Jesus, get a clue.

Static defenses are overcome because they're STATIC. Tactics and weaponry can be brought to bear against them. Artillery has been used for centuries as a way to crack open a fortress.

HOWEVER - static defenses like the beaches of Normandy did not host a guard unit of thousands and thousands of men only to be overtaken by a few hundred guys with machine guns. It took a lot of effort, manpower, and lives to overcome the beaches of Normandy, where only a few thousand germans had set up bunkers, barbed wire, and tank traps. They had machine guns. The Allies had 100,000 people. And yet the Allies still lost nearly twice as many people as the Germans.

What do you think assaulting a castle took? Siege towers, trebuchets, and a lot of manpower. Some castles lasted for weeks against an assaulting force until they eventually were starved out or the enemy force retreated.

In short, realistic, capable defenses have always been able to stand against a force of equal, sometimes greater strength. It has, historically, taken a lot more to overcome static defenses then it has to set them up.

FINALLY - Starbases are not 'static defense'. If they had an attack range of 2pc or something, that'd be a static defense. However, they can usually just be avoided if they're so scary and intimidating. It's not like it's going to chase you.

I don't think there'd really be any problem with uber powerfull starbases, just like castles, walls, forts in the past. Just go around them.

The only problem is for resource bases, you get a bonus even though you might not control the area. The solution is to make resource bases have to ship the bonus back to a local planet. If you can't defend that supply line, you don't get the bonus.

The biggest problem with the current setup is that is not worth using, and that the AIs are not programmed to not use it... So something should be done here. To me, the easy way to go is make them stronger, and auto-upgrade. That would surely help the AIs.

What if star base techs were divided into further categories? For example, on a mining star base, you could have one tech branch for mining, one tech branch for star base defense (what we currently know as star base fortification) and a third branch called star base fortification, or some other name, which would augment the defenses? The third branch, since those techs will be more useful later in the game, could cost more in research time, and occur as a result of say, improved materials or more effective power sources. Something like, oh, we'll call it an Arc Reactor, which increases the effectiveness of starbase shields, or Pulson Crystals, which increase the power of starbase beam weapons, or maybe even a manufacturing process called, say, Promethean Metallurgy that will add hit points to the starbase structure. Items similar to Overlord Armor or Matter Detonators, but not necessarily a product of increased overall weapons tech.

Mind you, I'm really just talking about increasing defense of the starbase itself, not necessarily increasing its functionality (though you could apply this idea to that subject as well). After all, isn't that what the original discussion was about?

Well, I agree that the actual combat modules for a starbase are not cost efficient. However that is true of many many options in this game. Morale buildings, trade routes, espionage, etc. all feel like they should be integral parts of a strategy, but are all underpowered and overcosted and best left ignored when playing for max efficiency.

IMO its the AIs mistake to even be attacking the things. I haven't lost a starbase in, I'd say somewhere between my last 30 to 50 games. You should never be in a position where they get attacked. Conversely, if a starbase has even more than about a +40 to its attack I just go around them. You can't put enough in a sector to even block an attack to one planet, forget about stopping a dedicated fleet. It would be the Maginot Line all over again... Look at my +100/+100/+100 starbase your fleets are flying around to get to my planet. I rockz!

That is the base reason I don't think combat modules will ever be the equal of mobile ships... you can't ever attack. Indeed, I hope when Brad reworks the AI for TA he includes giving the AI the tactical decision trees to just ignore unimportant, over defended starbases. Seeing as they are doomed to be worthless no matter how strong they are, why get worked up over it?

Stardock intends for a lot of stuff to work, and sometimes it only really ends up being viable on the Tough/Painfull or below threshhold. Look, if you REALLY want to make a super starbase, it is much quicker to get to the top of the starbase fortification line than it is to get to the top of any other weapons tree. Starbase fort III offers 6 upgrades that will easily last you into mid game.

But you should never build them. You shouldn't build fusion power plants either. To each their own.

~ Wyndstar

WRONG.

Starbases are about 200x larger than a Huge Hull ship. Given that they have no guidance or propulsion systems, and given how ENORMOUS they are, they should not only be able to take withering amounts of firepower, but they should certainly and realistically be able to sport more weapons, more POWERFUL weapons, and much, MUCH stronger defenses.

We're seriously comparing a city to a tank.

That's what I said, and that's why Starbases need help. For example, you could give military starbases an upgrade that lets them 'fire' hyperdrive-equipped torpedoes through space. They travel 1pc/week and have a little bit of guidance capability, and attack anything that comes within the sensor range of the starbase. They could have 5pc range, for example, and only be able to steer 45degrees. So a fast-moving ship could easily avoid the torpedoes, but a starbase with a warp destabilizer would require a concentrated push with expected casualties to knock out the starbase itself.

