You have to have at least one point in the proper defense type for the starbase defense assist modules to work. I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug, as the starbase attack assist modules will add to a ship without the proper weapon types.

I also build a military starbase, loaded it with just about all upgrades and for some reason it did squat in helping my empire's ships. The ship was in radius to the starbase. Isn't there a button like "auto defense and destroy baddies"? Will the starbase auto engage enemy ships or is it only your spaceships that can attack?

To echo Ragor's post, military starbase assist modules have worked fine for me. And it did make a difference -- I was nigh untouchable.

OK, I fired it up before I went to bed.. (kept thinking about it heh) Anyway.. YES, the bug is this:

You must have some kind of defensive ability natually before any base assist modules will convey their defensive bonuses onto your ships. I just upgraded one of my medium ships to include +1 armor (at the expense of one of my lasers) and suddenly it was also receiving +3 beam defense from my military starbase nearby.

I went from
4/0 (3 lasers +1 attack assist from base)
0/0
0/0

to
3/3 (2 lasers +1 attack assist from base / +3 beam defense assist from base)
0/0
0/1 (level 2 armor which gives +1 protection at a lighter weight than level 1 armor)


The numbers in the above example represent the following:

(beam attack value) / (beam defense value)
(missile attack value) / (missile defense value)
(gun attack value) / (gun defense value)

That's strange.
Military starbases have been saving me in my games. My defenders end up having laser c3, misssile 5, gun 6 and 16 level in all defenses. A fleet of 4 of these can take care of almost anything, as long as they don't get out of the starbase umbrella.

As Apostolos notes, I believe assist module will only apply if the ship has some kind of attack, or if it has some kind of defense. If the ship has no attack at all it won't get help from attack assist modlues, and if it has no defense at all it won't get help from defense modules.

Bear in mind they are ASSIST modules--you still have to have a ship that's capable of attacking/defending in order to get assistance, the starbase won't do it all for you alone

Is this confirmed by stardock? Are they looking into it?

There is some screwiness. Numbers from my current game. I have 3 fleets of 6 ships that are all the same ship design. These numbers are all from in an area covered by my one military starbase.

The design has 5 Plasma III (Beam +2) and 1 Shield II (Shield +2). I get some bonus added to these from a fully developed military resource base an AI gave to me.

An individual "Ship Details" numbers.
12/2
0/0
0/0

One ship selected (numbers from box beside the mini-map).
15/6
2/4
2/4

One fleet of 6 ships alone in a square (numbers from box beside the researching info display).
90/36
12/24
12/24

Here is the screwy thing. Numbers for one fleet when two or more fleets in the same square (numbers from box beside the mini map).
75/16
2/4
2/4

I don't think it's a bug but it should be documented that you have to have a defense capability in order for it to be extended.

The assist do just that -- they assist. They don't provide attack or defense to ships that don't have it. Otherwise, players could create a bunch of cheap ships that have nothing on them at all and use starbases to do everything.

Can you game this by having a fleet with one ship with 1 armor and the rest without defense? Seems like it would work