Starbases are pretty dang powerful early to mid game; late game they're just pathetic ::/ I don't think the Starbase firing first will matter much when it's being attacked by a 120+ damage Huge ship with 70+ defense, at the minimum.

I agree they are way to easily destroyed for the investment necessary to develop them. I would like to see at least 100% increase in stats in two or even three more levels.

Agreed, at least another level of fortification is required. At the moment the military ones don't merit the resources it takes to max their stats. They just get killed in one turn.

I love the fully built out starbases in the early to mid game. Just leave a maxed starbase of any sort on the border with your enemy, and watch it eat their entire fleet. The AI is obsessed with them, and will continue sending little fleets of small ships to give you free experience. Later on, yes, they are pathetically fragile.

I think Starbase fortification is a waste of money. If you want to effectively defend your starbases, you have to do so with fleets. The only way I can think of to make starbase defenses viable is to completely revamp them: Change the modules to give capacity points that are automatically filled with the best available weapons/defenses of one category and apply weapon/defense society boni. If a fully armed starbase was about as heavily packed with weapons and defenses as three huge hulls, I'd say that would be a useful defense, since it could at least weaken an attacking fleet.

But unless something like that happens, I'll just pass over starbase fortification

Unfortunately there's a lot of truth in this statement. I really like starbases in general, but filling them up with weapons seems too expensive (and needs too much micromanagement) to me. Better build ships instead and get additional mobility.

Are starbases affected by "+x% weapons" or "+x% defense", by the way? I'm not sure right now, but I think they should.

Right on. I totally agree. I would go even further to say that the defenses should come for free once you research the tech in addition to being about 100% stronger.

As it stands they are completely worthless.
1) you need to research the techs.
2) you need hordes of constructors for each starbase.
3) you don't get any real value out of it. (one strong ship, and poof it's gone.)

As e-stab pointed out, the other problem is that the offense does not get boosted. (defense does i think)

Further, the AI's don't get this, and waste lots of resources on them. (hordes of constructors, and wasting time with the techs.)

Given that the AI doesn't use fleets to defend them either, it's fairly easy to cripple the AI in a few turns just by wiping out thier starbases.

I would be happy if they would simply make starbases able to fleet up using your logistics level. Then I don't have to "guard/sentry" ships on top of the starbases separately. Or not even have them in a fleet, but at least be able to dock ships at the starbase   

I almost never build starbases, except military ones, and even then I only really put a couple modules on them (ie: the one that slows enemy movement). Maybe the occasional economy/trading starbase for trade routes.

Starbases takes AGES to build into something that is (or should be, at any rate) extremely powerful. Give me what I pay for. A massive battleship is pretty much cheaper and easier to make then a starbase.

Sort of half-true. In the early to early-mid game a ship-assist oriented military starbase with a good handful of small or tiny fighters can substantially increase their power. With Starbase Fortification, a starbase can usually fend off anything up to two or three grouped medium class ships. It's in the late game that they're utterly pathetic, and unless you can seriously press an advantage in the early-to-mid game phase it ends up being a worthless investment.

Take Korx, for example. One of their very first starbase assist modules is Defense Jammer, which adds +2 damage to EACH damage type on a ship. Every ship in the radius of that starbase has +6 total to damage. That's a HUGE boost in the early game, and can easily ensure victory for any ships in the area.

The biggest problem with the starbases is that it's too much for too little. I jam ten Constructors into a single Military starbase and I get, what? +10 damage to all ships in the area, +15 defense to a single damage type, maybe a few damage modules for the Starbase itself? Back when Constructors had no maintenance cost and I didn't have to worry about going bankrupt if I had too many non-combat ships floating around, sure. But now it's simply not enough for the cost of the Constructors. I could've built another ship for all that, and now that I have to worry about the bloody ship maintenance of the constructors I literally WOULD be better off building another ship, unless I've got Xeno Ethics and selected evil so I can skip the starbase module-installing fees. Even then it's highly questionable.

Starbases in general suffer from having a radius that's too small, an effect that's too minor, a prohibitively expensive price tag. The only exception to this rule that I've found so far is the Korx, who get very strong starbase modules in the early game which actually make them viable to use. For all other races though, it's simply not worth it. Ever.



I'll tell you right now, if Stardock made it so I could dock ships at a military starbase and have them repair the ships like I can at a planet, I'd be on them like white on rice. That would be sexilicious.

Uh. And exactly what does "shielding from an enemy scan" do? What, precisely, does the Pulsar Gun do? Is it just an additional weapon module for the starbase that is especially effective against slow ships, or is it something you can use to fire at anything in the radius of the starbase, like a turret? If it's not the latter, then why the restriction on how often it can fire?

That wish list works for me.

Why don't you try that again, but give me the playability standpoint instead of the reality crap. Because I'm having a lot of difficulty seeing why starbases should even be in the game if they're not only supposed to be immobile, but weaker than ships as well.

Also, would anyone explain to me why a static defense pumped up with a good few dozen constructors alongside the appropriately advanced Starbase Fortification technology shouldn't beat a huge hulled ship?