In other words, starbases need things that give them a way to proactively attack somehow. They shouldn't be able to, and I'm not even IMPLYING, that they should eb able to float off like enormous battleships and devastate the universe. They should, however, have some sort of weaponizing effect with range.

Starbases really have nothing going for them in terms of military use.

Depends on how you define "military use" I suppose. I've pulled many a losing situation out of nowhere with proper use of military starbases with between 1 and 3 upgrades (so 2-4 constructors each).... using nothing but "- enemy speed" and "+ ship speed" modules.

And there are terror stars.

~ Wyndstar

I think this fact alone, if properly addressed could do wonders for the game.

If you look at Magic the gathering, they have walls. Generally they suck, for the same reasons. (they can't attack)

However, they are cheap, and are effective at slowing down attacks.

To me that's exactly what military starbases should be. They should be orders of magnitude cheaper, and more powerfull. Then they could actually be useful. Right now unless you are playing a tiny map with slow research, they are just pointless. (and again, the AI doesn't understand this)

I second U-235's suggestion for giving starbases weapons with more range than a comparable level ship-based weapon. SBs are huge platforms. There's no reason they couldn't support missiles with larger propulsion systems, or railguns with extra long launch rails and/or additional accelerator coils, or beam weapons with dedicated power plants for increased beam strength/range.

The effectiveness of these systems could be modifed by a couple of related techs:

1) Starbase fortification level;

2) Starbase scanner level.

SB fortification level/mod would affect the range of SB weapon systems as well as their power. SB scanner level would affect their accuracy. I.e., no scanner reduces to hit roll by 25%, perimeter scanner adds +10% to hit roll, etc.

Two other related SB improvements are:

1) Add any SB weapons to defending ship/fleet attack rolls.

2) Permit military SBs to control the weapons of any SB within their area of influence. In addition, add all military SB attack and defense bonuses to any eco, inf, or res SB within their area of influence.

This would also be modified positively or negatively by the military SB's defense level modules, fortification modules, and scanner modules. The idea is to make the military SB's the command & control center for the whole space region with the ability to mass the attack and defense capabilities of every friendly unit in the area --- either ship-based or SB-based.

Couple points here: Yes, ships have to have engines, which take up room that starbases can use for weaponry. However, how much room is devoted to the funtional parts of the base: the mining modules, the trade centers, the ship-assist modules?

And if a starbase is a city to a warship's tank, does that analogy continue beyond size? A tank can be armored pretty heavily, while a city would be pretty difficult to protect at the same level. Even if you could protect a city at that level, how much funtionality would you be giving up to do that? Would it even be possible to function as a city under such such design constraints?

Overall, I think I agree with Wyndstar. The game has several built-in sub-optimal choices simply to allow players to make mistakes on the off chance that occasionally these choices are useful (yes, occasionally a planet has enough manufacturing bonuses to make a fusion plant viable. It's rare but it does happen.) Simply rebuilding the starbase would almost always be more efficient than spending the constructors to fortify it to the extent necessary to survive any real attack anyway.

That right there is brilliance. I agree. Military Starbases should be able to be built like turrets in other RTS games; static defenses that can blow your face off, not just wait until you decide to attack them.

Heh, that makes me remember the first time I saw a Military Starbase ingame. When I clicked on it and saw its massive radius and the weapons on the starbase itself, I actually thought that it would fire on any ship in the radius with said weaponry at the end of a turn lol. Now that I actually know how... underwhelming the things can be, it almost makes me wish that was actually how they worked.

I agree. Let the SB reach out and "touch someone". It is a crying shame they are so nerfed. Long range missiles and localized fighters should be standard options as well as as well as increasing ranges for the area effects in general. SB should be feared and not "walked around" or attacked only if bored.

I have a simple suggestion that won't solve all the issues (but maybe help build starbases quicker).

Allow ships to carry multiple constructor modules.

This works just as it sounds, as your miniaturization tech goes up and you get larger hulls, you can add more then one constructor module to the ship. You can then build with all of these modules when you build/upgrade a starbase.

Of course if you don't use them all in one shot, the extra modules disappear.

This will remove some of the drudgery of building and managing all these constructors. It will also allow civilizations with high productivity to pump out and replace starbases quicker.

Eh. It's something at least.

Fine, let me refine my analogy - Starbases to a huge-hulled ship are, and should, be the equivalent of the Bismarck to a Sherman tank. I'm merely referring to potential for damage, durability, and the sheer magnitude in terms of construction.

