Point noted, and, as you see, I've already addressed that.    You'll also notice that I'm specifically stating it probably won't have any tiles.  Also, I'm assuming it will use the planetary pop growth mechanism as well, so dropping a full planet of 8 or 10B isn't really an issue-or at least no more so than it is now.

Bear with me as I delve into an explanation of how Sins handled these various issues and how GC3 might do so as well.  (Alternatively, skip to the last paragraph.)

The economic aspect is a bit harder to address in Sins, as most of your cash income is from trade ports (your homeworld notwithstanding), however it is generally accepted that a starbase upgraded with trade upgrades is not going to be a better investment than trade ports around that planet-which is of course a good thing in general, were the delta not so large.  Since income in GC2 is based off of tax and tourism, which are themselves both based on population, if we solve population, we've solved the income problem.

The population gap isn't-the Vasari are the only ones with a population module, with two levels of 50 each for a total of 100-which actually may even be too much on a relative basis.  A Terran planet has a maximum of 280 population before any research upgrades; Desert and Ice are 190 and 160 respectively.  Really the only thing a starbase could beat in this sense is a Volcanic or an Asteroid (70/20)-also as it should be.  I'm definitely thinking a small amount of pop for the starbase, but then again I'm thinking of giving initial colonies as well as civilization capitals new population values as well (both starting and final), so I'm not sure what exactly would be a good recommendation at present.  (I tried in the final paragraph, though.)

The influence aspect is solved relatively easily in Sins simply due to how slow the influence ("culture") propagates, and even at maximum propagation rate how slowly things change on affected planets-whereas GC2's method is somewhat by necessity instantaneous.  So this is the only part where we might have a problem, due to needing the starbase to have sufficient influence to not flip to two enemy planets, but not having enough that it can flip two enemy planets by itself.

So with an initial colony of 8B (TA) and a civ capital of 16B, we might have a starbase of 1B (500m seems too low to do much good, really) and perhaps an influence bonus such that it were considered to be a planet of 5 or 10B for planet-flipping purposes.  I'm not sold on the population, though-you'd want it to be at least enough to balance out maintenance, or at least the majority thereof.  Obviously this becomes more of an issue with influence starbases, but as you need them in very close proximity to a planet to do much good, it shouldn't change things substantially.  (Assuming they get a redesign as well, which might not be a bad thing, this would need to be addressed.)  Lastly, one other good reason for starbases to have a relatively low population limit is the need for morale at higher population levels (which I'm hoping gets a bit of a redesign as well), particularly if it's in the absence of tiles to build on.

Which is why i inserted the (...) before his Starbase word to start my Mining deviation attempt.

As for AIs attacking the Mining facilities, i see this strange "behavior" quite often - most probably because of the XW mod.

Let's not get carried away, StarBases are just that; gather 5 types of rare resources (or TA crystals) and either boost Influence, Military, Economic properties & values FOR planets and not BY indirect mini-planets. But, that has more to do on how the things are perceived - i presume they have sustainable operators like populations while being perfectly capable of modularily(sp?) defend themselves.

In fact, they're remote devices.

I'd use a real spy base ON a PQ1 planet though along with espionage satellites or straight spying modules for ships.

Sure, it would be. Instead of four clicks (View_QueueRowSelection_Buy_Done) you'd have only one to do, might as well try to fit in the Focusing feature bar, & the surface itself with miniature tiles & what else!

There's only sooooo much you can squeeze on a UI in order to reduce micman but i'd rather have them working on a true "Intelligence Report" (Φ symbol) auto popup screen for Planets (as spheres not the usual 12x6 tile grids) (...and Mines too, btw) just like Ships have.

Then, afterwards -- It's a very simply thing to implement though... (View) (Buy) but they'd need an extra line to ID the PIs.

Mod it. It can be done, i've seen it. On custom maps.

SHWEET!!! sorry I didn't think this was in there atm...

Fair enough.

I did try to compare how Sins did it and how I envisioned GC3 might do it, but it's less obvious if you don't have Sins.  I'll try to be more clear in the future; the main point is that I see a starbase as having enough population that it won't flip more easily than a planet would, while not generating enough influence to flip a planet, either-but not a sufficient population to make that much difference in your economy.

Ideally it'd be right below or right above the maintenance, although we might want to consider changing maintenance so that it rises with additional modules (however modules obviously need to be more powerful in their own right for this-weapons and defense modules, I'm looking at you).

Since I'm looking at a lower population than an initial colony I am almost certainly looking at a higher influence value, but this is modifiable by lowering the initial colony's population so the starbase only has to worry about built out worlds, as well as the fact that in the sense of the colonies we're looking at both tiles to fill with economic improvements and tiles to fill with morale improvements, which as neither is available in the starbase upgrade I'm proposing, means that it will make you less money and that it must have less population.

No.  If the starbase is still standing, I'm assuming >90% of its pop survived.

This doesn't increase the busy work.  It's an added benefit, but not an overpowering one.  You get slightly more taxation, slightly more influence in the area, and perhaps balance out the maintenance cost.  You also stand to lose slightly more if the base goes boom.

And really I only took off and ran with this because someone said starbases should flip.  They shouldn't flip if they can't defend themselves from the flip, and for that they need influence (what they have isn't enough) and for that they need population.  See the logical progression here?

I suppose mining class 0s could replace the asteroid system we have now, and you can already do military planets.

well... don't make all of them minable...

I could see Miners simply dropping by and pumping Helium as fuel (or tricky MPs, btw)... but that's waaaaaayyyyyy off the mark, is it?

I think they are. I suppose you could get it to fuse if you heated/compressed it enough, but I don't think there's any way it could conievably hurt you. Granted, I've watched enough Mythbusers to know that any compressed gas container is a potential bomb/rocket, but the liklihood of a faliure with multiple safty precautions and advanced materials is extremely small.

Hell, we could make a whole ficticious universe that operates on a whole different periodic table if we so feel inclined... its a game... a moddable game.

lots of natural gas on Titan