Military Starbases, please help a newbie » Forum Post by Michael Loth

Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

There are weapons that can be added to *any* kind of starbase and all they do is to protect the starbase itself. In actuality they don't really do a good job of that and it's far better to keep a top line fleet in the vicinity of (or on top of) a starbase for protection.

These aren't the modules you want. The benefit of military starbases is that you can place starship assist modules that increase the attack and defense of the ships within the influence area of the starbase.

I think I have a chart around here somewhere. You want the the first set of modules and once you have them all they add +54 attack and +9 defense to *any* ship as long as it has at least one point of attack and one point of defense.

Military SB Module	Effect (to ships within range)	Required Module	Required Tech
Stellar Wake	Speed +1		Warp Drive
Inverse Tractor Beam	Speed +1		Warp Drive IV
Interdiction Beam	Enemy Speed -1		HyperWarp
Protective Fields	All Defense +1		Starship Defenses
Beam Interceptor	Shield +2	Battle Stations	Starbase Defenses
Missile Defender	Point +2	Battle Stations	Starbase Defenses
Energy Grid	Armor +2	Battle Stations	Starbase Defenses
Beam Multiplier	Beam +1	Beam Interceptor	Starbase Mobilization
Missile Bloom	Missile +1	Missile Defender	Starbase Mobilization
Omega Cannon	Gun +1	Energy Grid	Starbase Mobilization
Beam Multiplier III	Beam +2	Beam Multiplier	Starbase Projection
Missile Bloom III	Missile +2	Missile Bloom	Starbase Projection
Omega Cannon III	Gun +2	Omega Cannon	Starbase Projection
Beam Multiplier IV	Beam +3	Beam Multiplier III	Superior SB Defenses
Missile Bloom IV	Missile +3	Missile Bloom III	Superior SB Defenses
Omega Cannon IV	Gun +4	Omega Cannon III	Superior SB Defenses
Beam Multiplier V	Beam +4	Beam Multiplier IV	SB Conquest Strategy
Missile Bloom V	Missile +4	Missile Bloom IV	SB Conquest Strategy
Omega Cannon V	Gun +5	Omega Cannon IV	SB Conquest Strategy
Fighter Drones	Beam +1	Battle Stations	Space Weapons
Laser Equalizer	Beam +1		Laser
Missile Launchpads	Missile +1		Missile Theory
Sniper Turrets	Gun +1		Miniballs
Hyper-Phasors	Beam +2	Laser Equalizer	Phasors
Subspace Warheads	Missile +2	Missile Launchpads	Photonic Torpedo II
Graviton Snipers	Gun +2	Sniper Turrets	Graviton Driver IV
Focused Disruptors	Beam +4	Hyper-Phasors	Disruptors
Blackhole Torpedo	Missile +4	Subspace Warheads	Blackhole Eruptor
Neutrino Snipers	Gun +4	Graviton Snipers	Neutrino Bullets

Resource SB Module	Effect (to entire civilization)	Required Module	Required Tech
Resource Starbase	Resource +5%
Mining Barracks	Resource +2%
Mining Center	Resource +3%	Mining Barracks	Xeno Engineering
Mining Headquarters	Resource +4%	Mining Center	Xeno Industrial Theory
Resource Excavation	Resource +5%	Mining Headquarters	Xeno Factory Construction
Extraction Center	Resource +6%	Resource Excavation	Manufacturing Centers
Extraction Complex	Resource +7%	Extraction Center	Manufacturing Centers
Resource Sector	Resource +12%	Extraction Complex	Industrial Sector

Economic SB Module	Effect (to planets/trade within range)	Required Module	Required Tech
Starbase Factory	SP, MP, RP +3%
Advanced SB Factory	SP, MP, RP +4%	Starbase Factory	Xeno Industrial Theory
Massive Scaling Center	SP, MP, RP +5%	Advanced SB Factory	Xeno Factory Construction
Smart Drones	SP, MP, RP +6%	Massive Scaling Center	Advanced Computing
Interstellar Collectors	SP, MP, RP +7%	Smart Drones	Manufacturing Centers
Orbital Replicators	SP, MP, RP +8%	Interstellar Collectors	Industrial Sector
Trading Post	Trade +10%		Trade
Advanced Trading Post	Trade +20%	Trading Post	Advanced Trade
Trade Center	Trade +30%	Advanced Trading Post	Master Trade