Thank you for explicitly stating my objection for me, then. If starbases were armed and armored on anything like the scale your new analogy would suggest, they would be completely indestructable once built. No possible fleet, even of ultimate weapon huge hulls, would be able to destroy such a starbase. Exactly how many tank shells would be needed to sink the Bismark?

IMO maybe a doubling of the current weapons/defenses and 3x the hit points may be justified, certainly no more. Still ultimately pointless, but not game-wrecking. Also, AI capability would need to be tweaked, as it doesn't generally build the all-offense ships which would be needed to breach the defenses of one of these monstrosities. Without such an adjustment, this type of starbase would become a player-favoring exploit, as the player can find a way to combat it, and the AI can't.

I'll just sit here and talk to myself.  

2. One of the problems that starbases face when it comes to upgradeability is, the starbase fortification techs can progress independantly of ship weapons and defenses. To make them much more powerful could result in players getting starbases appropiate to end-game during mid-game or in rare cases, early game.

Possible solutions to this problem has already been posted. Having starbases reflect your current ship techs, automatically getting better weapons, defenses and miniturization as you get them available works. However, the other posted, where you could design your own starbases would work too. Having to balance role specific modules with starbase defenses would result in having no one to blame but the player if the starbase couldn't take a hit (assuming that they could be built powerful enough).

I don't agree with you on the above, and here's why. I don't see end game starbases in the early game as a problem. The player had to put a lot of research and build tons of contructors to get those starbases. That took a lot of resources that didn't get spent elsewhere...like on fleets or planet improvements. So it's a trade off. It's also not all that off balancing as it's the holding of planets that wins or loses the game, not starbases. It actually works out the same as when a player pumps all their resources into getting the end game weapon/defense techs and ship hulls. At least, that's how I see it.

I always thought that's what the military base bonuses were. The extra is coming from weapons fired from the base. In fact, if you look at the names of the ranged bouns supplying modules you'll get the idea. One is event called fighter drones.

I like how they are setup now. I don't really wnat any new game mechanics added, just some additional levels of upgrade modules to bring them on through to the end game. That doesn't require any additional game modifications or anything. Just the addition of a few extra techs and modules. Easy to code... In fact, a player mod could do this, yes? Of course I'd prefer an official, Stardock created fix. I'm not much for mods. I've had a lot of bad experiences.

-
-
So, how about a couple of larger hull templates for Military
Starbases? (medium, large)

You could mod up to your hearts delight?

Thankx,

Prof.

  

Except this Bismark doesn't do a damn thing except slap you when you go up and kick it in the ass first. Starbase defenses / weapons are a waste of time and money. A *LOT* of money, at that.

Any analogy will break down if taken too far. In this case, the Bismark may not attack me directly, but it supports surrounding warships, or boosts economy/influence, or occupies a resource I may want to take - or at least deny to the enemy.

Starbase defenses are usually a waste, but that doesn't prevent the AI from building them. I'd prefer not to give them the firepower to make their bases unkillable.

How's this as a possible compromise? No additional firepower or defenses, just massive HP increases. Bump the starting HP up to 200, then the 3 fortification techs double the available HP, so a maxed base would have 1600 HP. The base could still be taken out by concentrated efforts, but the battles would take enough rounds to give the base a chance to do significant damage in return. There is already a repair module, so a maxed out fully supported starbase could still stand swarms of smaller ships over several turns but could be destroyed by high-powered large hulls.

That's not a compromise I'd like to live with... The problem here is that starbase upgrades don't scale with ship upgrades, and some of us beleive they should. The thing is. The AI could max out on these proposed additional upgrades, but there will be a limit. The starbase can only get so powerful, and there is only the one. You can build as many ships as you like. The starbase will fall, but it'll take more than just a small attack group. You should need the same number of ships to wipe out an equally teched starbase at every point in the game. As in, the effort to take out a starbase at equal tech levels in the early game should be the same in the end game. As it is now, in the end game a SINGLE ship can walk all over a fulled decked out, teched out starbase. That is broken in my opinion...

Hmm...I must be typing in invisible ink.  :NOTSURE: 

I do not wish to be rude, and I respect the opinions here, but I do have to disagree with the above. The game map is not, I repeat, not to scale. That may seem ridiculously obvious, but it can be overlooked at times. That ship or fleet might look like it is sitting right next to the starbase, but they are separated by a parsec. In order for a starbase to fire upon the ships in the grid next to it, without using movement, would require it to aim its weapons and fire them at a target that is a little over 3 light years away from it. The game mechanics require movement in order to attack. Movement gives initiative in space. Since starbases (excluding terrorstars) do not have movement they cannot have initiative. If a ship or fleet wanders close enough to a starbase for weapons fire, then it is not by accident. Therefore, ships decide when and where to do battle with starbases.