I was thinking, we talking about some hardcoded SB changes and not simple data issues. When just some new modules get added, it would just increase constructor micromanagement even more... for this we don't need any devs from Stardock to do, it takes 5 minutes.
Again, I posted a possible solution... let starbase hitpoints depend on map/universe setting, ie. initial HPs get generated dynamically based on mapsize/universe setting

Upkeep.

~ Wyndstar

You make fair points. And I'm being oversimplistic. Ships repair differently from starbases, use slightly different combat rules as regards multiple weapon types (minor advantage starbase), it is more expensive to upgrade the weapons on a ship than a starbase and typically more time consuming, starbases can't benefit from the effects of other nearby starbases, and fully loaded a huge hull ship is much more expensive than that starbase even with all the constructors (in beta 4 I've had huge ships top 70k to build).

But, ya know, greatly increase the cost for construction modules, greatly increase the cost of starbase upgrades, take the current upkeep of a starbase by about x15, and make it so upgrades from constructors take 2-4 turns to apply to the starbase instead of instant, and they would be just about identical.

~ Wyndstar

- Edit. I'd still fly right past them every time.

From a purely gameplay perspective, starbase weapons and defense modules are exceedingly powerful against early and mid-game Smalls and Mediums - typically the kind of fleets likely to be dispatched to take out "soft" targets. Even late in the game, a fully decked-out Starbase can defend itself against a small fleet of Smalls and Mediums, and even against a slightly backwards Large Ship fleet.

You could park a fleet to defend your most important Starbases and not bother to create defense modules, but you can't do that for all your starbases (you'd go bankrupt really fast) because the maintenance of even Small Ships used for that purpose would quickly grow prohibitive.

For slightly less important starbases, the modules work fine. You don't pay maintenance for them, and the moment you put in the Constructors, they don't need maintenance either. You still won't put those on everything, since the cost in Constructors would be much too high, but speaking from experience from playing it both ways, using Constructors to lightly defend a lot of starbases across a wide swath of space is still more cost-effective than building fleets for the same purpose and paying maintenance for them.

The vibe I'm getting here is that some people want to have a single, static defensive juggernaut. Games that increase static defense power over attack power are not really very fun to play. MoO vs. Civ2 (before Warlords) demonstrates this effectively. In MoO and other Civ games, your attack was basically your defense - take them out faster and quicker than you do. The "defense" isn't a turtle-type.

In Civ2, for the Medieval and Rifle periods, the defense basically defeats every possible attack angle you can think of, WWI style. It's not fun. Once everyone gets the right kinds of tech, borders solidify and wars basically become the activity of the suicidally stupid.

Suppose, for a moment, that a Huge-Ship equivalent Starbase thingie were available for the same production cost. Why build a Huge Ship in the first place, if you only are interested in defense? Huge Ships cost lots of BCs in maintenance. Starbases don't. Just build a ring of impenetrable defenses and sit back. Boring.

Even on offense, the kind of firepower a Military Starbase can lend to attacking fleets is just insane. You could conceivably "leapfrog" a series of Military Starbases all the way to winning a war. That's not my idea of what ought to be happening in a sci-fi universe. Sci-fi wars are won with fleets, not by turtling your way through to a planet capital to win a war with impregnable starbases.

Alright, let's give the idea as much rope as it needs to. The idea of attacking an impregnable Starbase is definitely something in the books.

Let's say that you can only build a purpose-built Defensive Starbase whose only function is to house weapons and defense modules. No building impregnable Influence Starbases (the influence starbases are powerful enough right now), no building impregnable Economic Starbases (the DS9 of Doom?!?!?), no building impregnable Military Starbases (leads to outright ridiculous manners of waging war).

What would be the point of such a Starbase? Such a Starbase would only make sense if it also prevented enemy Transports from attacking planets with no orbiting fleets, as an absolute and inherent power. Thus, you would need to destroy the Starbase before you would be able to attack the planets. The power would be so powerful and efficient that you would almost be forced to utilize it all over your most valuable planets - not an option but a necessity. Boring.

If it didn't have this function, then it would be much too weak - without any power-projecting modules, enemy fleets would simply ignore it wholesale. If it had the Military power-projecting modules, it could be used for attack-purposes, leading to ridiculous ways to wage war.


Now, if such a Defense Starbase could be justified, I don't agree that adding more modules would be good. Not at all. The module-building game already is tedious enough. Let's not make it more tedious. I also don't agree that adding firepower is good - it would utterly destroy any Small ship fleets trying to attack it, and that's one of the most iconic of sci-fi tropes. If I had to improve anything, I would say that on-type defense boosting would be the best bet. Something like +500% defense of a given type would be interesting. The point is to make it invincible even against Huge Ships if the chosen defense-type is right (and upgrading all of them to such a level ought to be logarithmically expensive), but vulnerable even to Small Ship fleets even if the defense type is wrong.


