The thinking behind uses of the starbase are as follows:
Vasari bases are for area defense and economic boostage and importantly can be used as offensive weapons - jumping in an escort fleet to guard the starbase as it is constructed at the edge of the well, then leisurely strolling along and crushing everything in its path (and with frontal shields, that includes other starbases).
TEC Argonevs are for point defense and establishing forward bases. They can't move so their use in offense is approximately zero (not necessarily a bad thing as they have other strategic uses).
Advent Transcencias are for (slightly larger) point defense and culture; they're a bit better at dominating no-man's-land areas like suns and roids than Argonevs but dont have as much straight-up military or industrial application.
On paper these dynamics work great, but in practice they have an unintended side effect: because Vasari bases can move to respond to a threat from any direction, they are much more effective for defense and destroying enemy fleets. TEC and Advent are forced to build their bases in as annoying a spot as possible, then buy offplanet government upgrades and spread other defenses all over. The enemy fleet jumps in, toasts everything but the base, then attacks the base on its own sweet time.
In other words, the mobility of the Vasari base means the Vasari bases are massively superior to their analogs. This can be balanced by
a) Giving the stationary bases massively extended range (not a good option because range any further than it currently is would make the base devastatingly OP).
Giving the bases engines. They should not be as fast as the Vasari base - in fact moving less than half that speed would still serve the purpose. This simply gives the player the flexibility to move the base to the place it can be most strategically effective while still being forced to think because it takes awhile to drag the base over there.
The designers are reasonably concerned that giving Argonevs and Transcencias mobility would give them the capacity to function as offensive weapons. But considering the ponderously slow speed of those bases, their application in an enemy well would be very limited. If this is still a concern, it shouldn't be difficult to add a stipulation that Argonevs and Transcencias cannot be built in grav wells controlled by enemies.
Players should be able to build a starbase, upgrade it up the wazoo, and have a solid confidence that the well it occupies is safe from any but very concerted attacks. Vasari players can do this. TEC and Advent players can't. Giving those players very slow engines would fix this.
PS. Love the Beta 2 changes ... weapon banks and mine balances make me happy. : )
Again, this is the genius behind this expansion, in that through it, stardock , is making us play the races and ships like they were meant to be played. Scouts are now truly scouts with a use; tec (and to much the same degree, advent) are now uberturtle awesomeness. And Vasari are now more than ever the sneaky, slippery "bypass-your-defenses-and-rape-your-unguarded-empire-if-used-properly" race. Just to lay it on a little thick, I think this is the best rts I've ever played. The whole fleets and AI mechanics is what sold me on this game, as so many times before when playing games such as supreme commander did I have my well thought out battles fall to pieces because of clunky AI and "formations" that would send my light infantry bots to a quick death simply because they wouldn't stay with thier artillery support. meh. Many thanks to stardock for such a satisfying gaming experiance.
Good.
If I proceed to build a starbase at the edge of one of your gravity wells, then move a fleet in and take it out before it gets completed!
Advent have an ultimate combination of Energy regeneration and Shield regeneration when they have a decently varied fleet of Cap ships supported by their frigates and cruiser class vessels. I have had fights with them where I am slowly being whittled down in hull while Advent Shields are pinned over top their pristine hulls; they went on fighting for over 10 minutes before I retreated to a friendly sector, the disengagement costing me a sudden whackload of ships. Thst not an OP facet to Advent... .
They should all move, after all they are STAR BASES, not cover some gimpy little area bases. Vasari have huge advantage and only race you need to play atm. Fully upgraded vasari bases are death machines and you can easily spread out your support (repair bays, missle stations) to assist them so they are never naked.
It is so easy to bypass TEC/advent star bases, destroy everything around, and waste them last... or use a capital ship fleet and the star base is dead in no time. No self destruct or anything advent has is going to offset this huge advantage.
Factor in the Vasari super phase launching weapon and its a joke, there is no front line fighting vs vasari, several superweapons and most ships are reduced to spare parts - your fleet flies in and proceeds to wipe them/planet meanwhile a starbase is in progress and soon there after it is a phase point that is soon to destroy your economy, if you send major forces against it, then the other front is weak and prob soon to die....
With increased build time in enemy area you need a support fleet to do so, most of the time i have the enemy defeated and planet bombed when the starbase finishes... Very hard to use them offensively now... so since they are primarily defensive, make them all move so - ya know - they can be like - defensive !
1. You can bypass any starbase. So the argument that vas starbase can move doesnt mean you cant bypass.
Make your structures near the starbases and it will be protected by the starbase. You dont want to spread out your repair bays because then they cant heal each other or heal mulitple objects in an area where your ships are dying.
