A few points for consideration:

1) In my opinion, restrictions on starbases will NOT hinder the cultural victory path. My experience has been that it only takes one maxed out cultural starbase strategically located to eventually cause the first planet to switch over. Once the first planet switches, then the domino effect kicks in for all of the nearby planets. It does not take many cultural starbases (even in a gigantic galaxy) to follow the cultural pathway.

2) Although the consensus seems to be swinging against this, I still think that hard limits (that could be modified through new reasearch abilities as well as perhaps other factors such as the number of planets in the sector) would be the simplest fix. Diminishing return-type limits would achieve a similar effect, but that is all it would be -- i.e. a similar effect. Why go through the trouble of more complicated diminishing return-type calculations that would not be easy for a player to mentally guage?

3) I agree with a comment made earlier that starbases on resources should NOT count against any limits. By virtue of the resource, these starbases should be considered "free". The AI seems to be pretty agressive at getting to the resources and one of the fun parts of the early game is finding as many of these as you can. Plus, later in the game if you are fighting against the computer one of the better tactics is to take over the computer's resource starbases.





~SDC~

I think the Logistics ability is an excellent idea along with the user choosing the type of SB upon build and a maintenance cost per SB is a great way to limit (or slow down) the mass production of SBs. Not to mention a whole new tech tree branch to research just adds to the fun!

No new ideas since the topic has great ones already but to put in my vote as a mediocre GalCiv player

I think the following changes would alleviate starbase concerns (not completely solve, as IMO I think any solution has some workaround to it to some degree):

Logistics tech line coupled with empire capacity to build starbases throughout (per Frogboy's post); this way, no one is limited to how many starbases can be created per sector, but limited per empire, and can be raised through research.

Advanced constructors, being available after researching Large Scale Building. Yes! I love everything about this idea. Starbases would need these after having an x amount of modules. By having a higher cost, it realistically allows only the more productive planets to produce these.

I think these alone would curtail starbase spamming tactics. I know there are talks about these changes not affecting the end game, but by having a dramatic cost for advanced constructors and placing logistics tech later in the research line to expand the amount of starbases built, would at least limit one's starbase building per turn.

Most importantly, however, these changes would not affect the early game, which is one of my greater concerns. The tweak needs to address the late game, but keep the early and maybe the mid game, intact. Things I don't think should go in are :

Maintenance cost. This is okay, I suppose, but one can rationalize that starbases can do trade, or docking fees, or what have you, to pay for their "upkeep". Even if the game doesn't simulate it. It still does not solve the late game anyway, and it hurts the early game. Frankly I can go both ways on this. If maint costs are implemented, I would like it to be module based, starting with x amount (1 bc, for example) charged after the first 3 modules or something. Then the more modules added the higher the maint cost (1 bc for the 4th total module, 3bc for the 5th, and so forth). Again it preserves the early game, and tweaks the late game.

Hard limits. I don't like this. Intuitively, it just doesn't feel right. Having an empire wide limit based on logistics is better than per sector or per pop/economy. Yes, I can bring 5 starbases up in a sector, but that means no starbases for me somewhere else... and with advanced constructors, it'll be longer for me to build up 5 starbases anyway... keeping flexibility in gameplay is a must. Hard limits just strap people.

As a guy who impertinently started his own of many threads looking for 'fixes' to the SB issues, I just want to say to Brad: THANK YOU!!!

Just want to add in this great discussion (which is yielding many brilliant ideas) a 'problem' that I don't want to drop off the radar entirely -- the AI's 'not seeing' your stabases to attack them during war.

As a test this last game (all AIs to genuis on a large map) I limited my starbases to the follwing:

a) 1 starbase per colony
Starbases could only be built on resources and in orbit of a planet.

The result?

a) Still too many starbases!!! But if you implement the low-level planet penalties you mention for 1.03, this should really help.

Here's where it got better: With my starbases sitting in orbit of planets (other than the ones on resources), the AI couldn't help but 'see' them on its attack of a planet.

However, it still would ignore them if the starbases were in orbit of planets it didn't deem important enough.

Anyway, I think central to this discussion in how the AI targets your starbases -- it should go after them *before* it attacks your plants IMO if they are well developed starbases.

