BUG: Military Startbase does not provide defence bonus to the ships.

You have to have at least one point in the proper defense type for the starbase defense assist modules to work. I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug, as the starbase attack assist modules will add to a ship without the proper weapon types.

Well, if it is by design, then it needs to be mentioned in the description...

I also build a military starbase, loaded it with just about all upgrades and for some reason it did squat in helping my empire's ships. The ship was in radius to the starbase. Isn't there a button like "auto defense and destroy baddies"? Will the starbase auto engage enemy ships or is it only your spaceships that can attack?

As I understand it the starbase will only fight directly if attacked directly. If you fight in its area of influence, it will only boost the stats of your ships, depending on the modules you installed (military starbases only, you can see a little ship icon next to the module when choosing while upgrading).

As for not getting any bonuses as mentioned above: I didn't notice that. And I had beam defence added to my ship in camaign missions where I couldn't even research shields, so there couldn't have been a basic protection of that kind to add to. Sounds buggy if it happened to you...

To echo Ragor's post, military starbase assist modules have worked fine for me. And it did make a difference -- I was nigh untouchable.

I am getting this bug as well. I am currently playing the first campaign mission and the only defense you can research is the armor defensive ability.

My starbase has a +3 beam defense for ships bonus installed but my medium sized ships are not receiving the bonus like my small ones are. I know the ones I am currently using have some armor installed on the small ships. So, later I will play some more and create a small attack ship with no armor and see if the +3 beam defense is added from the starbase or not (I gotta sleep now though

OK, I fired it up before I went to bed.. (kept thinking about it heh) Anyway.. YES, the bug is this:

You must have some kind of defensive ability natually before any base assist modules will convey their defensive bonuses onto your ships. I just upgraded one of my medium ships to include +1 armor (at the expense of one of my lasers) and suddenly it was also receiving +3 beam defense from my military starbase nearby.

I went from
4/0 (3 lasers +1 attack assist from base)
0/0
0/0

to
3/3 (2 lasers +1 attack assist from base / +3 beam defense assist from base)
0/0
0/1 (level 2 armor which gives +1 protection at a lighter weight than level 1 armor)


The numbers in the above example represent the following:

(beam attack value) / (beam defense value)
(missile attack value) / (missile defense value)
(gun attack value) / (gun defense value)

I also got this problem, when I first installed the beam defenses in the first campaign mission, they worked, but a battle or two later, they didn't exist.

Plus, I could only research armor in that mission.

That's strange.
Military starbases have been saving me in my games. My defenders end up having laser c3, misssile 5, gun 6 and 16 level in all defenses. A fleet of 4 of these can take care of almost anything, as long as they don't get out of the starbase umbrella.

Is this a bug or not?

As Apostolos notes, I believe assist module will only apply if the ship has some kind of attack, or if it has some kind of defense. If the ship has no attack at all it won't get help from attack assist modlues, and if it has no defense at all it won't get help from defense modules.

Bear in mind they are ASSIST modules--you still have to have a ship that's capable of attacking/defending in order to get assistance, the starbase won't do it all for you alone

I agree on the attack end, but not the defense end. There's no reason why a starbase can't extend shields or point defense to a non-warship.

Is this confirmed by stardock? Are they looking into it?

I think that I like the idea for the need of some defence on the ship before you get bonus. It may be unrealistic, but hey, it is about gameplay. HOWEVER! It has to be mentioned in the description of the modules or starbase or somewhere that it works this way. Otherwise it is confusing as a hell.

There is some screwiness. Numbers from my current game. I have 3 fleets of 6 ships that are all the same ship design. These numbers are all from in an area covered by my one military starbase.

The design has 5 Plasma III (Beam +2) and 1 Shield II (Shield +2). I get some bonus added to these from a fully developed military resource base an AI gave to me.

An individual "Ship Details" numbers.
12/2
0/0
0/0

One ship selected (numbers from box beside the mini-map).
15/6
2/4
2/4

One fleet of 6 ships alone in a square (numbers from box beside the researching info display).
90/36
12/24
12/24

Here is the screwy thing. Numbers for one fleet when two or more fleets in the same square (numbers from box beside the mini map).
75/16
2/4
2/4

I've seen the same thing, and I'm pretty sure that's just a display error. Stardock needs to confirm.

I don't think it's a bug but it should be documented that you have to have a defense capability in order for it to be extended.

The assist do just that -- they assist. They don't provide attack or defense to ships that don't have it. Otherwise, players could create a bunch of cheap ships that have nothing on them at all and use starbases to do everything.

Correct me if I'm wrong Frogboy but if you look at my numbers in post #15. You'll see that I'm somehow getting both attack and defense assists in the other two when I only have beam stuff.

And your right, the bunch of cheap ships works wonderfully when assisted with everything you can construct.

Can you game this by having a fleet with one ship with 1 armor and the rest without defense? Seems like it would work

To clarify, if a ship has at least 1 attack, they'll gain starbase assist damage from all 3 damage types. If a ship has at least 1 defense, they'll gain starbase assist defense for all 3 damage types.

Can you game this by having a fleet with one ship with 1 armor and the rest without defense? Seems like it would work

To my knowledge, it does it on a per ship basis. If every ship in your fleet meets these criteria, your total fleet attack/damage is going to go up by the starbase assist bonuses mulitplied by the number of ships in the fleet.