Warship becomes starbase

Was this ship a constructor ship?

Uhh, . . . no.

Let me be even more clear that this was a warship, i.e., an armed ship built on a medium hull and containing no constructor, trade or mining modules. I placed this heavily armed and veteran frigate (it had over 200 hit points) on the base to protect it. In the first place, I was surprised the base was engaged instead of the ship. However, I was even more surprised when immediately after the base was destroyed, my warship became a new starbase (without any armament or other extra modules) on the resource. I never got the opportunity to move it.

Now, I have always noticed that a non-constructor ship cannot move into the same square as a resource because long ago I tried to "hold" a resource by placing the ship over it until my constructor could get there and claim the resource. It doesn't work. However, once a base is built there, ships can occupy the same square. With the destruction of the base, my non-constructor warship was occupying the same square as the resource so perhaps some internal rule had to sort that out and did so by just making my ship a base. I think a better solution would be to just have the warship or other non constructor ship moved aside from the resource. Of course, if the base is surrounded by enemy fleets that might not be possible either. Thus, I think the even better solution would be to just allow warships and other non constructor ships to occupy the same space as a resource without building any starbase.

I have had the frustration of seeing a starbase destroyed while a guarding ship was left untouched, but not the additional frustration of having the ship morph into a starbase! I kind of like your idea of allowing ships to occupy resource squares as a matter of course. I also think that all attacks on that square should have to take out ships before engaging the starbase.

I've had this happen as well. It's really frustrating.

Doesn't seem to occur with fleets, but single warships are toast. I've had it happen again since starting this thread. It makes it very risky to guard starbases with single ships.

I wonder if it would occur if a fleet was reduced to one ship and then the starbase destroyed. Single ships formerly part of a fleet seem to keep their fleet designation because I've both been engaged and engaged single ship fleets. The effect is noticeable because of the rules I have set up for the game that require both sides to be fleets before the battle is actually watched in "video" form. If the ship continues to operate under "fleet rules" perhaps it would not become a starbase in the manner I described above.