I have been playing this game for a short while and have seen a few problems with the game mechanics that makes it a little unfair.
1. the starting res amount should be 25k of each resource so people who come to the game for the first time are not at the end of the first 5 min saying (what now?).
2. protection should be a 1/5 or 5 to 1 always. no point level needed if that is in place.

case in point. I hit 10k points on speed and was scanned by the #6 player. I have almost nothing but some lc's he has the phanax, jump gates, moons, production per second higher than my day's production, and fleet to spare. If he wants to attack me all i can do is hope i can move my tiny amount of res out of the way. Any defense I built was wasted as it is useless and I will loose most of it when the attack comes in.

case in point #2 My cousin was playing fleeter. he is a 150k -250k player. he is hunted by the top players every day. He either sits glued to the screen or has to fleet save. But wait, he is always running out of deut because of having to always move his fleet all day long. What is the point of building a fleet if you have to have it in constant fs mode. Cant let it sit for more than a few min before the top guys find it and then send after it. And when you are finally out of deut, bam no more fleet.

If a player who is no more than 5 times your size is the max that can hit you, at least you have a chance.
I like this game, but on my xtream account I didnt bother building a fleet of any type. I have a few lc's on each planet for minor raiding for res and that is it. I was already told once i hit 100k I would be attacked anywhere from 1-19 times as someone got hit. I was also warned that putting anything into def was a waste of res. Not everyone will be so fortunate. I do know that if I hadn't been warned and my fleet was destroyed, and redestroyed and redestroyed in short order, my account would be inactive very quickly.

Well you do bring up some good points. It is kinda sad that people with over a million points are gunning after people with 10,001 points constantly. But I doubt they are going to adjust the protection.

i agree with ur point 1
if zorg want to keep new player
u need to give them more resources at start

about point 2
it will depent how u play

about have to always fs ,that is the way u keep ur fleet
and about running out of deut , maybe ur cousin need to build more deuterium mine

and every server always have any predator player who like raid even for tiny profit
dont cluster and u will free from predator

what chance does an ant have when i slam my foot down on top of it. when someone 600 times your size can hunt you day in and day out because your points grew too fast, that makes it very discouraging. Plus when these very large players hit you, they take 0 losses while you loose everything you spent a week or more building. Even if they did loose equally, it would only take them the amount of time it takes to bring the screen up and punch the numbers in to replace what they lost, while you are set back another week or more trying to rebuild just so the next top guy can hunt you down and destroy your fleet again. there is no other game that I can think of where the battle can be so unbalanced. I play WoW and even there if you kill someone more than 5 levels below you, you gain nothing. If the top players want the game to become fun for them, they need to let the bottom players grow, period. Otherwise, its a game that will forever stay small and the inactive players will continue to grow. I broke 100k last night and because something came up and I could not log in to move my fleet, I lost it all, including 70% of my defenses that I spent 3 weeks building (such a waste of time). Now I sit here trying to decide if I want to play a game that I will have to spend 6 months or more just sqeeking by doing nothing but building buildings and research so I can get to a point that I might just be able to build a competitive fleet.

Mate, i understand you....I've been there and it was as **** as $#@! to lose my fleet and res.Then i got a few moons from my friends, started to invest about 75 % in techs , mines and buildings, while the rest went into building a humble fleet. Within a few months a reached 900K (in Extreme ) while being hunted constantly. It's all about perseverance , keep your head up , stay motivated and play smart. Speed and Extreme are 2 very hostile environments with gigantic sharks, but it's all about how you dodge them and convert all your res to permapoints

That's my sinister.