There's a nice balance when one has to choose between building combat ships or building constructors. I like that they take a little time to rebuild, that the destruction of starbases means something... well, I like that they take game turns, but the management could be less time-consuming and repetitive. When a constructor is built, if I know where I'm sending it then everything works superbly--two right clicks and I'm on to the next ship. But calling up information ("Does this starbase have all the modules I want yet?", etc) to know where to send constructors gets old.

So I guess I'd vote for a UI but not a game mechanic change for this one.

Yes UI change to make it easier to pinpoint where you need to send your constructors would be more useful than going through all of your starbases to see if there are any empty module spaces to be upgraded...

Although I have yet to figure out rally points at ALL.... I'm pretty sure theres a way to have a shipyard set a waypoint for a specific starbase, then let it do its thing! periodically, the constructor would arrive on its own and ask if youd like to upgrade. When you see the base is as kitted out as you want or full, set the shipyard rally point to a new base.

While its not perfect, it would eliminate a lot of the micromanagement.

Perhaps add a command to Constructors...go to closest Starbase that has available modules. Then allow you to designate modules as undesired for building for both specific starbases and globally. Of course this designation would not be permenant. And specific always over rules global. I imagine under the civ manager a page for managing ships, and part of that page would be for Starbases and constructors...
On that page, would have a tab were it would list all possible (based on technologies) modules, each would have a check box next to it...if the check box is unchecked then the module is considered undesired and not considered for construction when auto sending a constructor.
Also on that page, on another tab would be a list of all the starbases and a list of all the constructors...the constructors would have their destiation (waypoint, resource, starbase, or empty space)...from there if you click on a starbase: A number appears next to each constructor, which is the distance between the constructor and the starbase. Second data on the starbase is shown, so you know which modules are built, where the starbase is, what modules are available to be built, and bonuses the starbase grants...
From the starbase information you can get a list to specify for that specific starbase which modules are undesirable for that specific starbase.
Interesting part comes when you get new modules and want to change the global settings (do they change the old starbases that previously couldn't build...)?

I think the easiest solution would be to allow for multiple contrcution modules on a ship. The build time would be greater, like building a fleet of construction ships. They can be intercepted, like a fleet of cobstruction ships. They would be expensive, like a fleet of construction ships. The only real difference is that instead of building a constructor every turn for 10 turns and sending the stack out to build something useful, you build an expensive multi-constructor every 5 turns and send the two of them out to do the same thing. It's just less hassle.

-Neb

I think it would be nice if I were able to pull up a screen that would list all of my starbases, what modules are installed and from that screen I could order constructors to go to my various starbases and build whatever modules I specifiy. I like the current system of one ship one module but having to handle manyyyyy constructors and mannnyyy starbases right now is time consuming and boring.

Actually i now dis agree with my original post i think starbases should have a module that takes about five constructors to build. This module would then allow starbases to upgrade after numerous turns/weeks, just like building any other improvement. UNDERSTAND?

They need to revise the waypoints system. They should have a tree of different choices. Ie one branch for all your planets, one branch for all eco starbases, another for mining starbases etc. Further there should be some info there in telling you how many of each module type can be added. (i personally don't bother adding military defenses)

Just telling open modules is silly. If you are installing all the defensive modules I think you're a fool. Any decent fleet will wipe out your starbase anyway, your money is better spent on mobile fleets that can protect your starbases.

Nope starbases are fine. If you don't like sending them manually then set up rally points. It's nothing to set a starbase up and then set a rally point for it. Have all planets building constructors you want to upgrade that starbase with use that rally point. And voila! all automated. When done move the rally point to another starbase or just delete it. I'm not sure what the upper limit is on rally points but I usually have a dozen or so.

Using rally points right now is very tedious and slow on larger maps. Sending all your constructors to one starbase is very in-efficient and slow. Granted it simplifies things, but if you want it done right, you still need to micro-manage each constructor, check each starbaase (is this one done), etc.

Further the current gov system won't let you say "all starports building constructors, send them here". You have to manually pick them out one by one and say goto constructors. Once you've done this, granted it sort of works. However it's a real pain once war starts, and now you want to build fighters and not send them off.

How about when you look at your starbase and find it needing more constructors, have a button labelled 'Call X available closest constructors' where X is the number you can increase? Sure, you still need to go to each of your starbase, but you don't need to find constructors, send them, and keep tracks of how many you have sent.

The rally point is ok if you divide works between planets yourself. Meaning that you designate a group of planets to send constructors to one rally point, another group to another point. Then move rally points around. It's better than sending all constructors to one point, but still not as efficient as micromanaging though. And there's a potential that you can mistakenly send your warships away too when you switch from building constructors to building warships.

A screen to manage starbases would be nice, similar to colonies screens in F6.