Man, i just dont see me using starbases in multiplayer, i just cant.

Novalith is money much beter spent than this toy.

Ermmm...

First game I played last night was rather nice and balanced 2v2 MP and Starbases literally did what they are made for - they helped me hold what I got until I was able to construct 2nd fleet and fight on two fronts at the same time...

Sure they need bit of tweaking here and there but general "feel" is awesome and IC is on the right track with them!

I agree with PurplePaladin too although my situation was slightly different...

No major redesign of Starbases is needed IMHO - however - mines... That little things desperately need looking after asap!

only three things need to be change

1) Longer build time so they cant be used for offense unless this is what the devs inteneded it for 

2) double or triple the range of weapons (can be an upgrade slot)

3) prevent ships from jumping out from grav well (can be an upgrade slot)

Also, SB needs a shield mittigation.

i agree with the point about advent and tec being more than glorified turrets - if the vasari ones can move, tec and advent one's should be able to too.

• Starbase creators would build starbases slower
  
• Starbase upgrades would be much less expensive, ESPECIALLY the trade port and culture upgrades. As it is, it's much more expensive to put them on a starbase than around a planet, which i find to be ridiculous, because it's taking up a valuable slot. In general i think the upgrades should be much less expensive, to give someone who is trying to build up a defense an advantage over a quickly offensive player.
• Also the speed of upgrade for the first tier weapons and armor should be greatly decreased, and while reaching higher tiers, upgrades get even slower than they currently are... I also think that higher upgrades should be much more expensive. I would like to see more of a desparity between first tier upgrades and subsequent ones.
• Someone in an alternate post mentioned the idea of having the effect (possibly optional, upgradable) of not allowing phase jumps to planets behind this one. E.G. say you're attacking, and you want to pass the planet you just jumped to, which has a starbase. You cannot use any phase lines that connect two enemy planets.
• Starbases could orbit planets in the gravity well, and be allowed to move around in this set circle, giving the starbase weapons access to any and every corner of the gravity well.
• I DO NOT think that any starbases under any circumstances should be allowed to phase jump. That defeats the purpose of a starbaase, and turns it into a super capital ship.
• Also, I think starbases should have leveling, just like capitals, but seperate from. Meaning they should not have to share XP, but receive full XP. In other words, as long as a unit is killed in the gravity well the starbase is located in, the starbase will get XP for that kill, seperately from captialships, which should also get the full XP split between whichever capitals are in the grav well. Make Starbases need maybe 3-4 times as much XP to upgrade, and this should work great.
• Also, mines, though easilly countered with a couple of Scouts in the fleet, there should be a way to direct ships not to fly into mines, but make them fully invisible without scouts present. I think mines should be used to greatly slow aggression, but not deal damage. I think that's what starbases are made for, for when you're ready to make a stand.

I think the star bases need some ways to reach out and touch someone in a grav well.  If you are going to blockade run a SB system, you should suffer some for it.

I'd give each Starbase a special ability that allows it to make a fleet think twice before running past it.

For Vasari, give them an upgrade that allows a SB to phase jump a short distance (Like the maurader does).  It will cover 1/4-1/2 of the grav well, and have a 3-4 min cool down.  This way, a vas SB can cover almost any of the planet from sneak attacks, and properly intercept a fleet before it gets away.  Obviously, a diverson could get the SB to jump early, or even setup an ambush for torpedos.

For the TEC, give them a missile/mini-nova barrage that will 1 shot a level 1 cap.  Give it an AOE for swarms of small ships.  Give it a 2-4 min cool down so a force blockade running will take a hit, but pass through.  Also give it a minimum range so a force attacking a SB can get inside the targetting area.  Also, make it have a damage penelty against Torpedo cruisers, for balance.  Make it not 1 shot them, but weaken them a lot.

For Advent, give them 1 of 2 things.  Either a forced attack me ability, like their battleship has.  This will force all ships in a gravwell to attack the SB.  This might be overpowered (with mines) or too weak (If a user can quickly override it).  Option 2 would be a freeze ability that stop ships from moving.  Along with this, allow their hanger upgrade(+1 squad) to effect the starbase, per upgrade.  4-8 extra squads of bombers might make a stopped fleet think twice before charging through.  Basically, give advent more squads and a way to slow/stop ships crossing the grav well.

lol, if it not enought that you have to chase the running carriers in graw well, now you want me to chase aftr his running military labs too?

Heres a solid idea I came up with.   Please read this and comment. 

