If so, then you may find military starbases have also been nerfed. The attack assist modules now cost much more, to the point where they're no longer all that worthwhile (might just as well build extra ships)

Well, I play evil civ in my game, and even with FREE improvement, I still think twice before over-using military starbases. Much easier to put it all into my Frigates and Ravagers Battleships.

The thing is, the Starbases doesn't move, a Starship can. If we need those 2 to become kiff-kiff in terme of production cost/efficiency, we need to increase the power of Starbases, because right now, I think that Starships greatly out-perform the Starbases on almost any military scale.

Your "build many small ships boosted with a starbase" strat would not resist to a rush of heavily fortified Battleships, with 30 defences, arrayed to take out the Starbase as a primary objective. I KNOW the AI is not clever ennough (yet) to use proper counter-strategy.

(and heavy-defended Dreadnought are beaten by all-weapon frigates, who are in turn beaten by starbase-boosted fighters. Rock, paper cissor)

...I would suggest that modules increasing the 'size' (hitpoints) of starbases be added for those who like to build these super fortresses. This could actually be made part of the effect of the various marks of Battle Stations rather easily. If it were possible for each category of spacebase weapon to fire at a different target(beam,missile, mass driver, thus making the starbase the equivalent of three ships for combat) it might better simulate the effect of one of these massive installations.

I think that the amount of HP that starbases have is fine at the begining, but for scalability, it could go up with techs, such as the Fortification techs and, in the 1.2 mod, the hull design techs.

Hey, I still think that if your fleet, or ships, could fight along with your starbases, that would be more realistic and wouldn't necessitate changing starbase hitpounts.

A nearly fully loaded military starbase - nearly because I did not have every tech researched (I think I had access to 53 of the 61 available modules) - has:

Beam / Shield - 65 / 163
Missle / PD - 58 / 163
Mass / Armor - 58 / 163
151 hit points

Plus the bonuses for the ships and penalties for enemy ships.

If it is not enough, you can always mod the starbase modules or add more of your own design.

I'll very seldom lose a starbase, and then only very late in the game. Never to little weapons like Phasers or Photon Torps.

I would like military starbaes to be un-nerfed and bring back base trading. You guys should be giving us more diplomatic options not taking some away.

151

Full "ship tree" research, xinithium, and 20% ability bonus, and my starbases don't get 50 until they've killed something... I'm on 1.2, is there a big hp boost in 1.3?

Also, even with those 160+ defense numbers...

I had a Large ship with 200 *base* missile defense in my little "tweak stuff" mod (I fixed miniaturization while I wait for 1.3 to go "live" by turning off size modification. Geeze ships start getting expensive... well, to be fair, that ship did also have only 14 attack (was meant to be in range of starbases) so even with the modules that "plump when you cook 'em" a Huge hull can approach that). Got jumped on its way to a planet by *a* frigate which had something like 78 missile attack.

It promptly 1-shotted my armored behemoth (which had 49 hp) about 3 rounds in. You can pile all the defenses you can get your hands on, and pump them up with all the military resources you can mine, but the things *will* get shot out from under you in a couple rounds if the computer wants them gone, even if they only send one frigate each time. Well, that might take 'em a big longer, but they'll definately average better than a frigate per hp of the base even with level-up healing and all.

(even without ships packing extra firepower because of the no scaling bit I tossed in, you'd have to multiply the base defense numbers by a LOT before they're really worth more than dropping into place to assist an attack you're about to make, and then picking up to make the next one cheaper. For something that is supposed to "project power into enemy territory" it doesn't seem very economic)

I agree with the sentiment that starbases should at least be able to help in planetary defense. The fact that you can build a military base right next to a planet, arm it, and place longer range sensors on it yet it still let's enemy troop carriers fly right in and attack the planet untouched makes them relatively pointless. The only point I've found for non-mining bases is, as someone already mentioned, to extend your influence range. I hate to make the 'MOO comparison', but starbases should have a function (defensive and offensive) much closer to the way they operated in MOO2 rather than they way they currently function, which is pretty much a non-factor and just cash sinks.

They really need a total rethink in design and integration into gameplay. Planetary protection, staging for invasion, fleet assist are all stategic options that would add depth to warfare within the game. I'd also like to see at least something added to planetside to aid in defense. Ground based batteries, planetary shields, marine bases ... something needs to done to make things less a cut-and-dried crap shoot that the current planetary attack/invasion system possesses.

Thelron, are you sure? Well, DrrD sort of took care of this for me, but yes, quite sure (3 bases blown in one round kinda had me ready to just scrap the ships for their impudence, unfortunately I was playing Neutral so they were sent off to "assist" elsewhere by "slowing the enemy advance."

I've been playing a lot lately (it's Summer and I'm an academic, so I've go time for the next couple of weeks). Every single time I put a fleet or ships at a starbase, it's the ships that are attacked first. I guess I'll have to see it to believe it. Are you running the latest 1.3 beta? That's what I'm using. I've honestly NEVER had a starbase attacked first when I've had at least one ship parked in the same tile.

Not that I don't believe you, but it's amazing to me that we've had such different results with this game.

I'm using 1.2

Really? I thought they got nerfed in 1.1!

Anyway, they're definitely just 24% in the beta.

I've been playing a lot lately (it's Summer and I'm an academic, so I've go time for the next couple of weeks). Every single time I put a fleet or ships at a starbase, it's the ships that are attacked first. I guess I'll have to see it to believe it. Are you running the latest 1.3 beta? That's what I'm using. I've honestly NEVER had a starbase attacked first when I've had at least one ship parked in the same tile.