And, of course, the AI in this last game didn't build but a very small handful of its own starbases. Thus, in part, I won.

Okay everyone, lets pause the discussion for a moment. Has everyone read the proposals for the economy and indluence changes in version 1.03?

The biggest change is that you will no longer be able to get infinite production out of planets by stacking starbases. According to the limited information in the doc, once the bonus production is greater than three times the planet quality, production will be penalized. As long as that penalty is sufficiently strict, i think there's a strong possibility that the Interstellar Starbase Sprawl problem will be fixed.

The only other changes that i would think neccessary for 1.03 would be perhaps a small maintenance fee for each starbase, and perhaps reworking the starbase module "tree" to reward a few highly developed starbases rather than a larger number of partially developed starbases.

There's still some issues about stacking military bonuses and stacking trade bonuses (and culture bonuses should be _added_ not _multiplied_!) but we should wait to see how things work out in 1.03 before we make any more major changes.

Yin, it should evaluate which to take out first. Yes, if the planet is a tough nut to crack because of the starbase bonuses, and the starbase isn't a tougher nut, it should take out the starbases first. Not considering which is a tough nut leads to a different exploit, that of seriously beefed up starbases and scouts just to keep the planets from being invaded. Not evaluating how much of the planet defenses come from starbases first could lead the AI into wasting time killing fluff starbases so that the human has more time to react to an offensive.

I'm still against maintenenance for starbases, unless it's maintenance for starbases over a certain number (ie your logistics tech gives you X SB maintenance-free, but if you want more than that, you have to pay per-turn). Any maintenance fee that prevents SB abuse in the endgame will make SB development early-game cost-prohibitive. In the end game, I'll often have 400BC/turn surpluses, but until midgame a 5BC/turn surplus is surprising.

From what I've seen of the AI behaviour, it will ignore starbases it cannot easily beat. This means just one or two defensive modules will push most starbases beyond it's targetting threshold for most of the game.

People are missing the Star Hawk. It's a 0 maintence costs super survey ship with the 2 Attk/1 Defense stats of a star fighter with lots of hit points. Of course, it costs more then a Constructor to build, and it contributes about 0 to your empire, which is why people don't tend to use it, I bet.

Once again, it is an economy issue, one of min/max, that causes people to get into running off constructors from all planets not capable of building super cost heavy ships quickly enough. And when at peace and on non-military strategy, building only enough military to keep the AI from bothering you.

As it is now, star bases are the best instrument for cultural victory. Better results. If that isn't what Brad and team meant, then I can understand adjusting the matter. But I do not see why I will need to go smack down my opponents resource bases out in the otherwise empty spaces of the map (on medium+), just so I can CULTURALLY win the game. Culture is supposed to be a peaceful win. So why re-balance the game to 'require' it, as that will be the only way to get that general area of space to flip control to you, for 'free'? And that is exactly what people are describing... If the only free starbases are resources, people will be forced to go a military path to get a peaceful win. This doesn't seem 'fitting' to me.

A few notes... I do not tend to flip worlds when I culturally win. I also tend to win culturally rather early, from what I've read elsewhere (other threads) on people's game time. Part of that reason is that as soon as the last resource is claimed, there is a very valid peaceful path in the game. I've yet to manage a tech win... as I culturally win before I can reach it, without trying to. Maybe that makes the cultural path too strong, but this can be corrected by simply adding items to the social and military ques of : RESEARCH! This item would allow you to dump your 'constructor' queues into research points (description via 'scientific probes, ships, orbital labs/observatories', Milatary shields get added to that's planet's research ). Why do you have those constructors in the queue? Because you generally need some real military ships being built (for defense of your own worlds/resources, to keep the AI off your back, to sell for payments over time, or simply as gifts to help strengthen one AI against another).

A comparison of play styles will bear me out. We build constructors because there isn't anything as useful to build.

At best, if Brad and the gang make these changes discussed, we will simply change GalCiv to 'Conquer all the settled stars', with a serious cheese to the max any bases we can, to that min/max value we think is optimal. At worst, nothing will change other then except that people will build even MORE starbases, as they forgot that starbase was an 'trading' base, and start a military base beside it.