One additionaly thing i thought of was to add an additional tactical/logistical structure which would be a targetting array specifically for uplinking to the starbase and increasing it's targeting range.  Orbital rangefinders....radar dishes,,,, call it what you want.  Each one added adds to the range of starbases weapons by a percentage.   This way if a fleet wants to bypass a starbase they would have to at least consider taking out some of the rangefinders to minimize losses adding some tactical depth.   As with trench warfare there are ways around them or over them but each comes with consequences.  Currently all you have to do to bypass a starbase to a world more close to the enemies homeworld is make sure your ships don't go inside the circle of the starbases weapon coverage and whammo,  you've circumnavigated a very expensive defensive structure.  Having a tactical or logistical structure (either new or existing) augment the range of the starbase would work out well because it would allow a starbase in a system you own to have a larger range with the tradeoff being less tac or logistical slots whereas a starbase in an uncolonizable world wouldn't have amazing range (because of lack of tac/log slots) making it more of a starport and refueling center and staging ground and also more open to attack.  Call it a planetary defense network.  This would   Also it would add a dynamic in the fact that these rangefinders would have to be eliminated or at least considered when an enemy wants to bypass a starbase as opposed to taking it head on.  Personally this type of change would be preferrable to increasing the range of the bases or making all 3 factions bases capable of movement. 

Just add a new researchable ability to a new or existing tac/logistical structure to act like the akkan's range increase and make sure the effect only applies to the starbase.  Place the research in the later part of the tree so that way the starbase truly comes into it's own later in the game say tier 6 or 7.

Ultimately starbases ranges are too small.  To correct it you increase the weapon range, or make the starbases move (making them susceptible to being baited away and adding excessive micro) or by adding another structure which can selectively increase the starbases range which in itself needs to be protected.    This type of addition could easily add a tad bit more depth and perhaps the balancing that would work out well.  It also goes along the line of starbases being weak at first and gradually evolving to the level where they could be a large player against large fleets.

I find lack of discussion disturbing.

The startbases are big toys now.

I think this thread needs to be split into multiple threads -- the mines, the starbase range, the starbase upgrades...

But it's not, so...

First, the simple one -- the mines.  Mines are ... mines.  They do not expire.  They should not require maintenance, they should not disappear unless cleared or otherwise detonated.  This is the nature of a mine.  If everyone's getting a little too mine-happy, perhaps mines should cost a small amount of resource (for the production of the mine), to discourage spamming the whole map with mines.  If this happens, the mine layers should be much cheaper to build, as they'll cost you resources as they lay mines.

I agree that starbases should take longer to build.  It should NOT be possible to "deploy a starbase" during an assault on a planet.  That's just absurd, unless you control the planet for a really long time.

They should also be expensive to build.  They require significantly more materials than a typical mobile ship.  But with this, they should bring significantly greater endurance and significantly more powerful weapons.

The best way to accomplish this is probably to simply build them in stages, similar to how they are now, but starting with a very cheap, weak station (perhaps starting unarmed) with MANY more upgrade slots available.  You can gradually build up your starbase from a useless listening post up to a massive battle station, and individual systems become available as they are completed. 

Add individual modules for stronger armor, stronger shields, weapons range, weapons damage, antimatter generation, strikecraft hangars, trade station, culture, phase inhibitor, anti-mine gear, repair bays, etc.  It should ultimately be upgradeable with weapons that cover the entire gravity well, and can be far more powerful than anything mounted on a ship.  You could even add engines to it if you opt for it to be mobile within the grav well, though it should always be very slow and should not be permitted to phase jump.  Frankly, I think the vasari starbase is waaay too fast.

Galactic Civilizations 2 did starbases pretty well... you built constructor/supply ships and sent them to your starbase position, each one bought you one upgrade.  If you really wanted to, you could dedicate your whole empire's economy to cranking out upgrades to a starbase by having each factory send its ships to the starbase.  I don't think that model will work for sins, because you could just jump into a system with a fleet of constructors, that pull some voltron maneuver and become a death star or something.

But building starbases in lots and lots of cheap stages will likely provide enough flexibility to design and balance to make everyone happy.

The thing that starbases should be really useful for is securing unowned chokepoints, like STARS.  One of the most frustrating things about the pre-entrenchment version was that I could hold a whole star system, but had to jump my fleet away to go after more, and couldn't leave behind enough firepower to prevent people from jumping in and ravaging my planets.  Being able to jam a starbase into the star system's entry point and wander off to work on something else is what I was salivating about when I first heard about the expansion.

My $0.02.

I must say I disagree on some points;

1) A fully upgraded (armor) starbase is quite strong.

2) Please, do not make it mobile, these things are made to be bases, a base is usually meant to be somewhat static.
Increasing the limit of starbases in a gravity well from 1 to 2 would be far better. (There should be some drawbacks though, to stop this from becoming impossible to beat - such as they take up all the tactical slots or so.)

3) A built-in phase inhibitor would be sweet, but 900% is way too much. The phase inhib. has a 700% cooldown rate modifier, and that's a dedicated structure. A non-dedicated counterpart shouldn't have more, that's just illogical.

A nice thing would be to add a refinery to it when adding the trade port as well, that makes it more flexible, for usage in both military and civilian ways.

And don't say that you can't use many capital ships effectively, I despise frigates, and only use them when necessary. (As little as possible in other words.) - Some level 8+ capital ships can take on a lot of foes.