Does the AI ever build starbases at stars?

No!

             It seems the devs might of gotten ahead of themselves..they are working on the second expansion but there are issues that need to be addressed now.  One being all the formentioned posts about lack of ai building sb's in star wells.

       I've come to the conclusion that Vasari need a anti-structure ship because the vasari ai will not build a starbase to take down yours. At least when you play against the Advent you have to worry about those star antisructure ships. This is primarily a single player game these issues should be resolved. Ai still doesnt make superweapons, even on unfair.

Thanks Raging Amish. Yes online is probably where I will end up  eventually  - once I have exhausted the possibilities of the AI. At the moment I am still way too much of a noob at this game. Just reading the forums re the great LRF/carrier debate shows me how much out of my depth I would be against real players

I was just very surprised to find that the poor Vasari AI effectively has no counter to starbases - at least the Advent have an anti-structure ship.

My point being is at the present moment Vasari ai does not know HOW to counter starbases.

What's the point of the devs moving on to other issues before these are addressed?

I don't know if I'm a better player than I was and I love the sb's, but the ai doesnt give me the same challange as before Entrechment. The devs seem to have a problem with the starbases either being pushovers for online players.....or indestructable when the ai goes up against them.

The AI needs to learn the following behaviors:

1) keeping its distance: it shouldn't enter weapons range of a starbase unless it has a decisive advantage, otherwise staying out of range and using bombers and/or anti-structure frigates.

2) bypassing:  the AI needs to know when it's worth its time to bypass a gravity well and attack the next one.  The fact that it never does this greatly reduces the difficulty of defending.

3) ignoring:  the AI needs to know when a planet is just too fortified to take down, and instead to find something else to attack.  The AI gets tunnel vision, and often you can leave half your empire completely defenseless against it because it refuses to try a different direction of attack.

The AI will never be a true match for a human, but it could at very least be a threat.  Right now its love of the siege frigate and predictable and simplistic offensive and defensive behaviors make it shockingly weak.  It's also a poor judge of fleet strength, usually overvaluing its horde of light frigates and seeing them torn apart by a smaller force of lrf.

I just got out of a game where my ally quit partway through and was replaced by an AI, and I can tell you it would be very nice if he hadn't suicided his fleet THREE TIMES against the same starbase.

Ironclad had two very severe budget limitations for developing that AI.  The first was monetary; Sins is their first game, and at a certain point they had to say that the AI was "good enough".  The second budget, and arguably the more restrictive, is the performance budget.  The system requires for Sins are low (something done on purpose), and in order for that to work the AI cannot be a CPU hog.  It's got to use minimal resources so as not to cause performance issues.

I haven't gotten Entrenchment yet, waiting for a reply to my question post on that before I go in- however, you cannot look at a campaign on the basis of start to complete, but rather, of testing your manueverings on internal-external lines- how defense operates in a dynamism, manuever capabilites, how to manage your convoy formation (I really wish there was formats where you could choose how fleets moved together- like a honey combpattern with certain unit types being here or there on the pattern- so you can take advantage of tactical depositions. It would be silly simple in my opinion to do that- the AI would have to collectively go off the leadership and computing capabilities of the fleet to maintain formation).

If it is too simple, reduce your scope and set it up so it is not. Place a purely defensive war with weaker units, or make your frontline worlds UNFORTIFIED. It was the belief of the Mohist that a section of the wall had to be left undefended in order to control the direction of the attack in order to make preporations for a successful siege successful- if you know the behavior of the AI so well, exploit it as the Mohist did to creat increasingly flawless and skilled victories. The AI uses simple, Jomini style strategy- make it as complicated as you want, master the art of the ambush, tactical withdrawl, and economy of force at hardto defend points. Always look for the nature of the underlying strategic enviroment- you are part and parcel to it, learn to operate in it. CHess varients exist for those who found orthodox rules to easy- so change your approach. Read up on strategy- real strategy, nor forum FAQs, and test them out.

I never played online, so I may be looking into that here soon. Mennonite Devestor or something will be my name, I'll decide later.

What are you talking about?, looks like you're trying very hard to sound like you know better than most how best to impliment strategies. Anyway, we are not trying devise new strategies here, we are saying that the AI can't best starbases. Its too dumb for that. Right now the AI sacrifices high level Cap ships for no good reason, thats the problem!

Admittedly, most people here have zero background in military tactics.  Our experience is with games alone, so a "2-3 default pattern" doesn't make sense to us.  You'll have to explain what you mean.

That said, I do know there is a stark difference between real-life military tactics and military tactics in a game.  A chessmaster doesn't have the training or experience to become a military officer, just as a military officer might not know the first thing about chess.  Both are strategy, but the "rules" of their games are very different and how they go about winning them diverge accordingly.

From my perspective, when it comes to engaging a starbase in Sins there's no need to overcomplicate the matter.  If it's TEC or Advent, keep your distance and bombard it from afar.  Use whatever formation you want, so long as you keep out of range of its weapons.  If it's Vasari, either kite away from it while your bombers do attack runs, or rush it with all your forces and bring it down quickly.

That said, I do have one question... how would you actually benefit from a "honeycomb" formation?

If I read this correctly, what he means by 2-3 paterns is for example;

Configuration 1: Cap ship in the middle, heavy cruisers in the front, flak/support cruisers left/right and lrm frigates at the rear. Good vs. starbases and heavy fleet combat.

Configuration 2: Cap ship at the middle with flak frigs at the front, support cruisers/heavy cruisers lerft/right and lrm frigates at the back. Good vs. fighter/bomber fleets.

Configuration 3: fleet separated in 2 groups, one for distraction/kitting, one for heavy assault.

And so on and so forth....

Basically what he is proposing is to have the option to reconfigure fleet formations to face different threats while providing cover for the cap ships.

BTW Darvin3, what you said about chessmasters not being good at military warfare, and vice versa is the best example someone could have made. Just because someone "studied" military tactics for 16 years, does not make them good at chess.

Games have rules and boundries that you cant cross. Real military warfare cant be applyed to gaming. In real life there is always the possibility that something "improbable" could happen (a soldier is distracted by the tought of his wife, a shell getting stuck in a barrel, a targeting computer freezing...).