The best thing is that they have Battle Station Mk II / III and IV.
It seems they just forgot to add Mk I

I know there are probably many technical and gameplay issues the developers are looking into right now so I'm not expecting an immediate fix, but I'd feel a lot better about quietly waiting for a patch if Stardock acknowledged that they're aware of the problem.

Simply knowing this issue is on the "To Be Fixed" list would make me a lot more comfortable about letting this thread sink off the first page.

-Autistic Angel

They threw in the Altarian and Thalan tech trees, and neither of them felt like they were close to even remotely finished. The Altarian tech tree is just the Drath one copy-pasted, and the Thalans are missing stuff and are fairly broken balance and AI-wise. And neither one was touched at all (actually a patch fixed one part of the Thalan tree, but not the 50 other broken parts).

to be onest I realy like the thalan tech tree, it´s quite unique
I only miss stabases mk1 and ship components which strenghten your fleet

I can accept the Thalan not having farming technology. According to their backstory, they come from a future where habitable worlds are practically nonexistent. They find the entire concept of planetary colonization rather novel: it's one of the reasons their population growth is so stunted.

The gameplay balance is supposed to be that they are very comfortable living in deep space and can develop uniquely powerful modules for their starbases, including economic modules which can greatly boost the production and revenue of their planets.

Herein lies the problem: one of the Thalan's most expensive "Hyperion Starbase" modules installs powerful shields, armor, and point defenses, but they have no ability to research starbase weaponry at all. Ever. In a game without technology trading -- as I often like to play -- Thalan starbases are totally helpless and can be easily destroyed whether they have their Singularity Armor installed or not. It's a completely useless technology.

I am not a game designer and I make no claims of mastering the finer points of gameplay balance, but on this point, it's crystal clear that the Thalan are rather badly broken.

-Autistic Angel

Maybe this is all because they don`t have the standard weapons techs (Starbases Mk1 is ususally there)

Well, I for my part did not wrote an email. And i am too tired at the moment to do so, so if tell me how exactly to report the bug i will do it this weekend or someone other will do it.

I came here this morning to ask this question!

I was really enjoying the Thalans. I have placed ships on each starbase in Guard mode and have been searching for the technology that I must have missed some place that let me put a single weapon on the ship. It makes no sense at all to have "Defenses" if you have no weapons because you will still die in one shot.

I have cut this huge swath over about 50% of a large galaxy as the Thalans and stunted my explosive growth because I did not want my starbases destroyed.


This really needs a fix!!!

I always turn off tech trading in custom games because I know I can't keep up with the computer AI in trading and they will quickly overwhelm me techwise.

I made another topic in Game Talk on this very subject earlier today.

Battle Stations are on the tech tree, tucked away in the hulls research line (odd place, I think). Researching them doesn't give the module, and thalans also don't seem to have any of the more advanced mining, economy, influence or military modules, even when their starbase tech is researched. I don't rely that much on starbases, but it's still a major weakness. The thalans have some really interesting strategies as well, by the looks of things. It's a shame they seem so neglected.

As said above by others, I'm also surprised about the similarities between Altarian and Drath tech trees. The backstory says they have some sort of relationship, I suppose, but it looks a little like a botch-job copy-and-paste-quickly-before-release to me.

I did research that tech, but there didn't seem to be any benefit for my starbases afterwards. Maybe I should try again and pay more attention.

Storyline reasons is why Altarians have Drath temples.