That could work. The problem that I see is, I have built huge hulled ships with better stats in terms of defense, and attack than a starbase (in all categories). I suppose if an alternate, specialized design (one that focuses its attack in one category) were to pick a fight, I could see it doing a severe amount damage before being destroyed.

Like I said, it might work, or it might not be enough.

I'll agree, it's not really an ideal solution, but it has some good points. It basicaly takes the one-shot kill out of the picture for single ships (I've had ships top 1800 attack before, but it's not at all common ), but fleets can still kill the base. Let's look at the two most common endgame ship types - the all attack and defense heavy. Assume they are attacking one at a time.

An all attack ship may be able to kill the base in 2-4 shots, but at the cost of the base being able to kill them in about the same. The odds will be roughly even, and the winner will know they've been hit.

A defense ship may only have 100-150 attack, but be mostly immune to the base's attacks. Either could get lucky and score massive damage on a 0 defense roll, but odds are the battle will draw out to a tie situation, and quite possibly the base wins the tie. Obviously hypothetical, but worth considering.

Reasonable numbers of tiny/small/medium hulls will get pecked to death trying to kill the outrageous number of hit points the base has, while the base's moderate attack power eliminates them one by one. Yes, a full fleet will probably win, but half the fleet won't be around when it's all over.

We need someone to mod this and play test it a bit to see how well this games out, but IMO it's better than massively increasing the weapons and defenses while leaving the base with what I've always considered absurdly low HP.

Yeah, so? You're acting as if Stardock couldn't just conjure up some explanation like so;

"We've developed some impressive new weaponry that can be fired at faster-than-light speeds. Unfortunately, these weapons require massive amounts of power and space, which preclude them from being equipped on ordinary starships. Only starbases have the necessary energy and room to build these impressive weapons on, and even then they require starbases specifically designed for military use, since other types of starbases are not designed to provide the massive amounts of energy and raw materials it takes to make these weapons work. The good news is that you can fire on enemies from multiple parsecs away; the bad news is that these weapons are fairly expensive, can only fire once a week due to the incredible amount of energy needed to fire them, and that they're attached to an immobile starbase. Still, they can provide impressive defensive fire when the enemy gets too close to our borders."

Then you just expand the starbase tech tree to be broader; incorporate things like a "FTL (Faster than light) Weapons" tree. Obviously, you don't want starbases to get too many goodies in too few techs.

But seriously. This is why I farking hate arguing game balance based on ingame lore. It's absurd. The developers of this game DESIGNED the lore; what makes you think they can't spin it any way they want to incorporate whatever the hell they feel like?



I'm not terribly sure what this has to do with the "turret starbase" idea. If you're trying to say that such an idea could not work under game mechanics, I don't see why they could not be adjusted for starbases, so that it could fire at an enemy target without moving once a turn or something like that.



Yeah. So?

I think the underlying problem is that starbases still work in the same way than they did in GalCiv 1 v1.0: You build constructors and get modules. Now that ship building has evolved tremendously, they look a bit dull from time to time, especially the weapons and defense values of the starbases themselves. If there were more/better self-defense modules to make starbases sturdier, then there would be hope for them to keep up the race with ships. The way it is now, they're bound to lose and be too weak compared to ships sooner or later.

If I recall correctly there was the intention to improve starbase/constructor handling at some point, I don't know if that's still on the agenda though. It might be the chance to get lategame starbases back into business.

The way it is now, I usually add a few military modules to the more important starbases in order not to be destroyed by the greatest wimp around. The rest is done with ships.

