[LordNieminen]

I'm going to just throw a example of my personal scan/calc hell.. what I do as a newb to pax..

1) Alliance throws the attack scans.. All of them *sigh*.
a) Sandman.. check for hidden prod amounts here
b) Do worst case scenario calcs and what defence likely if you can't overkill target
2) BG/Alliance throws jgp's at eta1-4 depending on wave.
3) Target has def... ok.
a) We scan defenders and target with au again.
b) We scan defenders with newsie (if not sure what he sent)
c) We jgp and au scan defenders targets where he's attacking to determine the composition of he's attack fleets so by process of elimination we get the defending fleets composition. Then bcalc worst/2nd worst case scenario and act according to your own personal risk/reward ratio meter.
d) If all scans weren't made at eta1 we re-do newsie, and then jgp target for returning fleets if your attacking with fake/half-decent fleet composition instead of real asskicker.
e) Before you get to eta1.. you jgp yourself and at eta1 you jgp yourself once more because of chance of fleet catch depending ofc whatkind of eta your fleet uses. If target had massive hidden prod, you get cov op:ers to destroy buildings.. maybe u get lucky, or atleast hint to them that if he had massive resources to start with he could be candinate for resource stealing when he has pop in ship building if he hasn't spend/hidden resources as a smart player.

That's my offence.. might have forgotten something... that takes a bit time.

Defence
1) We see hostiles in jgp on myself..(if for whole gal, we'r grounded)
2) AU scan all hostiles (save all scan results in different leafs on your browser)
3) Compile list of possible ingal defence fleets if you don't have already a idea what your galaxy has home for the night.
4) After this looking trough the possible incoming fleet compositions you can already get an idea who's getting hit by what.. and can start preliminary crossdefence preparations on your notebook.
5) Incomings show up, you got scans ready and fleet analyzis where you can get them.. Inc's reported.. people to call up to get those fleet analyzes... Ingal def fleet goals change at the rate as out of gal defence comes visible. Problem at this point is to decide how much ingal def will you commit to certain players defence so you can show that players alliances DC the calc with ingal def in it.. So they would feel like covering it as they don't have time to do complex calcs when there's easier def calls to cover.
6) eta5 you get newsies of attackers who could be faking and do step 3c as in offence.. to try determine if it's a fake or not.

Incoming defence/offencive fleets adds up every tick.. calcs change every tick... until waves stop and defence is committed this takes as many hours as there are waves and 1-2h's before it.. and after waves stop still 2-3h's as hostiles recall too early and that way freeing up more ingal defence fleets.. That's current PA and it definately doesn't reward in my opinion the poor sod who puts in that much effort.