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Mallesh Gopalswami

Join Date 05/2006

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Easy Wins with Military Star Bases

Anyone else notice how powerful a group of small weak ships become in the presence of a decked out military star base? I play on the setting where the AI for enemies is set to intelligent. They usually have 5 to 10 times the number of ships I do and they're always stronger also. Buy my weak ships with a military star base can clean house. So far it's not that bad I'm just being defensive.

But during that time I make a bunch of constructors like 30 of them and mabye to stacks of 3 or 4 ships. Then I rush into the heart of enemy terriorty make a fully decked out military star base in one turn and clean house. It's a slow boring way to victory but I have yet to see it fail. Why doesn't the AI every build up it's star bases military and otherwise? They're usually pretty weak on star bases. Though with the new patch I've noticed the AI always trying to take out my military star bases but it's so easy to defend it. Am I not playing a high enough difficutly setting? (I thought I was playing the one where all the AI was turned on.)

So just a chesse factor thing I wanted to bring up. I haven't seen anyone else talk about it and I didn't know if it was an intentional part of the game or something that needed to be fixed.

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IT is an intentional part of the game. If you notice the tech desciption for Starbase Fortification III and Stabase Defence it says 'Even the weakest ship can wreak havon on our enemies now' (or something to that effect

). Basically military starbases' job is to pump up your ships and cause you to have a have a distinctive advantage in its area of effect.

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These bonuses have been cut down quite a bit in 1.1

The have still been the difference between life and death sometimes tho even with this weakening.

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I am happy with military starbases the way they are. They r a life safer on suicide level, when the AI quickly go to hostile with u. I use them for defense, I find trying to intercept incoming hordes of fleets great, had several close calls where the AI nearly overwhelmed me. Its too time consuming using them in attack through and no need to do so. You should be able to beat the AI with normal fleets by that stage, I always can. I have found that when the AI sends his horde against u, which u destroy, his military rating can plummet. Your attacker then gets torn apart by other AI's saving u the bother, very amusing, did'nt even cost me anything on the diplomacy screen

Noticed alot of this is too powerful, that is too powerful etc.... If everything was toned down would the game be better? No it would become boring and everyone would stop playing.

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Anyone else notice how powerful a group of small weak ships become in the presence of a decked out military star base?

No. I never build them.

Granted, I haven't played on anything beyond "Challenging", but by the time I'm involved in a war in which I could afford to produce enough constructors to build military bases, I've already got a weapons tech advantage over the enemy. They're already dead; it's just a matter of time until they figure it out.

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Well, a simple fix would be to limit the number of modules you can add to a starbase in a single turn.... I think it's ok that starbases are powerful, but raising a monstrous, fully armed starbase in a week seems a bit cheesy. As a strategic option, this number could depend on technological achievements, either on existing ones (logistics, maybe) or on something new.

Another option would be to make the bonuses to the firepower not additive, but multiplicative. I.e., the enhancements that give +1 on attack or defense now could give, for example, a 20% bonus to att or def instead. This way, it would not be overpowered to have a big bunch cheap 1/1 ships. Which is the real cause of the current strangeness IMO.

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I think that military starbases are not overpowered. Sure they give a huge military advantage, but you can't move the darned things. If I go and rush a base in the enemies territory, then I've got a freaking huge extension of power in a relatively small space. That's great if the enemy comes to me, but not so good if I want to push the front towards his heartland. Once you've built a military starbase and taken the territory, the thing is fairly useless. By then, my lines of offense have leapfrogged it and left it in the dust. I'd much rather build medium-huge hulled ships that can follow the skirmish lines where they go, rather than rebuild military bases every 5-10 turns.

--Brad

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Sure they give a huge military advantage, but you can't move the darned things.

More than that, they're fat targets. If you have good speed (12+), you can easily hit them inside one turn from well outside the enemy's sensor range. Then you can pick off the fleets of small ships at your leisure.

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---"Once you've built a military starbase and taken the territory, the thing is fairly useless."

That's fairly true that's why using this stratagy is really slow. I've never actually finished a game using this tactic. I always get bored and start a new one.

---"More than that, they're fat targets. If you have good speed (12+), you can easily hit them inside one turn from well outside the enemy's sensor range. Then you can pick off the fleets of small ships at your leisure."

Two points to this. One the computer is fairly stupid and you can always see the AI going after your star bases. Second just park a fleet of ships on the star base to guard it and then your gold.

I think Alien Duck might have the right idea with the max number of upgrades per turn. The multipliers instead of additions sound intesting too or maybe a combination of the two?

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Its not cheesy to build a huge decked out starbase from a huge, massive fleet of constructors. Whats "wrong" with the situation is that the AI allows the huge massive fleet of constructors to enter its territory.

In real life military actions, the unarmoed huge fleet of constructors would be attacked and destroyed by the opposing military. Thats why you dont send unarmed fleets into enemy territory unescorted. In this game, however, you can send you unarmed ships in and they are just fine. Then it SEEMS cheesy to make a big station, but thats the side effect, not the root cause.

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There are a few things you could do with the starbases to stop them being seen as over powered.

1) Change the enhancement modules so all give a percentage bonus within their radius

2) Cut down the number of modules you can build per turn

3) Alter it so the base takes a certain number of turns to build

4) Make modules take a number of turns to build

5) Have it so you can only build the base hull from the constructor and have to build the rest from the base itself, in a queue like a planet has, but without the limits

6) Combine any of the above

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i'd rather see the ai use starbase modules more aggressively than to see starbases get nerfed. jmho

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it's really quite funny to build up a starbase in soon to be Enemy Territory only partially and put like 2 Large or Huge ships in it with Shredder Tech and watch the AI just send fleet after fleet into it and soon they have no money left to build fleets and then you just swoop in and conquer the planet(s) Generally I Build them with maybe 6 to seven of what is it 41 available modules and I'm fine. I might build it up to a Mark II starbase at most and put in Projection every time..

I notice that the AI never puts a ship or fleet etc in it's own starbases and rarely builds Military Bases. Though they love the Eco Bases and the Minor Races seem to really like the Influence Bases. But they all seem to hate a Starbase in their neck of the woods and forget about all else in order to destroy it. Man I love that Shredder. Why bother researching after you have that coupled with all the Minituarization Tech and Massive Scale Tech and Warp III or better and your set. just make sure you have Shields and PD put 3 of each on a Huge and the rest Shredder Tech Do the same for a Troop Transport wth 5 modules on it and you've got it made. Nowadays All I even bother building are Huge Shredder Tech Troop Transports and just go from planet to planet.

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