Precisely. Often I won't even bother building expensive fleets to any great extent (especially now) until later in the game because a well outfitted starbase will destroy the enemy more cheaply and bestow bonuses on my own empire at the same time. Of course, maybe this is what some would classify as a "player exploit" that needs to be rectified. Usually, unlike what the AI does in these situations, it is a good idea to try to avoid strongpoints like fortified starbases and attempt to attack where the enemy is weakest. The AI does not do this when it launches futile attack after attack with laser or railgun equipped ships against starbases with level II or even level I fortification. They lose their whole fleet or a significant portion thereof at little cost to the human player. Unless the enemy is large (and thus taking away resource bonuses will be of great benefit), a military starbase is giving large bonuses resulting in tactical defeat for my ships, or I am conducting only a minor incursion to gain a strategic planet or resource, I avoid all starbases and go straight for the planets. After all, once the enemy is destroyed, all of their starbases disappear anyway. Perhaps a way with dealing with that aspect is to have enemy starbases go to other players when they surrender or are destroyed much like ships often do. If the AI is evil, then the starbases could become pirate strongholds. That would give a little more incentive for the player to actually attack and destroy starbases during campaigns.

@DivineWrath
I'd like to add, that eg. the US "SDI" Program will still leave the chance that some nukes get through.
Take the ISS, I think one could speculate whether it is even equiped with at least some defensive capabilities... I think it is a pretty basic starbase with one additional production module , we would need more contructors--and some ships, if we were encountering lets say the Snathi

@all
Especially from the playability point of view, how should starbases be balanced concerning the map size? I think we all agree, that simply expanding the fortification branch, would be the worst solution, and could easily be done with a mod. Eg. you've got an quite early defensively upgraded SB on a tiny/small map, countering enemy's weapon, and his hull size doesn't matter, since he can't penetrate my defenses. You are able to hold off the enemy with current stats(HP), how should it work, if Sbs get their HP increased? Taken into account, that a possible loss of a couple of enemy ships already drops his military rating heavyly. This holds of course not true on maps > small.
Maybe there is a possible solution... letting SB's HPs depend on mapsize/and eg # planets,habitable planets, stars?
However, I like the ddea letting them fire first, may be an autoattack function could be implemented, calculating the risk of being destroyed, depending on intelligence, if no intel, it will always attack, and make it a superability/racespecific tech, for eg the drengins military bases.
And one more question to the complainers, on what mapsize/setting do you typically play?
I'm really interested to know...

My two penneth.

Starbases like Culture, mining and economy should stay as they are or even loose their weapons/defenses, because realistically they are not designed to be weapons platforms.

Military starbases on the other hand should be able to stand upto a fleet of huge hulled ships with all singing all dancing designs. but not two fleets in succession say..

A huge hulled ship would have the largest ship type of "warp"/energy core and starbase would have much larger or many cores. Therefore shields should be about 200-300 percent stronger, due to their size there would be thicker armour and more PD turrets and the hulls would be mega strong. say 2000HP+. In fact I'll be modding my TA to that effect at some point.

That said, in GC2 since they don't provide nearly enough help to your colonies i'd just go round them. they should have modules that increase plenetary defense by 100-200% per starbase (stackable too). Place 4 around your homeworld and it's impregnable. That would make em take out the starbases first. Or if a colony has a starbase in it's range the colony cannot be invaded.

I'd pay a bit more to be able to create custom starbase designs as if they were ships. I would sooooo create a death star then

Idoubt it would be that fun, taking out such a thing on a smaller map, you'd have a big frustrating problem. despite of that, maybe a good choise for larger mapsizes.

Just as a note to those that claim a static defense has never held historically.

Generally speaking your right, very few static defenses have been noted in history as being exceptionally effective and between World War I and World War II we saw an incredible number of such defenses destroyed. That said, while they didn't hold in the long term, when faced with vastly superior attacking forces (typically 4-1 or better odds for the attacker), such defenses did not just roll over and die. They can still slow an invading army, hold off a larger force, or inflict incredible damage on such a force, its just that historically of late they haven't been able to do so forever.

People have referenced Deep Space Nine and Atlantis (Stargate). Should I have to point out that Deep Space Nine, a converted civilian space station was able to hold off an enormous fleet of Klingon warships and a similarly sized Dominion force and inflict incredible loses on both, dozens of ships each before falling? Atlantis has the firepower to wipe out entire fleets with drones and shielding to survive prolonged bombardment from entire fleets. Don't tell me that such fortresses don't work.

