Defensive style player

I'm not talking about turtleing into a very small area by the way, but expanding into outlying mexes and using a point defence to firm that expansion up.

Yeah that method of play can be pretty effective, especially in situations where the number of expansion points are limited. Slow and steady expansion that is well supported can often defeat a very aggressive player who leaves themselves vulnerable to raiding (obviously with a well timed counter offensive)

This style of play isn't used often in PA due to the large size of maps (offering massive bonus to an aggressive player) and the option of expanding to more planets. Still in a big ffa game I think it makes sense if the playing field isn't massive.

Multiple planets are all fun and stuff but I think the ground-breaking thing about the game is that you're on a map with no corners rather than the fact that you can hop between planets. Maybe the planet hopping will get improved but I don't think it really adds a whole new level to the game because the same could be achieved by having a big lava expanse on an old TA map.