"The Starbase is equipped with Arnorian Battle Armor!!! We've been betrayed, fall back, fall back!"

High level Intelligence would be necessary to access the information, and the defending player has the option of changing out the defense type with Constructors if he chose. That would conceivably require an attacking player to have as many as 3 high-attack Huge Ships to assure victory. Surely, such a level of attack power should be able to take out even the most powerful Defensive Starbase.

I certainly didn't ignore that. I did make the point that if Starbase defenses were buffed in the late game, latter game Military Starbase powers could be used to "fortify" your way all across the galaxy and take over enemies using technically inferior ships and technology. This doesn't happen in the early game because early game Military Starbases don't have such potent power projection capabilities, and not in the late game because they need to be defended with fleets, making a straight-up fleet attack normally more efficient.

Even then, you CAN ALREADY use Military Starbases this way. You just need to be mindful to defend them from attack. If they could defend themselves, they would become the default manner for attacking enemies.

The offensive vanguard for every fleet battle would be a huge bunch of Constructors!

That line of thought goes to "reasonability." Many of the points of discussion here focus on "defense." That a Starbase ought to be able to "defend" itself. The problem is that allowing even "just" a Military Starbase to "defend" itself essentially turns it into an instant attacking juggernaut.

This is a game - it has certain peculiarities. One of those peculiarities is that a fully-functional super Starbase can be created deep in enemy territory in as little as a week, without so much as a squeak of resistance from the enemy. This capability turns a passable self-defense for a Military Starbase into a potent threat. It becomes an offensive weapon rather than a defensive measure.

Indeed, many player, yours truly included, already use Military Starbases this way. We truck around a bunch of Constructors, stockpile tons of money, and instantly build a massive Military Starbase in someone else's key system. The poor defending fleet doesn't stand a chance, even if it's one or two tech levels ahead.

Better still, existing Military Power Projection capabilities essentially allow you to turn the area into a Interdiction Zone. If the enemy has any Starships moving more than 1 space - that's gone. They ALL move one space a turn now. Once the enemy fleets are spotted, you plunk down a bunch of Military Starbases and essentially paralyze them while you go conquer the defenseless Empire.

You want that kind of power to be able to withstand a sizable fleet on its own? That's insane. A Starbase that can defend itself cannot work unless it can't be built in a week, and has no power to slow down enemy ships nor accelerate your own.

A Military Starbase does project power. It doesn't need a fleet stationed on its square to defend it. It just needs a fleet to intercept whatever major fleet comes to attack it. Minor fighters are not a problem.

Whenever I build a Military Starbase, I can feel my power making incursions into enemy territory. It's almost as if I'm stationing Transports one move away from an enemy planet. In terms of projecting power, it succeeds, but it doesn't do it the same way normal historical Forts do. It doesn't directly weaken or kill enemy units. It doesn't withstand enemy attack. What it does is alter the physical laws in the locality to favor friendly fleets.

It might be flavorful to make it like a classic Fort or more like a Federation defensive Starbase, but that would require a special Starbase unit with rules that currently don't hold sway for any other Starbase.

Personally, I think building Starbases ought to be like reverse asteroid mining. You plunk down one basic Constructor, then channel production into it from nearby planets until it's complete. The further away the planet, the greater the production penalty for producing the Starbase.

This would make deep space Starbases expensive - which is satisfying, but it would also prohibit the kind of offensive Military Starbasing one currently sees in the DA and DL games. If we use that model, then having buffer Military Starbases could work.

PS: An extra layer of fortification or two is worthless in the late game. By that time, primary fleets have attacks in the hundreds, sometimes near a thousand or more. To be a real threat to such fleets but still be vulnerable to Small Ship fleets, a Starbase needs to employ the Defensive Ship paradgim and be able to do it to the extreme.

I stand corrected. I didn't see that anyone had posted comments that related to mine. Then again, I kind of glossed over the really long ones. They felt like homework. On side note, are the sensor modules only designed to reveal the fog of war, or do they allow starbases to actually detect ships earlier? I've been ignoring them for the most part, because they didn't seem that useful.

Roxlimn,

Like I said, reasonable minds can differ. Still, I think you should carefully reread my post because I don't think it states quite what you think it does.