Its an economy issue. Plain and simple. Address the economy issue, and the play balance will favor less star base proliferation.

If Brad really wants to limit the Star Base Spore issue, he and the gang merely add one new resource to the game. It provides no actual benefit, other then base mass. This is the required anchor point. Now, all starbases are built on resources. Some give extra benefits (military, economy, influence, etc), some do not. Indeed, with a minor switch, all resources are now merely star base anchors, with some yielding a possible benefit in one (or more) directions. This possible solution immediately resolves the ICS problem, as no matter what, you will just run out of things to build up. The AI benefits immediately, as it can prioritize resources, and have that modified by the desirability of the resource. And it will no longer build 5 starbases in the same sector, and do nothing else with them.

With such a system, players could settle the availability of 'resource anchors' (rare (1 per width of galaxy) to common (avg 1 per sector) ). Some resources, like Influence or Morale, may no longer need to exist. (Influence is just building a bunch of Culture/Trade enhancers effectively, and Morale could just be part of the Culture lines (WATERPARKS!:D ) .)

It's actually something I thought of a while back. The game logic can be all sorts of things, like requiring some form of mass to anchor everything to, to needing some significant raw material to use for the nano-bots to work with (yielding self sufficent bases), needing a mass to create sufficent gravity to be amplified to a level capable of providing sufficent gravity to such a large structure as star bases cheaply, etc, etc, etc. Easy to come up with some technobabble for it.

Sidebar: If you have nano-technology, and can nano-engineer, that should reduce your maintence on bases by a significant factor. This is a technology that should yield raised logistics rating, as your recycling ability shoots through the roof, and you can really process/refine material very well.

I'd suggest people think about it. If GalCiv were to go with the 'resource anchor required' to build star bases, it effectively builds into the game the rare strategic points that are what habitable stars are. By adding a new module type to star bases... ENGINES, one would then be able to move a rare resource point out to act as a logistical base for allowing you to range further out... to reach that next star cluster on large+ maps. This would ALLOW players to move that resource to point they prefer, but would take a while. And if Brad and the gang like that, they could even require that you bring more 'resource/anchor points' together to build the bigger modules. After all, you need more base material to build a terror star or pleasure palance, and apparently, those resource points are the only significant sized bundles outside a star system. This mechanism of 'merging' resource anchor points could be used to further limit players from from building up 10 Uber Production/Culture bases. If that is really want our GalCiv Pope and Crew want.

I just don't want to further complicate this mighty game we all love without adding to the strategic layer of the game. And it needs to be done in a fashion that is AI friendly. I think this resource/anchor point approach addresses many issues that people have raised here, without needlessly complicating the starbase aspect of the game, and certainly aids the AI, rather then creates another layer at an aspect that the AI is having significant trouble with already. I think it really would add to the game much more then it would take away in hassle.

And one more time, because I feel it just has to be said: Thanks for the great game! That's out to Brad, his team, and all the alpha and beta testers and everyone else that has contributed to this game! Thanks, Star Dock and friends!

It just seems to me that logistics is one of those things that would amplify the dominance of a strong empire. A large empire can research it quicker, and can afford to have a number of 'frontier' SBs (or cheese SBs) instead of having to keep them at home boosting the economy.

But as has already been pointed out, the two issues of 'How to stop starbase cheese', and 'How to tone down the advantage SBs give to large empires' are somewhat different.

~SDC~

Stopped in again to add some more thoughts on the more popular threads in this discussion...

1) Diminishing returns: Makes good sense in the head, not sure if it will make for fun playing, that remains to be seen. But most importantly, I like that this is an _economic_ model for limiting the spamming of sectors for productive gains (social spending, military spending, and culture). It doesn't really address limits on the number of deep space stations, however. I don't have an answer for Deep Space stations, yet.

2) Hard Limits/ Anchor Points: Are a game convention for good strategy board games, and offer choke point like strategic value to the placement of star bases... however, they don't make a whole heck of a lot of sense in a game about Space Empires... If a galactic empire wanted to create a station out in the boonies where-ever it wanted to... what's to stop it? The answer is simple economics... it costs money to support these stations out in limbo... hence the need for (as Frogboy suggested earlier) the Logisitcs ability... the ability to keep the far flung reaches of the empire up to date and on the same track.

