What do starbases do without modules?

Specifically, military and economy bases.

I planted an Influence starbase near a minor yesterday, and got an immediate bubble of pink. Neat! But... what do they do, exactly? And why spend $500 for a 5% boost, if a $150 starbase is already 96% as effective without any modules?

More importantly, what do economy and military bases do without any modules? Just sit there? On another note, how do you defend starbases? I planted a couple ships on a military starbase to help protect it. But when attacked, the enemy attacked the starbase directly, ignoring my "defenders" (that's OK since it was very highly upgraded, and took no damage). Since you can't put a starbase in a fleet, is there no way to protect them other than intercepting the enemy at a distance? Also - are starbases EVER cumulative? The AI likes to build econ starbases right next to each other... to they actually benefit from that, or is it an AI error?

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Every starbase projects a base influence in its area of effect. However, if you upgrade that Influence Starbase, you can get some 250%+ of that effect if you add in all the necessary modules. The influence modules that comes later on are significantly more powerful than the first. Considering the ever increasing cost of starbases (the more you have, the more it costs), it is better to fully upgrade these things for their full effect. If you overlap several upgraded Influence Starbase, and their effects, it is a virtual guarantee defection, while a lone empty Influence Starbase just sits there giving you a little more influence.

Economy and Military Starbases does the exact same thing as an Influence Starbase do without modules. They add a base influence in their area of effect. Aside that, yes, they sit there waiting for you to add modules to them. It is always better to add modules to your starbase, if nothing else, just some defenses to prevent them from being blown up by a tiny fighter.

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Overlapping fully upgraded economic starbases around your economic planets can help generate huge amounts of money, and the military starbases especially when build on borders can be a great strategic boon ebcause not only do they help your ships when upgraded but they both speed up your ships and slow down enemy ships. I've never had a need for influence starbases (mostly because they declare war on me if they're working) but like Kalin mentioned they can guarantee a diplomatic capture.

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Thanks a lot for the reply!

One question - are you sure (basic) econ and military bases project the same influence aura as influence bases? I've never seen them cause an influence bubble, in all of my 2 games. But if they are as effective as non-upgraded influence bases, I would probably never buy influence bases, and instead put econ bases all along my freighter paths (to the logistics limit, of course) to get an influence bonus AND economic bonus. Influence doesn't seem to be very important unless you have a ton of it (enough to force defection), or so little that your own planets flip. It's not as important as cultural boundaries in Civilization 3/4 or dominion strength in Dominions... from what I have seen.

Also, it seems like influence bases are cumulative, and other bases are not. So, multiple adjacent AI econ starbases are indeed buggy behavior, I guess.

Edit: Morberis, are you saying you've noticed that overlapping econ bases do cause increasing returns? These things are so hard to test...

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Overlapping starbases whether they be economic, military, or influence all stack. That is, if a planet is in the range of two +20% production economic starbase, it will get +40% bonus to production. Although I'm not sure about Morberis' point about economic starbase around economic worlds. Economic Starbases increases your production, and thus costs you money, not make you more. The only way that it can make money is in the trade modules, but comparing to the production bonus and cost, the trade modules are rarely worth it. I generally only use overlap Economic Starbase around my manufacturing worlds. Every other worlds might gets one economic starbase to help it build/upgrade buildings and keep down the number of factories I need per planet IF I can afford to, and only if I have spare constructors.

As for influence area, yes, ALL starbases gives you a small influence bubble, this includes mining starbases as well. However, the majority of the time, this 'base' influence is not enough to push back another major civilization's influence alone, so you don't see the effect. If you want proof of this, just send a constructor into a corner where nobody has any influence and drop down an economic or military base.

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Everything you own project an area of influence - even starbases.
Upgraded influence starbases are better at projecting influence.
You must intercept the enemy with ships to stop them attack your starbases. They cannot obit them.
Overlapping starbases are curmulative for the bonuses they give.

The question is whether economy/military starbases do anything on their own (with no modules).

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