Thank you for taking time out of your day to critique my poor network, offer advice, and help make my net boss like a Miami pimp.
With my current setup I defend fairly well in most cases where I'm not plainly out classed. My biggest weakness is vs stealth attacks where wraiths are used to take down either my guns or code gates and/or portal attacks that bypass them completely.
Barons 1.0

After spending some time watching my defense replays I came up with a few suggestions for myself and I wanted to get your thoughts on them.
Code gates by themselves or with sentry?
youtu.be/uqN5L0Ee3CU
I picked this layout uo from someone's help video and I'm either not doing it right or its less effective than just having 2 code gates. Yes the sentry and collector cause a slight distraction but in exchange for allowing my attacker to focus 7 beams on my 2nd code gate? Doesn't seem worth it. Also considering my first code gate is connected to a guardian I know I'm not getting the maximum amount of time out of them, without even taking into account the guardian/code gate bug. Please feel free to give me your thoughts on this. I'm in favor of just having 2 code gates linked off a 3 point node.
I originally tried to place my code gates as far back as possible to make them harder to wraith while setting my main choke pointo up front. However after watching the gates get wraithed mutiple times despite that I've decided it's probably going to happen as long as they are placed anywhere useful. Plus it seems lIke losing 2 code gates is way better than having 40% of my guns taken out before the hack.
All that being said I believe I've designed a layout that is slightly if not much better at surviving wraith and portal attacks. That will all depend on how well my lvl 7+ scanner(not sure how high it goes at core 7) can shut down a portal, 2 wraiths, and 7 access programs. That's what's needed to portal on to the closest black ice and bypass my choke point. This new design hasn't been tested yet but from my limited experience with having one 3 gun and one 2 gun choke point I believe it will pose much more of a challenge.
Without further adieu I'd like to present my new core 7 layout...
The Ball Sack!

I sat around with full loot for a few hours and didn't get hit but now my threads are done so I'll see how it does over the next few days. I look forward to any suggestions I can get.
Thank you for sharing your experience with me.