In fact, logistics could be turned into an incredibly important ability if we allow Logistics to mean "the innate ability of a race or government to supply its holdings, personnell and space craft at great distances efficiently"... I.E. the further a vehicle or space station is from the closest planet, the less effective it is in its tactics, morale, and supplies. Hence, inneficient empires will find their quality impacted by their inability to keep their most distant equipment and installations informed and/or resupplied. Also, the more efficient a nation is, the more installations, ships, etc. etc. it can support effectively.

3) Maintanence Costs: Are almost intuitive at this point. Space Stations should be huge structures with incredible maintanence requirements when they get built up to their maximum output... it only makes sense that effectiveness of a given module on a Space Station should hinge on the efficency of the empire and how well supplied the Star Base is. There might even be a penalty system devised for Star Base modules that aren't well supplied. Now there is the argument out there that Maintanence costs will discourage Star Bases early in the game... I don't have a problem with this. It makes common sense that a Galactic entity of only one world should not have the economic ability to build up and maintain an armada of Star Bases early in its quest for dominance. It doesn't make economic sense to make Star Bases inexpensive... but it does make for decent gameplay, and spawns a number of strategies from the onset that depend on cheap Star Bases. The apparent compromise then is having maintanence fees added after a certain number of modules are added... but I would also argue that if Maintanence fees are implamented, then Economic modules added to star bases should have some capacity to off-set the Maintanence associated with that Star Base.

4) And probably most importantly, AI dealing with Star bases: Wow... there certainly are a lot of issues thrown into the mix about what to do with star bases, and how to make them more balanced... But balanced toward... what? More often than not when 'balance' issues are taken into consideration its to make sides equal for one Human player to battle another Human player. I don't seriously think that this is what Stardock was thinking when they created the game in the first place, but this may not be all that apparent to us, as fans, posting in this forum. This oversight may then be the biggest fallacy we have failed to consider as we mull over the options to limit spamming of starbases.

I mean, who spams Star Bases? Humans do... Should the AI be taught how to spam Star Bases to level the playing field, or will that make it too tough for beginning players, and/or players that choose not to Spam? These questions point to a universal tool or method to control how Star Bases are used... again pointing back to the creation of a Logistics ability.

A side note at this point, do the different races have differing advantages and disadvantages? If so, it would exceptionally cool to discover these through espionage (aside from the Stat screen, I mean. It would a 'racial' character, perhaps making the alien races seem that much more alien)... also, do the computer players have different political parties as well? If not, it would be a neat way to differentiate how the different races conduct foreign policy... Also, do the different races have different strategies at achieving galaxy domination? If they did , it would be a very cool addition to add political parties as representations of those different aims... and if (another if) we did add political parties for other races, wouldn't it be cool to discover what political party is in charge (if any) through espionage... to help determine the aim of that race? Just some tail end musings there on AI. I added those thoughts here because how a Race intends to take over a galaxy would most decidedly affect how, when, and where that race builds Star Bases...

Cheers,
agillious LOL

This is a Starbase thread and I don't really have the time to read all the posts here and on the bug thread but I saw this strange thing.

Using the latest build but not that beta, on normal difficulty I saw the AI (the yellow guys) building multiple starbases and not on resources. Each base was dedicated to one aspect of improvement. There was a small base for production, one for morale and one for military (may have been trade/economic). I thought this was stramge since one base could have accomadated all those upgrades.

Star Pilot:

Your idea of anchor points, however, still encourages combat play. As we all know, lack of resources, in this case anchor points, will always be fought over LOL So, your idea of a peaceful cultural victory may not be so peaceful. Still, it's an intruiging idea.

Aqillious:

I was the one worried about limiting the starbases in the early game. I should say, that the current implementation of starbases is good for the early game; i.e., even if you are cranking out constructors, you don't get much of a benefit anyway since you have not researched all the module upgrades needed; the concern here is in the late game, where culture palaces and starbase factories, as well as the ability to crank out constructors every 2 turns or so, allows for starbase spamming.