I think they attack the biggest threat, according to the same in game formula that decides in which order they attack ships. If you don't build any starbase defence or attack modules (as opposed to ship assist modules), I think you should find the AI always attacks the ships first.

Really, you should be able to combine starbases and ships in a fleet (and with 0 logistics points for the starbase!)

151 hit points

That's a 400% bonus! Where does that come from? Do defensive modules boost hitpoints now? (I've not tried them since I assumed they were as useless as they've always been...and it was always the hitpoints that were the problem before so...)

The thing is, the Starbases doesn't move, a Starship can. If we need those 2 to become kiff-kiff in terme of production cost/efficiency, we need to increase the power of Starbases, because right now, I think that Starships greatly out-perform the Starbases on almost any military scale.

I agree. Where military starbases are nice is in setting up a defensive perimeter. You can make your civilization into a fortress and concentrate on building up infrastructure and non-military research, which is an interesting way to play the game. But that's only viable if you don't plan on expanding at all later on in the game. However, if they introduce a way to move starbases (I think there's a tug or something coming in Dark Avatar?) then they'll become worth looking at again as you'll be able to expand your defensive perimeter out as you capture new territory.

I thing making SB movable is very interesing (by own engine module), of course at lovest speed posible.
And I always thing SB in GC2 are similir in size to SB in StarTrek, and for this reason I thing they are realy big uderpowered (not only in term of HP). And bonuses povided to ships are simply to big.
And makink them useful defensive struktures (destroying every unarmed/porly escorded enemy ship via figter wing) preventing planetary invasions with living enemy SB. (fighter range 1-2 sector based on technology and light/medim/heavy wing, mayby 1 wing for every level of SB fortification - only military).
And needing of big fleet to whipe out biggest SB is I thing very needed in this game (and not only 8 overboosted corvetes).

151 hit points is too much in the beginning. As I said earlier, it should go up when you research certain techs.

Really? I thought they got nerfed in 1.1!

Ehehe, I think I mixed 'em up with resource bases. V1m blushes.

Even with +24% they're still well worthwhile, especially when you have a cluster of planets such that the good ones get 2 or even 3 bases enhancing them.

Ehehe, I think I mixed 'em up with resource bases. V1m blushes.

Even with +24% they're still well worthwhile, especially when you have a cluster of planets such that the good ones get 2 or even 3 bases enhancing them.

Yeah, they can still be worthwhile. My opinion is coloured because I play "very slow" tech speed, which means reaching all the way to industrial sectors is a huge effort and I build all research buildings and use the focus to build, so I don't really have the military production to spare on constructors for that low a bonus (less than 15% for most of the game)...it's more effective for me to just build on spare tiles instead.

Also depends on the map. If you can get one starbase affecting 50 or more tiles at once then they're decent even on the lower bonuses. I don't think they were particularly overpowered originally anyway. Researching up to the god awful industrial sectors is a big sacrifice after all, not just in terms of research points but because industrial sectors are *so* expensive relative to their production. And there's nothing to stop the AI using them as well! If anything, the resource bonuses should be scaled down instead 'cos the AI is so awful at taking and keeping resources.

I thing making SB movable is very interesing (by own engine module), of course at lovest speed posible.

A speed of 1 could be a bit too tedious on larger maps, but it could easily be tied in with the research tree so that they get faster, but are always much slower than ships at the equivalent tech level. Wouldn't even need an additional branch of the tree...just add in modules to the current engine branch.

<-- 1.2, maybe 1.3 changed the way starbases are picked for being targets, or maybe it is based on the strength of what's there.

Mobile bases... while that would be nice, I don't think it is the whole answer. One of the really big problems I see with them currently are that they (as has been said many places) are in large part completely circumventable (you eat a square from the impediment beam things and then just keep on going) unless the target fleet/planet is in the base's AOE. In that case, you eat the base, and keep on going, as they are almost guaranteed to be weaker than the fleet you are hunting...

I'll test out the "strong fleet, weak base" thing if the computer leaves me alone long enough to stop replacing planetary defenses and start putting attack ships out again...

EDIT: oh yeah, the other half of what I wanted to say-

What if military bases didn't slow enemy ships down, rather they'd make crossing into and out of their AOE cost some rather large amount of movement (more than most ships will have, even late in the game, around 40 squares' worth) but you could expend your entire move (or whatever is left, so you only spend one turn "stuck" on each side, not two) to cross? That would at least guarantee the base's player a chance to force a fight under the base's influence, as currently any interception that happens usually has to happen *outside* the range of the base you spent all that time building, anyway.

but when ships enter the area of phasors, photon torpedoes and such, a mere "+2 to missile attack" is kinda.. ehhh.. how to put it? Pointless.

Uhhh, if all you have is +2 to missile attack, then you haven't put enough modules on your starbases. I'm fairly sure I remember having far greater than +2 and well before phasors, photon torpedos, etc.

The thing is, the Starbases doesn't move, a Starship can. If we need those 2 to become kiff-kiff in terme of production cost/efficiency, we need to increase the power of Starbases, because right now, I think that Starships greatly out-perform the Starbases on almost any military scale. Your "build many small ships boosted with a starbase" strat would not resist to a rush of heavily fortified Battleships, with 30 defences, arrayed to take out the Starbase as a primary objective.

Agreed. Bases are helpful at the beginning, but once I get to Medium Hulls and beyond I find that spending the money I used to spend upgrading military starbases to be semi-decent is better spent on a large warship. (Or theoretically a fleet of small ships, but I'm not as familiar with those.)

The best use I've found for a milbase is if you have several (3+) colonies under its influence early in the game. Then you're essentially boosting several fleets at once.