The best defense is a good offense.
I have a game going right now in which I'm fighting two different empires on both sides of my empire.
My race's culture is warrior, and I have trade set to 50% - although the only treaties I will make with anyone is non-aggression (to roleplay my race correctly).
I do not have any battle stations or weapons platforms. In some systems I have fighters (no maintenance
) but mainly I have three primary fleets. Two fleets are defensive and protect the choke points leading into my empire. The other one is an attack fleet - which I use to take out the weaker planets of the two empires (since they both have fighters out the wazoo at their main planets and would paste me)....
My suggestion is this: research Mineral extraction II quickly. Build fighters at first (I use the initial set-up of 100000 points to get fighters right off the bat) to protect your systems. Then focus your research on producing weapons, shields, armor etc so that you can create ships that are fairly well-equipped.
Just my .02
Jason2