As to the "realism" of young empires not being able to create starbases... lil' ol earth has one. It sucks (relatively speaking to GalCiv) and it doesn't provide the bonuses that the game mechanics have, but it's orbiting over us right now.

Point is, we don't have an empire (heck we don't even have a single government in the planet), but we managed to cobble up a few modules and fling it up there.

I really think that with the 1.03 changes, coupled with a logistics tree to expand starbase capability from a starting race stat, plus a new ship in the advanced constructor, would be the best fit in addressing the issue. Maintenance cost, as compromised in having only more advanced modules accrue them, is second best.

Making sure that the AI knows how to use starbases to accelerate industrial and cultural growth is equally important to any other battery of fixes. None of these problems would be quite so severe if not for the fact that the AI doesn't seem to take advantage of space manufactoring and mining modules.

Personally, I think that there should be diminishing returns (beyond one SB) for just about every orbital upgrade. The rules of the game should allow for a perfectionist build strategy (ie. small number of sectors with heavy infrastructure) but should keep the truly extreme examples of such a strategy within the realms of reason. The actual mathematics that could be used to accomplish this is for wiser minds than myself to decide.

I'd just like to reiterate my first point though... regardless of whatever is done to tame starbase creep, the AI still needs to be taught how to use them properly. Starbases are far too crucial a feature for them to be an AI blindspot.

Myomer, I've been getting the impression that Brad feels that the peaceful path is too easy, and wanted to make it more difficult/encourage other victory paths. Just my impression, mind you, but with the changes to to Culture/Influence, etc... That is what is being communicated to me.

And regardless of 'reality', anything that really improves the AI's ability at handling its starbases, which is one of the key issues concerning starbases, would lead to better games (more fun) for all players, wouldn't it?

In strategy games, the main principle is 'The Rich get Richer faster then everyone else.'. It's just how utilizing resources to do stuff works. The more you have, the quicker you can improve. In most games, the AI starts out being able to better utilize what it has, for various reasons (cheats like omniscience, having advantages, whatever). Human players tend to overcome the AI in such games due to being able to better develop their long term growth potential, take advantage of loopholes, and in general strip the AI of its resources through basic tactics of war (focusing your attack strength on his weak points, etc). We beat the computer, because we can adapt and think, and it cannot. It follows a certain code of behavior, and certain invariable strategies.

Simplification tends to favor the less intelligent/strategically capable player. And in a Human versus Computer situation, that means favoring the computer. Less choices means less options to have to worry about tuning... which results in better computer opponents.

Just some thoughts to consider. I think we (the community) have made a lot of interesting points and opinions in this topic.

I do think one point has been raised, that is the fact that the AI has to have a better sense of starbase strategy/tactics.

Not just destroying enemy starbases too close to their system or grabbing resources, but building effective culture-prevention starbases, employing starbase culture bombs, building up stronger sector based centers of activity. I have noted that the AI is doing this more in the current version, and it has made it harder to overcome them.

If I were the AI I would look at my core area of key worlds and I would build a culture starbase to shore up its cultural power, esp. if the human player had cultural maximizing and a clear cultural lead.

Also I have noted that the constructor race became much harder when the UP gave the constructors more movement points. It might help to double or triple the constructors initial movment points, it might actually help the AI overcome the advantages of the Human player.

The logistic ability sounds cool, very good idea.

But before thinking about implementing it I'd suggest some major thought to how it would be integrated into your AI. The best part of the game is the AI, I'd hate for an additionl aspect of the game to dilute that key factor.

Alright, I only made it through 1 of the 5 pages, but hear me out:

1) I think an "arbitrary" limit on the number of starbases is not too unreasonable. It can be tied to the sector: 1 per sector + 1 per star colonized by you + 1 per resource. Then modify this based on technology: perhaps "1 per star" becomes "1 per planet", or maybe "You may now build an additional starbase in any sector with a trade route", or a "Starbase Support" structure that allows +1 starbase in the structure's sector, or even adjacent sectors.

