Please strenghten StarBases

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.

A fourth level of fortification would be nice. Say, something that adds 60 to each weapons class and defense module. That would substantially strengthen starbases. Of course, if you really want to keep them then in the long run you will have to defend them with fleets.

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.

The way the game works in combat is that everyone fires everyround. Even if you die. So it would not matter if you fired first or not. Because Even if you did kill them, they can still fire.

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.

You mean people actually build all those starbase modules? A fully loaded starbase is just an expensive clay pidgeon. It already takes too many modules to upgrade a starbase to an ineffective rating. Another level would only compound the problem. Increasing the effectiveness of each module by about 100% *might* make it worth the effort. Cut the number in half and I might actually build one up. In the meantime, I'll just protect them with fighters like I always have.

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.

Well, I agree that there should be a change of some kind. Fully decked out starbases should be way more difficult to knock out. An extra level or so of upgrades might work. Making the current levels more potent might do the trick too. As long as the end result is the same I don't prefer one to the other. The only problem will be making sure the early levels aren't too potent. Maybe that means adding the extra levels is the way to go?

At any rate, ship potency and starbase potency should increase at the same rate at any given tech level. Otherwise, why would a government put soo many resources into building a starbase when they'd get way more bang for their buck by building ships with starbase-like modules? A mobile, highly fortified factory ship would have a much greater chance of survival during a conflict than a stationary starbase would, and at a much lower cost.

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

The same is true for military assist modules...

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.

forget the money angle who's spending their time researching the starbase improvements over fleet improvements? I can't think of a time I thought it was more valuable to research this stuff when i'm in a tech race with my ships, who I can park on a starbase.

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 agree with those who call for stronger SB weapons & defense. Now it is necessary to defend them with fleets, but (especially with increased maintenence costs) that can become pretty expensive with a large number of SB's late in the game.

Even less worthwhile are the modules for military SB's once you get past the early game. Even the highest levels give only a +1 or +2 to defense or offense ... when ships and fleet numbers are into the hundreds and more. What good is that?

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   

the military starbases are near-useless mainly because of how ship combat works. If small or tiny hulls were a viable option military starbases would be just fine. I learned this the hard way when I tried to win via an influence/starbase/small ships strategy (challenging). The idea was to never go offensive with the ships. Of course it failed because even though my fleet strength matched my opponent, it didn't (I believe) matter as the individual ship strength was more important.

Without the capability to spread those SB bonus around to multiple ships, I don't see the value past the warp disruptor module (granted i've never fully researched the starbase techs).

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.

I really like the idea of converting the modules to point based and have them auto advance with your tech. There should also be a minor upgrade cost associated with this style however.

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.

RE: Starbase Wishlist

1. ADD Ship Size Specific Weapon Systems
----- Example: Pulsar Gun Module I that is Effective Against Slow Huge Ships, but ineffective against Smaller Fast Ships. Of course the Pulsar Gun fires only every other turn.

2. ADD Starbase Jammer Modules that shield from Enemy Scans - Ships adjacent to the Starbase and Starbase Weapon Systems UNLESS Friendly SHIP is EQUIPPED WITH SCANNER MODULE Rated Higher than the Starbase JAMMER Module.

Activating the Jammers could be considered a sign of war by the AI!

3. ADD Starbase Minefield Module, that deploys space mines before battle.

Deploying the Minefield could be considered an act of war by the AI!

4. ADD Starbase Repair Droids Module that increases repair rate for damaged starbases.

5. PER HONSHU's post above - add a Drydock Module that increases rate of repairs for ships docked at the Starbase, of course docked ships can't fight and are destroyed if the starbase is destroyed.

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?

From context, I'm assuming it is supposed to be an extremely powerful weapon mounted on the starbase, as usual with no offensive capability. It has ridiculously overpowered shots (maybe 50-100?) but is only effective against medium+ hulls. By firing every other turn, I assume he meant combat rounds - it fires at the attacker on the first round, then fires again on the third. I would think this is pretty unnecessary. Any battle where it might make a difference will be over before 3 rounds anyway.

I quite frankly don't really care one way or the other on this whole issue, other than wanting to avoid making starbases TOO powerful. If I can't take it out with one maxed out huge hull with endgame tech, it's too powerful. Starbases are supposed to need protecting, it's part of the cost of having them and a huge chunk of the strategy behind using them!

Some of the other ideas have been pretty good, though. I'd love to have starbases upgrade themselves in addition to the adding-a-constructor method. Both would have uses, but with the non-combatant mainenance charges in TA, the auto-upgrade would be very popular. If nothing else, it would help cut down constructor micromanagement.

From both reality and playability standpoints, static defenses should always be weaker than mobile forces. No purely static defense has held since the industiral revolution (and probably since long before that!) Why should we expect the future to hold anything different?

That wish list works for me.

I agree with that. Anybody remembers DS9 when the Dominion attacked? DS9 was heavily defended by an allied fleet. The same applies for SG Atlantis, which is in a sense also a starbase.
A starbase shouldn't survive an attack by huge hulled ships, however I like the spacemine idea.
Generally I think, starbases are quite balanced, but their efficiency/survivability decreases proportionally as map size increases. I think they are a real fortress even late game on tiny-medium maps. You just need to steadily build new ones on your expanding borders, shielding the important eco/mining ones in your "backyard", if you choose the more peaceful/defensive way of playing.

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?