The historic issue with fixed fortresses is that they are easy to attack because they are easy to plan around. I know fortress B is going to be at spot B all the time, unlike Army C which can run all around and screw up my plans.

People have brought up Huge hulls as larger then Starbases. Why? Why can't I build a bigger starbase? Going by all other Sci-fi I've seen/read I can't ever remember seeing a ship larger then the largest starbases. Why can't I use 50 constructors to build a beastly starbase the size of several large hulls?

Honestly I'd like to see a situation where each starbase got X room like a ship hull that could then be outfitted with weapons, shielding, or sensors as necessary just like a normal ship, at my current tech level. I don't have an issue with my fully advanced and upgraded starbase taking out a couple Huge ships.

It would be nice. The good old Stars! game had it. But it would require complete change of AI and that is why it is not a suitable solution. Adding some additional starbase modules would however help.

Starbase strategy
I support the idea of more powerful starbases because they allow more strategic options. I think you should have the choice to litter your territory with powerful bases if you want to. If balanced right, this should however come at a penalty.
All the resources you spent on your bases should lead to an underdeveloped mobile fleet compared to other factions with less starbases. This way other fleets are able to go around your bases and attack your planets and resources without being bothered by your ships, because you don't have (m)any. However, going the long way round can take time, which might be your purpose in installing these bases in the first place. Another advantage might be that the enemy spends lots of ships on your starbase defenses before concluding they are too strong (at that particular time).

How should a starbase 'behave'
My definition of the ideal starbase is:
A huge costly thing in space with 2 basic features:
1. Great potential to support your empire in different ways (with weapons, econ etc.)
2. The Achilles heel of being totally immobile, so there's no way to move its contribution to another location and there's no way to retreat if the base is in trouble.

Problems with current starbases
The main problem in this game is that the AI is not good enough to handle the interaction between mobile and static military assets. In my game experience bases cannot be too powerful or the AI wastes virtually ALL his ships on the bases instead of bypassing them.

Another problem which has been mentioned a couple of times is the illogical option of installing a huge number of weapon modules on your base with impressive sounding names, but in the end equipping your base with not so impressive defensive capabilities. Or at least capabilities that change relatively over time (good at first, later bad), which I don't particularly like. The big problem here is that they don't scale (maybe defenses scale somewhat?), which is also the reason I think that there are so many modules. With a large number of modules you get at least a smooth curve in increasing power. If you had only 3 weapon modules for the whole game, they would for instance have the values (att: 5; 5; 5), (att: 100; 100; 100) and (att: 300; 300; 300), leading to imbalanced situations if you get one of these techs too early.

Modding
One of the solutions for weak starbases is defending them with fleets which has the approval of many players and is fair I must admit if you accept a Starbase as being a vulnerable object needing external defenses (which might be the way Stardock intended it to be).
However, since I stubbornly stick to my own view of what a 'realistic' starbase is, I modded all the Starbase fortification modules and can recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind adapting the game a little and not playing on the Metaverse. The starbase modules are easy to change, especially if you only change the attack/defense values. For my own games I have redesigned the Starbase fortification techs with a more straightforward path in the techtree and a much lower number of modules (from 28 to 16 total) with increased power. This enables me to quickly slab on some weapons early game to fend of raiders or 'vengeance' ships and later on increase defenses to match enemy fleets and even build highly powerful space fortresses at huge cost just for the fun of it. Another adding fun factor is that the enemy also arms its bases a little better, which makes it less easy to grab all the enemy resources when war breaks out. The main disadvantage is that the values are hard to balance because the strenght of the fortifications is relative to the strength of ships which depend greatly on the particular galaxy settings.

I still like my military starbase = static defense idea. Fast ships can blast right through before it is your turn to have the starbase attack, but woe be unto he who falls short

With Terror Stars being able to be put in Fleets, I really wish that the other Starbases would be able to Fleeted too.

