Star Bases?!?

By thetraviler Posted March 10, 2008 23:45:04

Ok, ive been around GalCiv2 since months after its first release. It is an AMAZING game that I have continued to play and play and play. Ill get tired of it, stop, on the next patch ill be back at it again. But somthing as ALWAYS bugged me. And its their apparant lack of TLC for the Starbase. I personally LOVE star bases. Im a huge fan of Deep Space 9. I love the way star bases are simply AWE INSPIRING feats of engineering in most scifi universes. However in GalCiv they seem to be week, combersom, and awekard. I know they have had some attention lately. But it seems to be only surface level. At least from what i can see. I have not gotten into this beta because ive been too busy with Sins of a Solar Empire (An amazing game btw) and didnt want to ruin the surprise of playing this final product.

That all being said. I have serched this site and have not found much talk of the star base as of late. Ive read through the official change logs and have not found much about starbases either. Could some one please let me know what all is being changed, Starbase wise, from DA to TA?

Now that ive said that, i just read an idea in a thread that made me salivate. Give starbases a population. Make them huge objects that are much more easily "captured" then distoryed. Plus they are far too valuable to simply distroy. It would be much more economical to simply take it as a spoil of war. Make a "habitat" module and increase their hit points rediculously (once upgraded), so that one WANTS to capture these spactacular outerspace castles! It would add soo much more imersion (and stratagy) to be fighting over planets AND starbases! THINK OF THE GLORIOUS BATTLES, AND SPOILS THAT COULD AWAIT US!!!

...ok im done

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I was thinking somewhat the same thing, but more of adding a new habitation starbase tech. Either allow construction module equiped ships to colonize the 0 planets, or allow them to be build anywhere in the open.

Start the new bases out with 0.25bil population capacity, and 1 open improvement tile.
If it's planet colonization, randomly generate a max planet quality.
If it's build the bases in the open space, have a new variable called starbase quality that gives max planetquality for starbase pseudo-planets.

Either way allow players to dedicate constructors to either the universal starbase battlestations/offenses/defenses, or to habitation modules that add another 0.25bil pop cap and 1 more improvement tile. Deny building any improvements that boost/decrease planet quality (terraforming/habitat/soil enhancement, the altarian biosphere manipulator thingy, ect...), and no galactic achievments or super projects. The one per planet things are ok.

I would be happy with seperate starbase weapons (so they can pwnersize fighters) and modules that increase max hp. Something like Battlestations 1 giving +1 to each damage type and +10 hp. A new starbase would be rather small (comparativly) and weak but as you added new modules it would grow and even non combat modules could add hp because they make the base so much bigger.

Habitable starbases would be insane. In a relatively big map you would end with hundrets, maybe on the biggest maps with thousands of worlds/starbases. To manage all these wouldn't be funny.

The only change I would want for starbases would be to have different tabs for different modules, i.e. have a military tab for attack and defence, an influence tab for diplomatic and influence modules, a sensor tab etc. That would make it easier to manage upgrades to it.

Ah, also how they are build but I've said that already in another thread.

Oh, and the possibility of making them somewhat prettier..

To avoid the huge task of micromanagement of "living" starbases on immense or gigantic maps, make the habitation module almost prohibitively expensive to construct, perhaps double or triple the cost of any other modules that require "additional funds." That would certainly limit their construction on a simple economic basis and require they be extremely well protected in the case of war.

Science fiction is full of examples for starbases that contain massive populations and do alot more than barely supplament the industrial capabailities of the planets they orbit. Ringworld, The Night's Dawn series, etc all show how habitable starbases play a massive role in an interstellar society.

Is such a change in the dynamics of the game even possible though, from a pure mod standpoint?