Influence SB Module	Effect (to planets within range)	Required Module	Required Tech
Diplomatic Outpost	Influence +5%
Foreign Relations	Influence +7%	Diplomatic Outpost	Universal Translator
Interstellar Embassy	Influence +10%	Foreign Relations	Diplomatic Relations
Galactic Forum	Influence +15%	Interstellar Embassy	Advanced Diplomacy
Supreme Forum	Influence +25%	Galactic Forum	Expert Diplomacy
Interstellar Consortium	Influence +20%	Interstellar Embassy	Xeno Business
Franchise Center	Influence +25%	Interstellar Consortium	Cultural Domination
Franchise Headquarters	Influence +30%	Franchise Center	Historical Assimilation
Cultural Maximization	Influence +40%	Franchise Headquarters	Xeno Cultural Trends
Insurrection Coordinator	Influence +60%	Cultural Maximization	Cultural Insurrection
Cultural Conquest Center	Influence +100%	Insurrection Coordinator	Cultural Conquest

Any SB Module	Effect (to Starbase itself)	Required Module	Required Tech
Battle Stations	All Attack +1		Space Weapons
Battle Stations II	All Attack +2, All Defense +2	Battle Stations	Medium Scale Building
Battle Stations III	All Attack +4, All Defense +4	Battle Stations II	Large Scale Building
Battle Stations IV	All Attack +6, All Defense +6	Battle Stations III	Massive Scale Building
Subspace Blaster	Beam +5	Battle Stations	Starbase Fortification
Star Javelin	Missile +5	Battle Stations	Starbase Fortification
Ship Pounder	Gun +5	Battle Stations	Starbase Fortification
Ray Shielding	Shield +5	Battle Stations	Starbase Fortification
Missile Defender	Point +5	Battle Stations	Starbase Fortification
Combat Armor	Armor +5	Battle Stations	Starbase Fortification
Subspace Blaster II	Beam +10	Subspace Blaster	Starbase Fortification II
Star Javelin II	Missile +10	Star Javelin	Starbase Fortification II
Ship Pounder II	Gun +10	Ship Pounder	Starbase Fortification II
Ray Shielding II	Shield +10	Ray Shielding	Starbase Fortification II
Missile Defender II	Point +10	Missile Defender	Starbase Fortification II
Combat Armor II	Armor +10	Combat Armor	Starbase Fortification II
Subspace Blaster III	Beam +30	Subspace Blaster II	Starbase Fortification III
Star Javelin III	Missile +30	Star Javelin II	Starbase Fortification III
Ship Pounder III	Gun +30	Ship Pounder II	Starbase Fortification III
Ray Shielding III	Shield +20	Ray Shielding II	Starbase Fortification III
Missile Defender III	Point +20	Missile Defender II	Starbase Fortification III
Combat Armor III	Armor +20	Combat Armor II	Starbase Fortification III
Devastation Beam	Beam +7	Battle Stations
Matter Detonators	Missile +7	Battle Stations	Blackhole Eruptor
Atlas Sling	Gun +7	Battle Stations	Singularity Driver
Invulnerability Bloom	Shield +16	Battle Stations	Advanced Force Fields
Electro-Magnetic Surge	Point +16	Battle Stations	Aereon Missile Defense
Overload Armor	Armor +16	Battle Stations	Zero Point Armor
Perimeter Scanners	Sensor +1		Sensors
Sector Scanners	Sensor +2	Perimeter Scanners	Sensors II
Sector Surveillance	Sensor +3	Sector Scanners	Sensors III
Ultimate Surveillance	Sensor +4	Sector Surveillance	Sensors IV

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Rather than overwhelm you with tecnical data I'll tell you my simple approach to military starbases.

The military starbase can defend itself (when upgrade with contructors to lvl 2 or 3 battlestations+armor,etc) against quite powerful fleets and as well as assisting nearby fleets they can also draw fire away as I've seen the AI fleets go straight for my starbases and rather than hit a juicy fleet they suicided themselves onto my fully armed base. I tend to build a military base near my homeworld and my manufacturing capitals (assuming their on different worlds) and use the area effect as a staging area for my fleets.also they actually speed up your fleets passing through its area of influence and it slows the enemy fleets down as well.

hope this helps...

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Thanks for your help!

I built the military starbases early to raise my military level(trying to prevent a decleration of war) and to protect my planets, while I research the necessary technologies to build a useful war ship. As I understand now, the right approach is actually the opposite from what I thought. I first need all those technologies to make military starbases useful.

Now for the list, does a starship needs to have missiles itself, to get a missile bonus from missile bloom, or for example, does a warship with one beamer have also a level 1 missile attack if in range of a friendly starbases with missile bloom module?

Btw, in my last game all starbases were limited to 4 modules. I guess in this environment military starbases are useless anyway.

Off-topic, I tried to design my own ships, but in fact all those 'pre-factured' ships are better= have space for more modules, example: Pre-facture ship has 2 beam and ECM1, if I use the same hull in design mode and the smallest available engine I can't even add an 2nd beam. By checking the forum I noticed several threats about a bug that let the computer use all designs at highest miniaturization level BUT they claim that was before v2.0. I'm using Arnor 2.04 . Is this the known bug, or what could I have done wrong?