You are correct that my post goes to starbases being reasonably able to defend themselves, which is exactly what this thread is about and is what the debate appears to be centered on from my standpoint. Under the line of thought you post here ships should not be able to defend themselves either or should have limited defenses because to do so turns them into an "instant attacking juggernaut." That postion makes no sense in my opinion and in no way addresses why a starbase should not have capabilities that are least the equal of a single huge hulled starship of relatively equal technology. Right now, they don't. Not even close. It is a game, but even in the imaginary universe of this game that does not make sense in my opinion. Starbases already have the disadvatage of being immobile, but that nature does not mean they cannot carry weapons and defenses sufficient to defend themselves. In fact, given their sheer size and relative importance of extending ranges of fleets and providing a friendly sphere of influence where repairs can take place relatively more quickly despite being far from homespace, they should be able to outfight a similarly advanced starship and at least hold off all but the most determined of attacks until help can arrive. That's not the same as making them invulnerable, which is not at all what I've advocated.



Not necessarily true. Your assumption does not take into consideration just how much or what type of additional fortification might be contained in those advanced tech levels. My entire point is that it should be sufficient to make starbases reasonably survivable in the late game-not invulnerable, but reasonably survivable. A small fleet of ships probably should not be able to take out a gargantuan starbase with a relatively equal level of technology. That starbase, if properly fortified with equivalent tech level fortification and generally equal tactical ability, should easily overpower such a fleet. On the other hand, a "small ship fleet" might be able to defeat the starbase if it has sufficient numbers, tactics and firepower. I think that's pretty much the point I made throughout my post-you appear to have missed that somewhere.   



You're correct in that they do project power and I think I said that throughout my post
I also agree that the fleet does not need to be on the same square to defend it-I said as much in my post. However, at the current level of maximum fortificaiton in the late game a fleet must be close enough to the starbase to be able to intercept just about any fleet or single warship of sufficiently advanced technological sophistication or the starbase is almost certainly toast. Thus, the fleets are, as I stated, tied down to defending starbases. In my humble opinion, that should not be the case. Starbases should be able to withstand the attack of any single ship of relatively equal technological sophistication without much problem. Only the very largest of fleets should be able to take out the starbase under those circumstances and even then they probably should suffer significant casualties. Right now, I can take out the most powerful starbase with a relatively lightly armed medium ship in the late game. In fact, the second salvo usually does it, if not the first. If you go to a large or huge hull, it is a foregone conclusion that the first salvo will obliterate the starbase and that the attacking ship will not even have its paint scratched. I believe that is "insane" to use your term.



In answer to your question, yes. I don't think it's insane at all. The same line of reasoning could be applied to the various modules ships can deploy that make them and their fleets more deadly. Under your line of reasoning the defenses of ships and all game components should be restricted late game in favor of offensive capability because to not do so just makes them too effective. Or does this all just comes down to what you prefer, which is to maintain the overwhelming advantage that starships currently enjoy when attacking a starbase late game? If so, then we are talking subjectives here and no amount of reasoning is likely going to change that.

Admittedly, some adjustments may need to be made such as increasing the costs of starbases or the number of constructors it takes to build them. That being said, the scenario you describe has already been made more difficult with the current maintenance costs for ships in TA. All of those constructors are going to drain a treasury pretty rapidly. Moreover, the AI may (and should) counter with its own starbases that slow down your ships and keep them from rapidly overrunning them. The AI might need some adjustments, but it regularly builds out military starbases from what I've observed. These not only boost it's own speed but also give it the same or similar tactical advantages your own fleets enjoy because of your own starbases. Further, if the AI is technically and tactically sophisticated, it will be able to attack your starbases and overcome them. If not, then it deserves to be overrun in the context of the game rules. There's nothing inherently bad about that. Perhaps the AI, if it is in a position to do so, should recognize your tactic and attack your massing ships before they can be deployed. IN short, starbases can be used to counter starbases-your described strategy provides no reason why starbases should not be able to deploy reasonable defenses. Most defensive weapons can be used in an offensive role. If this tactic is that big of a problem, perhaps a limit on the number of modules that can be deployed in a single base would make it more difficult to implement super heavy defenses and all of the tactical modules in the same starbase. Perhaps the size of the warp interdictor could be "increased" such that deploying that module lowers the number of available modules on a base.



The fact is that those Old West forts didn't kill or weaken anyone either. They were "bases" from which units could operate to perform that function and they provided a place of shelter for those units while increasing their tactical effectiveness and ability to defend themselves against superior numbers. That's exactly what military starbases do in the game. There are no changes needed except to add additional defenses that allow the starbases to actually survive long enough to fulfill that function late game.

AGain, reasonable minds can differ and we obviously do. There was no offense meant by anything I've stated here. I hope you see it that way.

