[nerfman]

One thing that is weird. If you want to launch satellites to defend your planet be carefull. First launch in tactical. If you already have deployed the sats or deploy them all at once in tactical, then the computer will lump them all into one group. This may possibly allow the enemy to attack on the opposite side and be able to glass your planet w/out getting into your sats weapon range.

The best way is to launch each sat individually. Click orders and then launch and then just move one over and hit close. Do this until all are launched. The computer spreads them all out somewhat evenly this way. That way at least a few sats can engage before they can attack your planet.

I still very much recommend defending the warp points. You get a number of strong advantages:
1) your opponent can't see you and must enter the fight blind
2) you will start any engagement at short range. Build your ships/fighters/sats to maximize firepower in close quarters and you will be able to crush the enemy in only a few turns.

If you really want to defend at the planets I recomend fighters. Other players can't tell if they are on the planet (giving you the element of surprise) and they can manuever, and thus keep opposing enemies out of range of your colony.

Hope that helps a bit.