Even if it wouldn't make Starbase Weapons/Defenses useful, it would still make it easier to defend them (since Guard/Sentry modes can only do so much...)

This, along side increasing the HP (slighty or significantly, doesn't matter to me...) of Starbases might make those modules worth it, though.

Fleeting bases is by far the best option available. Especially if they get coded so that the base can't be targetted until last, whether the normal targetting heirarchy would place them last or not. Wouldn't do a whole lot of good to have a defensive fleet if the base is still targetted first and you get left with a destroyed base and a mostly intact defensive fleet   

This option has always been available, but since Stardock hasn't implemented it, I assume they won't decide to do so now, either  

Stars! A moment of silence -please...

BTW: I also think none military bases should loose military related options.

Does any of this really matter? How many posts have been made pointing out how the game could be better, or this should work like this and have actually caused the devs to change the game?

Starbases have been out of balance since DL. From the lack of response from stardock on every one of these similar posts, I doubt anything's going to change.

There is always the hope. But if we are silent, there is no hope.

"I think we all agree, that simply expanding the fortification branch, would be the worst solution, and could easily be done with a mod."

Actually we all don't agree. I believe this is precisely what should happen. It's the easiest thing for the devs to implement, and thus the most likely thing to actually happen. It would bring the starbases on into the endgame, and that's really all that's important at this point. The rest can be categorized as "would be nice if". The starbases not being viable at endgame is really all that's "broken".

Right now, Starbases are militarily significant in the early and mid game but easy prey in the late game. Most of the posts in this thread see this as a bug but it may also be considered a feature - forcing you to change strategy once technology advances to the point where Starbases can no longer defend themselves.

Realistically, there is no way for a base to defend itself against a fleet of late game battleships - you need to intercept and destroy that fleet with one of your own before it gets to the Starbase.

While I believe the ability to design your own Starbases would enhance gameplay, it wouldn't make them defendable against late game fleets without friendly fleet support and it would require changes to the design that are definitely out of scope for a patch and probably out of scope for an expansion pack.

Anyway - when war breaks out, you fight with the military you have; not the military you want!

Mostly I'd like to see a little more automation in SB building, it gets tedious routing all those constructors all over the map upgrading. I'd like an option where constructors are automatically searching out sb's needing upgrading. Not sitting somewhere waiting for me to notice them. Maybe they should have an automate toggle as well. Click one main switch and all constructors seek out the nearest sb needing upgrade.

I think starbases are strong enough currently (as someone pointed out earlier, they're supposed to be protected) but I think it should take about half as many contructors to build one. Either that or be able to build modules that allow you to dock ships in the base which defend it in the event of an attack, as long as they're medium hull size or smaller.

add a 'fighter' wing module....that would contain so many fighters, that would fight the invaders first, before they had a chance to attack the starbase...have them screen the base.....

gblemings

I would like to see military bases being potentially tougher throughout the game...basically an immoble starship with their own various "hull" sizes and weapon/defense choices. Weapons/defenses could overlap with the ship choices with a few extras perhaps. From a game-play standpoint, there is no reason why I -have- to attack an enemy military base if I can by-pass it and deal with it later...the AI should also do this. But an enemy fleet using the SB for shelter and getting +/- effects can make removing the SB more important.

There are certainly times and locations where a fulled-loaded starbase is an asset. In most cases though, they're expensive targets later in the game.

Early on to mid game, they are a must - especially within your own empire for trade, production and research bonus's. I am hesitant to use military bases, except to bolster the defense of my larger systems.

My thoughts go towards a better offenses and defenses. I also like the concept of upgrading a starbase without the need for a constructer. If we can upgrade ships in the field for $$$, starbases are little different conceptually.

How about preemptive weapons, that strike one square away? Just a thought...

What the hell's the difference between parking a battleship on them, and giving them battleship-like weaponry and defense, besides pain-in-the-ass micromanagement?