2) Morals-based limits: A "Good Morals" tech might allow additional "cultural-only" starbases. A Neutral tech might allow additional "trade-only" starbases. An Evil tech might allow additional "military-only" starbases.

3) Super-constructors: you *could* make these like "Achievements"... only one can be built per race at a time. Once they are used, another can be built. Only SuperConstructors can be used to complete Party Palaces, Terror Stars, MegaTrade centers, etc.

4) I really don't like scaling constructor or moduel costs. I don't plan on abusing multiple starbases in a sector, but I want the right to build 1 starbase in every inhabited sector to suport the local planet.

5) DEfinately, SB bonuses should not fully stack. Two identical +10% modules should not result in +20%. If the same system has two Phase II Factories, the system should be getting like +15%, not +20. (I know someone already proposed this reduction.)

6) Here's a new idea: have the Starbase have an "influenced area"... The SB's only provide bonuses to ships and stars in the influenced area. Four "+1 ship attack" bases might be present in a sector, but if a ship is only in 1 SB's area, it only gets 1 bonus. Larger modules might increase the influenced area, in addition to the effect... a reason to have 1 SB with 2 attack-boosting modules instead of multiple starbases would be the higher-tech SB's larger area of effect!

7) Definately add modules that influence the other areas of devleopment (research, morale, perhaps even planet quality (say 1% per module?)).



I would accept a flat-rate maintenance fee, but that doesn't really address the abuse issue.

In terms of bonuses, you really could just limit each bonus to only apply once per sector... or some such limitation (maybe each additional identical bonus on another startbase only helps by half as much. This makes sense since, for example, the interstellar distributor is really just helping production by helping get resources... but having more distributors wouldn't really help efficieny anymore than the first did.

Another thought, going along with something Frogboy said earlier: Starbases should specialize. You should not be able to build the best of everything on the same starbase. Terror Stars are fine, and have their good points and bad points. Terror Star/Party Palaces are just abusive.

I just won my first Gigantic map (all intelligent opponents) game. In a "habitable planet are rare" setup, there was a sector with 3 good worlds and 2 marginal (read: good for 10% PQ bonus) worlds. The Torians got the good worlds, I got the marginal ones. I tried to out-culture the Torians with starbases and social improvements, but they went to war with me over the starbases, and I eventually lost both worlds to culture overwhelming.

Why do I mention this? Because later I built a Culture Bomb on the other side of the sector border, turned it into a Terror Star, and scooted across the line. The Torians didn't even squeak, and the Cultural Palace soon had all 5 systems flipped to my control. Were the citizens scared by the Terror Star, or converted by the Traveling Circus??

Well, I just finished my first game 1.03 game, and my comments concerning the SB maintenance fee was right on, in my opinion. It caused serious economic problems early on, even though I wasn't doing more than dropping starbases on resources, but by the end of the game, I could have afforded a 144-SB slingshot barely noticing the maintenance cost.

I secon that. I like the idea of starbase specialisation.

~SDC~

Force the player to pay maintenance on any starbase that is in a sector w/o friendly planets, or on a resource. This reflects the cost of building a starbase way out in the middle of nowhere, as opposed to close to home, or on a resource that would offset those costs. You can still build up a freighter booster, range booster, culture booster, or attack booster, but it'll cost you.
Also make every starbase beyond the first in a sector cost maintenance. And make it so that only the best starbase in a sector (culture, production, etc.) is counted (not mining).
As for end game constructor madness... a super constructor will help, but the real problem is no incentive for leaving production slots vacant.

Keith: Actually, just making it so that only the best starbase bonus available has effect would eliminate almost the entire problem, though it might bring on problems of its own.

The maintenance fee, however, botches up using starbases to boost trade routes, unless you were going to have a starbase there anyway. Think about it. A good starting trade route will bring in what, 13BC/turn? A starbase that adds 50% to that would add 6 BC, but then cost 5BC. Sounds like you're still doing better, until you realize that according to what we understand, the starbase will only boost the amount while the mini-freighter is in the same sector as the starbase. On a 13BC/turn route, that's going to be 10% of the time at best.

So all of a sudden, trade-boosting starbases are a loss unless either (a) the starbase is on *SEVERAL* routes, or (b) you've got a starbase there for some other reason.