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

Your ships only need one weapon to benefit from all damage-increasing modules. The damage-type doesn't matter in this case. Same goes for defense.

There are two versions of the UP issue that restricts starbase modules. One is limited for three years, the other has no time limit. If you got the latter one, you may get lucky, and it gets brought up again. In that case, you could try to vote for no limit. If that gets passed, the limitation will be removed.
While starbases loose much of their value, due to the module limit, they still have their uses. Just focus them on what you really want from them: speed-increase, better production or trade, stronger weapons, etc.

Regarding the ship designs: are you absolutely sure that the auto-designed ships have more components than they should? This is pretty easy to verify. Just build one, look at it's details, and then try to make a design with the same components. Also, the auto-designer sometimes uses extras that look like regular components (weapons, engines, etc.), but aren't actually working. They are purely cosmetic. Maybe you are seeing those?

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Your ships only need one weapon to benefit from all damage-increasing modules. The damage-type doesn't matter in this case. Same goes for defense.

Cool, thx!

I checked again and found the mistake. I took for granted that a ship needs an engine to travel through space. It seems logical to me, but maybe it's just because I've played Master of Orion for so many years . As I wrote before, I added an engine to my designs while all those pre-factured ships don't have one. Deducting the engine I can build the same ships.

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+136

Unfortunately, starbases didn't get much love throughout this game's development and patches. The only new stuff it ever got (if I remember correctly) were a number of sensor modules, the ability to use a constructor to repair a starbase, and a number of new modules for the Twilight expansion. Starbases never really kept up with the times.

From what I understand, the problems with starbases are:
-Starbases have too many modules. It takes too long to assemble them from the ground up.
-Starbases don't defend themselves well in the long run. With end game tech, it is possible to build a huge hull armed with enough guns and defenses to be better than any starbase in a fight, giving it more firepower in all fields, more defenses in all fields, more hit points, and the ability to travel about. On top of that, such ships can join a fleet...
-Starbases have only 1 gun, so they can only make 1 attack per turn. Other ships that have multiple guns (Dark Avatar and Twilight) can make multiple attacks per turn if they don't need to use all their guns to kill a ship. If a ship had 10 guns, each of which that could kill a ship on its own, then it could kill 10 ships. If the same ship needed 2 guns to kill a certain kind of ship, then it could kill 5 of those kinds of ships. Starbases, with their 1 gun, can only kill 1 ship per turn, so any battle with a lot of opposing ships is probably going to take a while to kill.

The only thing going for them is that they can provide a few special advantages not easily duplicated through other means. Its foolish to overlook the advantage of a few maxed out military resources when you have doom rays. I had more than a few maxed out military resources in a recent game, that multiplied the firepower and defenses of my ships by more than 4.

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

There are also two more problems with stabases: 1. the AI can only use the first 100 modules in the XML-file. Every module after that point, might as well not exist. 2. the AI is unable to use certain types of modules.

The first problem is pretty big, because it affects most of the new modules from TotA. Certain races, like the Drengin and Yor, can't use their racial-specific mining and production-assist modules, among other things, because the AI doesn't recognise their existence.

The second problem isn't that bad, as it only affects the slow-enemy, sensor and Terror Star modules. While this does change the playing field a bit, because the player and AI play essentially by different rules, it isn't nearly as bad as the first problem. I'm still not certain, though, if the AI can use the Starbase Hull Repair Kit module.

In any case, I addressed most of those problems in my mod. The only things I couldn't change, are the parts that are hardcoded (SB only have one weapon, AI can't use certain module types). Even in those cases, however, I tried to reduce the symptoms a little.

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Gaunathor, I've read about your mod, sounds very promising. I will try that on one of my next games.

Cheers

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Gaunathor

Join Date 04/2006

+170

Thanks, I hope you like it.

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Military starbase is designed for one single purpose, to enhance your own existing starship within its area of influence or reducing the effectiveness of enemy ships, aside from that, it really does nothing. i almost never construct military starbase during my game unless i play as Yor Collection with Super Isolationist ability. Just put up a slow module and see all enemy ships near your military starbase grind to a halt. 1 parsec per turn is pretty sick, it will give you ton of time to mass up before their troops or starships can get to your planet. i usually just go for mining and econ starbase and never bother with military, it just seems to me that mining draws ton of aggro from the AI, while the econ is the second largest aggro generator, so if you get enough of those two, the entire game becomes like a tower defense, they will keep sending their unit to a suicide mission, (assuming you upgraded them, and have proper defenses setup) and you will be safe for quite a long time, but that would have to be built on the assumption that you will piss a lot of them off and you are not very diplomatic with AI.

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