Starbases

Recently, there was debate on how to make starbases tougher...I'm sick of watching all my starbases being wiped out with little/no cost to the enemy. There were alot of good ideas, but those suggestions (ie.fighter wings, develop SB's like ships etc) might be impossible with this game version. My suggestion, which may or may not be simple to do, is to simply increase SB hitpoints...I mean alot...a whole lot. This way the SB can at least use whatever weapons it has multiple times before destruction. Lets say instead of a SB having a ridiculous 30 hps we give it 1000. Now that, would be interestin...particularly if it were max upgraded. You would actually need a real war band to destroy it instead of a shuttle craft with a few pea shooters.

just a thought...
8,609 views 11 replies
Reply #1 Top
That would make the starbase too powerful in the early game. I think it would be better if starbases can join up with a fleet. Another way is to have a docking moduale. This was meant to allow ships to dock with starbases and defend it like a planet. This was taken out, perhaps because stardock could not get it to work or balance it.
Reply #2 Top
I think a better idea would be for each time you upgrade the starbase, a number of hitpoints are added to it.
Reply #3 Top
That might work, too. Gives a little incentive to add tons of modules. However, something like that cannot be modded in.
Reply #4 Top
i say keep it as it is, protect it yourself with your ships.
everybody must have a weak spot.
Reply #5 Top
Unfortunately, protecting starbases with ships doesn't work very well. They keep asking you for instructions far to frequently, even when you set them to guard mode.
Reply #6 Top
Yeah, they need a 'sleeper' mode
Reply #8 Top
Yes. I am a starbase maniac, I try as best I can with the limit of 4 per sector to arrange it so I get 6 or more econ bases in every planet's range for the bonuses. Then eventually, someone starts wiping out these 40-some-odd module beasts like they a lonely starfighter, and it takes a little time to build 40-some-odd more constructors for ech base you want to replace, on top of the fact you've now lost some bonus to production, which in turn makes it more time-consuming. I'm not suggesting making the starbases insanely powerful, but a base 30 HP? Miniturization doesn't affect them, obviously. And it would be neat if a military starbase could confer its ship bonuses to other starbases within its sphere of influence as well, though late in the game, even that wouldn't make much difference.

Reply #9 Top
I'm sure a lot of you have seen the DS9 episode, where DS9 held off 35 klingon ships. Now thats a starbase!

I like the idea of fleeting them with other ships. A starbase fully upgraded would be quite powerful if treated as another ship in the fleet.
Reply #10 Top
Well, if you are not playing Metaverse they are very easy to mod.
You can have as many hit points as you wish, and beef up the weapons and defenses.
Reply #11 Top
If starbases were to be treated like any other unit/base on the battlefield from which we draft conclusions of strength, measures/counter-measures, if starbases were stronger, then the navies of the universe would keep their navy at the starbases, and starbases would have to become mobile and used as large ships to attack other units/bases.

Starwars which is pure fiction, at it's best, had a mobile star base they used to destroy a planet, if not for that available power, the small figher and small capital ship fleet wouldn't have gone near the death star, merely because it couldn't have been defeated by conventional means. "They used the force" lol.

In the real world, on the modern battlefied, you attack weaknesses of your enemy to build an attrition rate and expose weaknesses in the enemy's strengths. If you do the converse, and attack the strength you introduce the possiblity of your own attrition rates and prolong the war as well as give the enemy an option to win. A lot of the attacks done are not necessarily the primary objective but supporting attacks. In aerial warfare at least, but a lot of that occurs in ground warfare.

Space warfare would become the new aerial warfare. You're not fighting for control of the space, your fighting for control of the planets, and the enemies ability to influence, via force, to control your planets.

It makes sense to have starbases limited rather then unlimited in HP because of the way in which they'd change gameplay over time, also because they'd give the human player another advantage over the AI, the uber space station.