 937 Ion Bomber. Profit = 1.6k.


Un-Profitable setups (using fighter & HC to attack)

Turrets: 10/10 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11158 fighters, 179 HC. Loss = 8k.
Area cost: 2. Pop Cost: 2. Energy Cost: 6.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11551 fighters, 119 HC. Loss = 9k.
Area cost: 3. Pop Cost: 3. Energy Cost: 9.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 Disruptor, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11746 fighters, 213 HC. Loss = 17.7k.
Area cost: 4. Pop Cost: 4. Energy Cost: 17.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 10/10 Disruptor, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11746 fighters, 247 HC. Loss = 25.8k.
Area cost: 5. Pop Cost: 5. Energy Cost: 25.

Turrets: 5/5 Ion, 5/5 Photon, 5/5 Disruptor, 5/5 Deflection, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11352 fighters, 282 HC. Loss = 33.3k.
Area cost: 4. Pop Cost: 4. Energy Cost: 23.

Un-Profitable setups (using fighter & Ion Bomber to attack)

Turrets: 10/10 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11158 fighters, 179 HC. Loss = 5.7k.
Area cost: 2. Pop Cost: 2. Energy Cost: 6.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11551 fighters, 1408 Ion bombers. Loss = 6.6k.
Area cost: 3. Pop Cost: 3. Energy Cost: 9.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 5/5 Disruptor, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11746 fighters, 1799 Ion bombers. Loss = 18.4k.
Area cost: 4. Pop Cost: 4. Energy Cost: 17.

Turrets: 15/15 Ion, 10/10 Disruptor, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11746 fighters, 1877 Ion Bomber. Loss = 20.6k.
Area cost: 5. Pop Cost: 5. Energy Cost: 25.

Turrets: 5/5 Ion, 5/5 Photon, 5/5 Disruptor, 5/5 Deflection, 5/5 P-Shield, 20/20 P-Ring.
Fleet: 10k fighters & 3 dread
Hit with 11352 fighters, 2346 Ion Bomber. Loss = 33.2k.
Area cost: 4. Pop Cost: 4. Energy Cost: 23.


Easiest Unprofitable Defense

Whilst doing all of the above playing with the turret amounts, however, I quickly came to realise that you don't need to build any turrets other than your P-Shields and P-Rings (I personally value every ounce of area, population and energy, and only want it to better my base or prevent somebody hitting the entire base itself). And you don't need any fighters defending your base at all either (which is good, it's nice to use every last fighter you have for doing fighter drops on enemies). All you need are dreadnoughts, and the more the better (up to a degree)! 4 dreadnoughts to 6 dreadnoughts, along with your usual nice set of P-Shields & P-Rings, mean an enemy cannot make a profit from simply trying to kill your fleet and taking the trades. 4 dreads will cause an overall 10k loss if the enemy hits you with pure ion bombers (the cheapest way to take down the dreads). 5 dreads will cause an overall 20k loss. 6 dreads will cause an overall 30k loss. Etc.

Note: Don't get carried away with the dreads. I would recommend sticking it at 5-6 and not getting more. The reason for this is with large numbers of dreads, you then make it possible for an enemy to profit from hitting your entire base - fleet and defenses, and getting a pillage, something you do not want to encourage an enemy to do. With 10/10 command centres, 25/25 P-Rings, 5/5 P-Shield and 5 Dreads, an enemy hitting you with, for example, 5k cruisers with fighter cover, would make a loss of around 35k (assuming a 20k pillage and 20k from pirating routes). If you had 10 dreads, the loss is reduced to just 20k, and so on. So you need to strike a balance between preventing an enemy profiting on your trades, and preventing an enemy profiting on your base, and 5-6 dreads (50k-60k defending fleet) seems like the best average.


What about Command Centres?

Command Centres increase your fleets attack power. They don't increase your fleets armour, or affect your defenses. As they do not increase fleet armour, they make no difference to an enemy using the "bare minimum" to hit your base just to kill your defending fleet - so whether you had 0 CC's or 50 CC's, an enemy just wanting to kill your fleet will spend the same amount attacking you regardless, so command centres make no difference for the sake of this article.



Summary:
All you need defending your base are 4-6 dreadnoughts, and a bunch of P-Shields/P-Rings. You don't need any fighters in defense at all. This prevents the enemy making a profit on you. Command Centres are optional and only really needed for fleet bases or to make you expensive to occupy. Turrets other than P-Rings/P-Shields seem redundant, but can be used for a fleet base or if you have a high jumpgate base used as a guild LZ regularly just to make it more costly to hit (and if energy/area/population are no concern), though you are probably better off investing area/pop/energy in to yet more P-Shields and P-Rings on any base.


Final Word:

As there are so many possible fleet, turret, tactical commander, defense commander and command centres setups possible in both defense and attack, and there are variables like dropping fighters/bombers first or hitting with an entire fleet in one go that affect the overall outcome, I cannot predict/think of everything - so it's possible I have missed something vital out. If you spot something very vital, and have confirmed it in a calculator yourself, please reply with details so we can fix any holes.