I'm new to the game, so bare with me.

This is probably a carry over from other games, but usually I try to get by with a minimum of military units. Just enough to defend my bases and planets and such. However, I've noticed that if your neighbors notice you have a weak military, they react like sharks with blood in the water. (Good? Peaceful? HAH) In an attempt to keep my military expenditure to a minimum, how exactly does the computer compute your military rating? Is it based on total number of ships, the actual armament of your ships, the size? If I wanted to crank out a military just for the purpose of keeping my military rating up, is it better to crank out lots of little ships with minimum armament or build the big bruisers for maximum value?

Any word on this?