Of course, this whole argument is invalid if what we think we know isn't correct.

I still favor the ideas of diminishing returns on multiple starbases in the same sector and the logistics tech, provided that the starting number of starbases is reasonable.

Well, I can't claim to have read everything here, but I think I got all the main points:

1) Hard limits on number of starbases per sector. I doubt these should be implemented, simply because starbases eventually become mobile- and once the starbase starts moving, there goes the "per sector" restriction.

2) Overall hard limit on starbases. Nope. It's difficult to say exactly how many starbases might be ligitimately required by a civilization- one that practices trade heavily will need many more starbases located much further away from their planets than a warmonger. Thus, warmongers gain an unintended advantage in most of these situations.

3) Starbase maintenance fees. Still not good, for most of the reasons in #2. It penalizes people who like trading.

4) Diminishing returns. Harder to implement, but it makes sense. This looks somewhat viable as a solution, but I'd extend it out to the point that only one of each improvement in a sector provides a bonus. No more infinite sprawl problems this way, unless you just like having lots of redundancy in case of disaster.

5) Multiple constructor types. I like this idea, and it makes sense- those initial improvements are very simple in comparison to the more complex ones, having one "does it all" ship seems farfetched and quite frankly dull. Multiple constructor types for building more advanced modules seems like a good idea.

6) Limit possible scope of starbase. I really like this idea. A starbase is a limited space, and just building the thing is a major undertaking- getting about 7 different major functions to go on simultainously is bordering on the absurd (I feel for those poor overworked starbase heads). I feel that a mining starbase should do just that- Mine. No cultural attractions (you culture does not come across well with large smelly miners in all the exibits. Unless it's the Dergins...), no trading boosts, no defensive or offensive modules besides the most basic defense (disiplined military and miners do not play well together). The same goes for other types of starbases. You don't want the visiting aliens to your Pleasure Palace to be crawling (slithering, hopping, swinging) all over your advanced and highly secret offensive/defensive technology. It just makes sense to have specialized starbases for each purpose. It would also act to somewhat reduce the problem of across-the-map resource/culture grabs, as the mining/visitor bases would be poorly defended and easily destroyed unless you move guard ships to them.

7) Restricting the number of modules build per turn. Again, I really like it. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither should a fully fledged starbase. There's only so much that can be done at a base in a given time span, and as the most potentially damaging base improvements also require the most other modules to make, it allows others to counter an incursion into their space. This mostly restricts the human player for now, but as the AI gets smarter, it might try the old "Insta-Star" (Just add Constructors!) on you, which I guarantee will feel incredibly cheap.

And that's my two bits.

1. I think in the beginning the number could be based on the sector. Empty secorts can have 1 starbase, Other sectores can have 1 plus the number of planets and resources. Each planet and resource would support the additional economy necessary for more starbases. Each sector could have an economy rating, like influence. The economy rating could bleed into other sectors like influence. As you build your economy/population, adjacent sectors close to your core could have more starbases.

2. I think all starbases should have defense free, trade free, and then one additional module free. By free, I mean it takes just one 1 constructor to add a module and the maintenance costs 5. Additional modules would cost an advanced constructor and raise the cost to 10.
So if I build a production starbase with trade and defense it would cost 5 and a normal consturctor to build. If I wanted to add military or cultural it would cost 10 or 15 and take advanced constructors to add the additional modules.

3. I would also like to know what I can build/add to a starbase, not just what I have. Curently, I have to go to a starbase I know is maxed, count to determine the max. The to a starbase I am building, I have to count how many are there to understand how many I need to send.

~SDC~

I want to second Star Pilot's proposal: An empty 'core' resource required to build any starbase.
If it was possible to add such kind of resources through a mod, I think I could make a fun mod with that idea... except I don't have the time, that is.
The starbase only on resource, including 'empty' resources, would be fun IMO. It would add one decision to the game: Is it better to settle that PQ20 planet in that starbase empty sector, or to settle that PQ18 in a starbase friendly sector?
Of course, this doesn't really fit with a logistic anility, but I prefer that to logistics, even though it would be prone to Ctrl-N abuse.