2. Devs are trying to make each race unique and consistant. Game would be dull if all races were the same with exact same ability with just different graphics.
If you make all starbases move then allow them to also make ships, mass heal, self destruct, spread culture, etc
I can't believe ppl are still discussing this.
the only thing I wouldn't exactly be unhappy about would be redeploy option inside the grav well. sort of like terran buildings in sc. all modules go offline, undeploying and redeploying takes some time, in between move is slow, but it's possible. nothing you'd ever do in a combat situation, but let's say if the situation changes from attack to defend or so, it would be nice to move the sb to a more offensive position.
incidentally, TEC has a position free in its upgrade slots. how about a station mounted planetary shield generator? firts with what they already have and would help greatly with those siege ships avoiding the starbase altogether. and as always, it would be better protected vs marauding bombers than the stock psg. just a thought. because the other races have options to combat attackers out of their range. vasari can move, advent can haul meteroids, so why not give tec the shield, so their planets arent as vulnerable. sure, emergency government nice and fine, but you still have to rebuild the planet after it's lost, something to prevent or slow it would be nice.
could always use a cap ship or two to tow it into position
In one post I see people saying Vasari are horribly OP because of their moving starbases. Next thread is about the huge disadvantage they suffer from not having anti-structure ships. I wonder if maybe Vasari are just not meant to be completely analogous to the other races point for point?
Make sure to read the above statement with a tinge of bitter sarcasm directed at the people at either extreme.
Here here.
I can add nothing that is more eloquent.
Except for the thought that perhaps if the Vasari starbase can move - and if said starbases have limited firing ranges - perhaps a foe could always lure the thing away to a remote area of the gravity well with a decoy vessel before warping in to do damage to all other assets with a primary fleet. Tactics & strategy... . *Also*, a moving starbase has the capacity to cross into minefields, does it not?...
Ue_carbon its just a couple of ideas about the starbases try noy to be such a hater and come up with something interesting to say would you besides dogin every ones elses idea just cus you dont want the tec and vasari star bases to move dosnt mean its a bad idea PEACE
but it is a bad idea to have tec and vasari starbases move... wait.... what?
If Im the ass of the group then so be it. Yet, if someone came up with a great idea BEYOND the moving starbases. I have wouldnt have such a negative tone. My tone is direct response to the idea that all starbases should move. It has offically been shot down, so I dont understand the need to revisit the moving starbase issue. If we would move past this and think of fresh/different idea you wouldnt find me being such a hard ass.
very true
I wasn't arguing for it (although it may be a fine idea). I was saying that someone else (was it you?) seemed to be arguing for it. But if you now say that you are unconcerned with bypassing fleets, rather you are concerned with combat in the well... I suppose that's a different concern than I thought you had. Perhaps I misunderstood earlier.
Are you certain that the vasari don't have to face other hard, interesting, agonizing choices that the other factions don't have to face? I'm not certain whether they do or don't, that's why I'm not going to pound my fist on the table too strongly here. I'm just asking if YOU are certain?
Furthermore, perhaps my faith is misplaced here (anytime one puts their faith in people, it generally is), but do you really think the devs are closet vasari freaks, secretly rooting for the vasari, secretly scheming to give vasari all the goodies, and screw all the other factions? Perhaps they are jerking off over how they've given vasari a moving SB and denied such an "OP" unit to everyone else? I just don't think that's the case (I could be wrong). More realistically, perhaps you just think they have made an honest balance mistake? Certainly wouldn't be the first time for any developer, but in the end I'm not sure this is correct either.
Look, I'm by no means a "defender of the establishment" or "defender of the status quo." You got concerns, by all means voice them. Lord knows I've done it enough times. Most of the time I might be right there with you. This time, I'm not convinced, but I'll keep playing the beta and try to keep an open mind on it.
I'm not at either extreme on this, in the since that I think the Vasari are vastly under or OP by the moving starbase. The problem is an unwillingness to accept that one is just going to have to play differantly with each given race, this is the price, and yet also the reward, of having truly unique races. Too many times in the past have we had all too generic "races" in games that could be played equally well with the same tactics. This expansion is further defining the races for what they are, and thats a good thing. The race one plays as should fit ones style, or give the opportunity to learn another style. Each race should just plain play deferantly. I favor the TEC, as they fit my playing style, not because I necessarily like how they look. If that was the case, I would favor Vasari.
The Vasari have a moving starbase as one of its strengths.
The TEC and Advent get powerful torpedo cruisers as one of their strengths. Their starbases also have abilities that play to their strengths like production, self-destruct, etc.