This doesn't make sense and nobody wants this. We want some good defenses to solidify our power in certain areas. I believe it should be possible to try to use a starbase-only strategy, but in the logic of this game and common sense the person who would try such a thing should also quickly lose because enemy fleets are bypassing the bases and taking planets and resources until they are strong enough to defeat the bases.

The challenge of the game element of 'sturdy' starbases is that the interaction between mobile fleets and immobile starbases with specific powers would create much more interesting game play. Players would have to think harder:
1. Instead of leaving a fleet sitting on a base because it's defenseless, you could send the fleet on more missions with the exiting risk of asking yourself whether the bases defenses are strong enough to withstand a surprise attack
2. Are you going to circumvent that enemy strongpoint (with slowdown modules) with your raiders or attack it, in which case you have to organize an attack fleet.
3. How much are you going to invest in defending your bases? There's going to be a balance between your static and mobile military force. These forces interact with each other and with the mobile and static forces on the enemies side.

I would like to contemplate and plan all of the above in a game, but with the current situation, whenevers there's a big war usually all the starbases get wiped of the map, leaving me with a kind of dissapointed feeling. I spent half the game building arrays of bases setting up routes for constructors to upgrade them, meanwhile the bases provide production bonuses for my planets, thus creating a kind of dynamic network which really makes you feel that created a 'living' empire, and then war breaks out and they get wiped out immediately as if they're not really a serious part of the game.
Over time I have learned to defend them adequately with fleets, but it still feels a bit like the fleets are baby-sitting the bases. I would like to send the 'garrison' fleet of the starbase on missions in the nearby area, but I almost never do this, because in one careless moment some enemy passerby is able to destroy the base.

I think the 'Old West Fort' metaphor is the attractive aspect of a star base. Thus the imaginary starbases relates to something from reality. I depicts the attempt to create a local power projection, enhancing your power by strategic planning. It also can create a safe haven in a lonely corner of space for retreating ships. The starbase will protect them, if only temporary.

We clearly disagree. So much of this is subjective, I don't think we're ever going to come to middle ground. Rather than addressing all of the points you raise, which is more time than I have available, I will address a few of them.


True, but if you already have a juggernaut of a starfleet ready to attack the enemy as soon as your constructors finish building the forward-placed starbases you claim are so overpowered and deadly, then you have big fleet costs in addition to paying the costs for all of those constructors waiting to build the starbase. I would also add that if your victory is so quick using this tactic, the AI is never going to reach the starbases to attack anyway, so additional starbase defenses really don't make this tactic any more deadly. In any event, how does this lead to the conclusion that starbases should be kept overwhelmingly weak? I don't see the logical relationship except that perhaps the costs of construction need to be increased, which I believe they may already have been.



Sure I remember, which is why I stated that AI deserves defeat under those circumstances. If it is incapable of overcoming your military might, whether that might is expressed as forward placed star bases or fleets or a combination of each, then it should be defeated. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. Further, what constitutes "all but the most determined attack" is going to be relative. If the enemy has a higher tech level, a military starbase in position to counter your own, or sufficient numbers, then it could launch such a determined attack and destroy the starbases you just constructed (at great financial cost) and then move on your own ships. If they are significantly damaged in the fight with the bases, so be it-how does that make it unreasonable or bad game play to give starbases more defensive capability? This argument that making starbases more defensible makes them "too capable" simply does not hold water with me. That logic leads one to the logical conclusion that other aspects of the game should be nerfed because they make the human player too capable by enhancing a certain tactic or ability. I'm asking for rough parity not for reversing the disparity so that starbases are overwhelmingly dominate over starships as you seem to be suggesting or implying. Right now starbases are incapable-adding a little more defensive capability is not going to make them too capable in my book.



Completely unnecessary? I don't think the conclusion you reach follows from your premise. I agree that offensive power could use some adjusting, but I build capital ships all the time that have sufficient defensive power to survive hits from massively armed late game ships. My ships are usually more lightly armed than the opposing ships, but it doesn't take massive armament when the enemy puts all of his eggs in the offense basket and leaves nothing for defense. A single barrage will usually do it with my fleet losing one or two capital ships at most. A starbase should, in my opinion, have the same level of survivability, all things being roughly equal. In any event, what you seem to be saying is that because offense is so powerful, starbases shouldn't receive additional defense. That just doesn't follow. Right now, the measly defenses and firepower they can muster are easily overcome-even by one ship. Despite a starbase being many times the size, capacity and importance to a single huge hulled ship, it has a fraction of the defenses and firepower of that ship. Leaving aside reasonableness as you suggest, how does that enhance game play???? It doesn't. It just makes starbases pathetically weak amd relegates them to the dustbin of history in a late game war.



