Not being able to upgrade a starbase to do everything is apparently a deliberate decision by Ironclad, so that you have to really choose whether you want military protection, economic bonuses, or whatever, rather than being able to get all the other upgrades too once you have enough money to buy everything.

The main problem in the current beta version is that a lot of the upgrades just aren't very good, so it's easy to add something to the starbase and end up regretting it.

So there will probably always be a cap on starbase modules.  Still, it would be nice if you could remove an undesired upgrade and get part of your money back - currently the only way to change your mind about modules is to scuttle the *entire* starbase and rebuild from scratch.

I definitely agree that it's disappointing that starbase research can't give you any "free" abilities/bonuses - everything has to be bought as a module.  I think some of the modules could potentially be useful if they were just bonuses all starbases got as soon as the tech was researched.  For example, the one that lets you maintain control of a planet - that's a hard sell as a per-starbase module, since if you buy it at 1 planet your enemy could just invade another, and if you buy it at every planet you've spent so much on resources that you will lose the game for having fewer ships (and 1 less military/economy upgrade on your starbases to make up for it).  On the other hand, if you could research the tech once and then get its benefits everywhere you have starbases for no extra cost, that might be worthwhile in a big, chaotic game.

Likewise, you could imagine a tech that lets all your starbases have 1 or 2 more upgrade slots, or some weapon/armor/etc. upgrades that immediately apply to starbases and only starbases, so that late-game starbases are better able to keep up with late-game fleets.  For that matter, it would just be nice to be able to get something from starbases that doesn't come on a module.

The thing is, starbases get linear benefits from research, while mobile ships get exponentially better.  A late game fleet with all upgrades doesn't just have 20% better damage and 30% better defense, it is also much, much bigger, because of additional fleet supply.  In the "attacking fleet vs. defending starbase" matchup, both sides benefit the same amount from weapon and defense upgrades, but the fleet can become several times more powerful by researching fleet supply and building more ships, while a starbase will never be more powerful than 8 upgrade slots' worth of toughness.

It could work out that a fully-upgraded starbase would be tough enough to hold the line until reinforcements arrive even against a lategame 200-ship attack fleet, but then you just get the reverse problem - you can get fully-upgraded starbases before then, so they would be completely invincible against mid-game fleets.

High-tier tech that gives an automatic bonus to every starbase would help solve this problem.  It would bridge the gap between the mid-game, when you reach the point where you can afford a fully-upgraded starbase, and late-game, when fleets are so big that even upgraded starbases don't cut it.

And again, some things just aren't worth a module, but might become a valuable strategy if you could just get them from research.  The Advent culture upgrades aren't terrible as far as culture spread goes, but culture is a secondary supporting mechanism, not something you can rely on to win the game.  It's easier to get culture by building the normal logistics structures.  Anyway, if you wanted to build an enormously expensive orbital structure that gives you cultural power as Advent, you could build a Deliverance Engine.

So starbase culture modules don't make much sense; if they were changed to be good enough that you'd want to buy them, then starbases would be stealing the superweapon's thunder.  But unless the upgrades are that good they aren't worth building, since culture isn't a strong enough strategy to justify spending logistics slots AND starbase slots unless it will really steamroll someone.  On the other hand, if you could get some culture spread/suppression from starbases for free after doing some research, you might think, "OK, I'm going to build starbases and have culture anyway, so now I can try to make these two things work together.  Researching this tech helps me do that."

Not only that, the defense tech tree feels rather empty right now. Sure, to take the Vasari as an example, with 12 techs in it it has the same number as the lesser lines the warfare/empire trees, but each of those trees carry three lines. This is a somewhat related issue - I cannot help thinking that creating a handful of new defense techs each providing marginal upgrades to all starbases (range, damage, extra armour for fighter and bombers in the starbase and things like that), possibly at the cost of reducing their current initial stats and then "winning back" the loss through investing in techs and gaining an edge over the current situation by investing in 7 or 8 research building tech would feel considerably better when playing.

Moreover, the name of the expansion is Entrenchment and the focus is on the new defenses, yet there are no new vastly expensive defensive 7-8 techs in the beta (currently) to make a player say "wow, I've got to try that!" like we did over the original Sins, and practically all (or all?) of the techs there are are of the "0/1 - gain new ability type". Sure, they gain practically all the techs from the offensive branch - just like all units do. I'd kill for highlevel techs such as "increased range of a primary or secondary weapon by 10%/20%", "increased size of weapon banks", "increased number of upgrade slots", or for things like long range capital ship missiles capable of targeting only cruisers and capital ships, with a low firerate, heavy damage, full gravity well range, and not requiring LOS. (And yes, for me it is entirely acceptable that starbases can hit their attackers before they, themselves, get hit, forcing the attacker into attritional damage before he can fight back)

Somehow, adding a trading or culture module just doesn't give the feeling that you are entrenching against dangerous enemies. It feels too much like you are just saving 4 logistical slots, even when using them in systems where you could otherwise no.

Also, there arean'y any guns on the TEC Starbase....for the lasers...there aren't any guns for the Pulse Cannons on the Vasari base.  And for the lasers ( i think) for the Advent aren't there...bit lazy are we...it be nice to see like 20 cannons shooting instead of nothing shooting...

Thanks!!

-Phalnax

PS: Seriously it bothers me and i'm sure others....hehe