Economic Starbases can be a godsend in the early part of the game: place them so that they overlap and affect several of your top manufacturing worlds, start building the manufacturing bonus abilities, and you can get something like a 25% boost to production and an even better boost to trade revenue.

I rarely, if ever, use influence or military starbases, but some people have said that using them in offense works really well: build fleets of constructors, send them in with your invasion fleets. Have your constructors rapidly construct military starbases right on the enemy doorstep. Boost your fleets up something insane, and watch the enemy cry tears of blood.

Honestly, though, in my latest game as the Terrans, my major use for my starbases was bait: the enemy seems to like going after them, especially my mining bases, so I would build constructors and kite the enemy away from my worlds and keep them blowing up my bases. Meanwhile, my incredibly fast warp-drive troop transports with 2000 soldiers each, supplemented by Tir-Quan training and insanely high soldiering skill would rush through the enemy blockade and invade their homeworlds as my fleets of fast strike cruisers took out the pickets. That's how I wound up defeating a Thalan-based race who had over twice my military strength: the enemy kept using that military strength on my starbases, and meanwhile I was destroying their planets. The only military pickets that gave me any trouble were their homeworlds, and by then I'd developed Large Scale Building and my battleships could smash their puny frigates and cruisers like Gallagher with a melon.

this one affects the whole empire

the other only affects what ever is in the circle

In my last game I used tons of constructors to build 16 fully upgraded econ starbases next to my main cluster of planets. Not only did these bases give me a decent bonus to my freighters, they also magnified production on my main construction world and several others. Now I was able to produce large starships at a rate unmatched by any of the AI players. Talking about value for money; with these starbases I was able to create such a large army that when I declared war, enemy factions would offer all their planets to achieve peace, thereby loosing their entire empire to me. That's a good thing, because I tend to get attached to my warships, don't want 'em get scratched or anything.

Ps. If you get the feeling you always win with the same strategy, you might want to up the difficulty level to get more of a challenge, I don't know wat level you are playing at right now.

Theres no question about the value of the mining starbases. The all help tremendously. As far as the other kinds, I'll use military and influense on occaion, a lot less than i used to. I might use a military starbase if i border the Drengin or something and i can get its circle into their territory pretty easily. Also, dont forget about the spped modules plus for you and negative for them. having you ships cut through and get an extra parce on their way to the front is good. I'll use an influense one if i have planets sharing a cluster and i want to keep them in my territory or if i want a group of AI plants in my territory to flip. Some people use them as their main game stategy.

Economy starbases as was said can be invaluable to boost the production of your planets. that inlcules militay, social and research. So imagine your tech capital with another 25% - 50% boost. I play with tight clusters just so i can have a bunch of planets in the same circle.

Building you own ship is easy

unless you invest all your effort in trading, this is pretty much true. even when you do, it's not an optimal strat.



asteroid mining isn't worth it unless you set your game up for very slow tech progression (huge or gig galaxy, uncommon or rare planets/habitables, very slow tech, possibly tech trading off). on fast games it simply takes too much time to develop mining bases, but on slow games they can make a difference in a number of ways.

you can use them to squeeze out extra turns by redirecting them to planets whose production barely falls short of finishing in 1 week. if you direct an empire's mining bases to a single manufacturing capital for a significant boost to production. however, since it takes about a year IIRC to fully develop a mining base, they don't lend themselves to fast-paced games. the AI never seems to build additional miners, so their asteroid fields are about as worthless as mine when i don't develop them. i have tried building fleets of miners to get my bases up and running quickly. it'd be less pain if there was a governor for mining bases (and spies!).

constructors are a low priority item.

For all the times i have been facing a superior opponent and then i look at all the constructors i built and realise they could have been powerful warships for the same investment i had made! I mean if you cannot defend your starbases, then yes, constructors are no use at all.

I normally play Gigantic / Neutral / Masochistic or Obscene / Abundent all / very fast tech / Terran Civ

I find constructors are my most valuable ship. Relatively cheap and quick to build, they enable large increases in the various resource catagories. Good use of Construtors on the Galactic resources and local economic starbases will double/triple your output in many catagories, sometimes even more than that. Adding modules to the Galactic and local economic starbases could be said to be a no brainer, the benefits are impressive. To throw away 37% increases in research/economy/influence etc across every Planet in your empire by not using fully developed Galactic resources, is almost criminal   

I will always in addition to building the modules on Resources/econ starbases, have a few lurking around other Civs Wars, as soon as one side zaps a Galactic resource starbase, I'm there next turn and its mine - a nice juicy freebie. For the later keep an eye on the GNN popups as to who is fighting who and when so you can move your constructors there. I find usually by thinking ahead I can give them the range to get to the war at short notice, if not I will slam in an influence starbase to extend their range and get them there.

I dont use military starbases a lot, as I find if I strike early, the AI is forced on the defensive, and rarely if ever attacks, leaving me free to concentrate on offensive capability/plans. Therefore for me military starbases in defence are not useful. A mini fleet of constructors going in with the attack force, to build a military starbase with multiple modules, against a particularly hard target can be useful, Other wise I dont use them.

The use of Military starbases are really as a result of individual play style. Galatic and Economic Resources/starbases are universaly benefitial, no matter the play style, and should be developed asap in the game, the benefits later are immense.

Influence starbases I only use to extend the range of my recce/survey ships and fleets, as I dont play for a cultural win. The Galactic resources I find are useful to build up the modules on them increasing the influence in general as it tends to force the AI to build more happy buildings, they do that, and they are not building productive buildings. That one is not a huge factor, but every little helps.

Regards
Zy

I play those same levels you play,,, I ignore most galactic recourses until later stages of the game when i can defend them, and no longer need them - which basically means that galactic recourses are irrelevant.

Galactic recources and starbases are completely irrelevant if you cannot defend them.

Very true, but I have been able to do this by a sneaky bit of strategy. I did this in the last couple of games I played on challenging and it seemed to work just fine. First get several of your ships to the resource as soon as you can. After you have built the starbase, move the ships on top of it and do not fleet them. Any attacker must defeat all the ships before it can attack the starbase. This also means you do not have to build any of the battle stations/weapons/defenses for the starbase itself and can use those same constructors to rebuild the base if your ships do get overrun. This has been working for me but it does tie up a few of your ships per base and you must be dilligent about keeping the ships at the bases updated/replaced with newer versions.

Why don't you fleet them? Guarding your bases/resource mines with fleets is a good idea, but in my games there are usually too many resources to protect them all, especially in the early game. When the assasination event happens, spawning little enemy crap ships, my unprotected mines get destroyed. The way I play now, it costs me 2 extra constructors per mine to give some decent low-level protection. Later on, these defenses are not strong enough, but by then I protect the most important mines with fleets.

this is no longer true. the attacker goes after the strongest first be it the base, a ship or a fleet at least in dl. according to kyro

True, but if you don't research or implement the defenses and attacks for the starbases, leaving them unarmed, the ships must be attacked first. By putting the ships over a resource base that has nothing but mining modules on it, you can skip the constructors needed to build the offense/defense modules and also can skip the research for these improvements.