I agree that the starbase numerical limit needs to be fixed, but disagree that it takes away from the desirability of additional starbase defense levels. I also don't agree that the limitation of modules scheme I proposed would make them useless but impregnable "white elephants." You think too much in terms of absolutes. I did't say that the limit would be so low that non enhancement modules could be installed with full fortification, just that a limit of some kind might alleviate some of the perceived problems you are suggesting. In any event, I just don't see them as problems because any reasonably well armed and competitive enemy with his own starbases should be able to counter your tactics regardless of whether or not starbases have some additional defense. Adjustments to the AI are coming and perhaps this will be addressed.

I do not really find the cost of constructors really that prohibitive.
By the mid game, I usually have many worlds that can produce your basic constructor in 2 turns. I tend to build mostly economy starbases, the trick is to find the optimal position where the base can provide a bonus to the highest number of good planets.
What I do find annoying is micromanaging the constructors. I would just like to have one ship with many construction modules on it, so I can add a bunch at once.

I would also like to see different starbase styles to go along with the racial hull designs. The galaxy looks a bit odd, when every race builds identical starbases.

Aw, shucks. The Hyperion Dreadnaught is my design. While I posted a screenshot of it well over a year ago in arguing that ship defense was too weak (later fixed, thanks stardock)... it appears the image is now gone.

The Hyperion Dreadnaught is just a huge hull packed with doom rays for an attack (depending on military bonus/resources) of between 600 and 1000 per ship, for fleet attack values of 3000 to 5000. They just paste everything in the game in the first shot, and due to the tie rule they always leave combat without dying.

As Stardock has released more toys, I've gotten a little better. If you want to see my analysis of huge hull ships in the final DA combat system you can read here:
WWW Link


At suicidal I routinely faced enemy fleets with attack power in the 3k-5k range. Taking a starbase defense from +50/+50/+50 to +500/+500/+500 and they would STILL be dead in one shot. I learned the "- enemy movement" is all I really needed, because any enemy that got to a starbase toasted it.

This thread is about strengthening starbases in late-mid game. I don't really support the idea, and I'm not sure its possible. A better fix would be for the AI to ignore heavily armed starbases mid-game. But the tech tree has been changed, and you now have to research starbase fort III BEFORE starbase projection I on all the tech trees anyway, so if you really wanted to you could have some decked out starbases pretty fast. They will eventually be overcome, but if you are relying on the attack/defense power of a starbase to beat the AI you are just attacking a flaw in the AI. No human would ever fall for such a trick.

If you just want them to "defend themselves"... that they can do, against 1 or 2 mediumish ships with enough upgrades. But nothing in the game can stop a huge hull from 1-shotting you, not even another huge hull. After the final changes to the DA combat system a huge hull that went almost all defense could just barely survive one shot. Even then, best case you are looking at a 2 shot death.

Which is part of where the new fleet modules come in. They let you up even more fleet offense and defense, although they seem to mostly only work in your own territory. I've gotten a fleet offense up to 8k in the TA beta (Terrans)... and I had 50% luck to boot (so minimum damage from my first shot was 4k-8k).

All that attack doesn't mean much if you can only move 1 space, which is why the minus move modules are where its at. But they still need to be used in conjunction with a fleet.

I don't really want starbases to start packing 1.5-3k in defense so that they might be able to stop one ship. Especially if the AI has trouble evaluating if it should attack the thing or not. Even the CURRENT implementation of starbases is advantage:player.


I understand it is frustrating when you play those long games and a war leads to the wiping out of your starbases. But that's just it. With so few trade routes, this game doesn't offer much of a weak underbelly that can be exploited with a superior navy. Starbase loss is something you should work to avoid, but you should suffer some losses if you can't control your own space (and the AI is very poor at invading planets with any urgency). Stay out of wars if you think an enemy can make it to your starbases.

As I said three pages of posts ago, this is a game, and in this game starbases fill a support role. Its an important role, and adds to the flavor of the game. They can defeat early rush and small/medium ships... but other than that need a real navy to support them in combat. This is fine game balance wise.

The old west fort was brought up. A starbase is more like a supply depot than a fort in terms of game balance. Even (especially!) a military starbase. I don't think they should be more powerful.

I DO wish that you could fleet with them, so that dedicated defenders could fight alongside a starbase... as they already use logistics points. Still, that tactic even if allowed is at best going to last you into mid-game, and is not a tactic the AI currently uses anyway.

~ Wyndstar