Even if you play as Vasari anyways, if you place a starbase strategically, as well as structures and mines, it doesn't really matter too much if it moves. The only place Vasari will have an advantage is sectors with multiple phase lanes all over the place or large gravity wells like gas giants and stars. I suppose you can keep people from jumping right into your SB or sending scouts to know exactly where to strike. It's a defensive bonus.
I'm with Carbon on this. The devs have said they want to keep the Vasari as the only race with a moving Star Base. It's not even that huge of an advantage. It just adds a bit of strategy to the SB. The reason the SB needs to move is so it can be used in an assault on other SB's because it's the Vasari's strongest anti-structure weapon. They clearly don't want any other race to be able to use their SB's like this, because the Vasari don't have specialized cruisers for this.
I don't understand all this fuss about "if a starbace can't move then an attacking fleet just bypass it". Well if an attacker wants that system they have to deal with your SB. don't they? If they don't, how is it different than before SB's were incorperated? In fact now if they are just moving through the system and you have a star bace there they are going to sustain damage!
If you don't want any enemy fleets to get past any system you have, you have to have some sort of fleet that is capable of engaging them before they get back out of the system and capable of destroying it before it destroys yours, regardless of whether you have a SB there or not. Sure if you have a SB in the area where they jump in its going to help your fleet a hole heap, but regardless of whether it can move or not you still have to have it pretty much in the right spot for it to get to them before that enemy fleet can get away.
I would'nt say that I'm a very expirienced player or anything but I certainly have put a reasonable amount of time into playing the beta's and I've found if you put your bases in the right spot and put a reasonable amount of deffencive structures in the right spot, even a small back up fleet can make it really quite difficult for a pretty big attack fleet to take you out. Sure you might loose some structures before you get futher backup there, but thats no diffferent than before, and in fact I personally think you can now rissist defeat much longer
Also as has been stated in above statments, the moving starbace that the Vasari have is suseptable to tactics which can lead it away from the other structures/planets that it was built to deffend, or even away from the other deffencive structures helping it. And yeah well that needs to move because its thier antistructure vessel.
Oh! And I'm with Ue-carbon on this one. Why can't we just trust that the dev's know what thier doing. If they say somthing isn't,or is going to be in the game then they most likely have a very good reason for it.
Just my 2 bobs worth.
Couldn't agree more.
Their response might be "screw that system - I'm worried about systems beyond that system!" This is why I thought the argument they were making was really about the phase jump inhibitor. You see, right now there really isn't the ability to create a "hard choke" at this point, just a "soft choke," because PJIs only delay fleets, they don't stop them from jumping. This is even true for a system which contains a vasari SB - it can be bypassed.
However, one guy said his concern wasn't enemy fleets bypassing his SB and jumping deeper into his system at all, rather he was concerned with combat right there in THAT system. So....
(This is back to what I *thought* their concern was in the first place)... I think this point is wrong. The point of entrenchment, I thought, was that in the vanilla game, fleets had to defend systems, thus could not be out conquering other systems. It created a weird dynamic, and a catch-22. If you use your fleet for offense, your enemy will come into your wide open system. If you use your fleet for defense, you cannot be on offense, and it just seems a weird use of a fleet (the point of ships is that they MOVE - static defenses are for unmoving defense). If your point is that a fleet is STILL needed to vanguard your systems, then entrenchment really isn't buying us anything. An SB with "some support" (NOT an entire fleet) should be a formidable obstacle (note that I didn't say insurmountable obstacle).
I think a phase jump DENIER (not inhibitor) should be buildable on the SB itself. Then it has to be faced, and taken out, before an enemy jumps further into a system. Then their point about moving tec and advent SBs becomes nil.
We're beta testers. The devs are using us to provide input on the game. Part of the beauty of sins is that the devs listen to the customers. We trust the devs to listen to our input and make a good decision on it, which so far they've done pretty much without exception.
(And to reiterate, I am now convinced that stationary starbases are not UP in the context of the rest of the faction, so this post is academic).
There is another advantage to a moving sb. You can guard the planet entirely. I can see in mp how maybe you are defending your hw which is enormously important to your economy and the rest of your planets allegiance. So you put a sb there and send your fleet to the front to fight. So a raid drops in with a few carriers to neutralize you fighter defence and some siege and goes to the other side of planet and kills your hw. Now you econ is severly damaged and the cost to get it back in shape is big. The vasari dont have to worry about this because at the very minimum they will have to bring a big enough fleet to destroy that sb.
At this point jj is right you can bypass all sb.I honestly dont care if all sb move I just want a degree of balance in abilities.Tech has a planet shield so they will probably be fine.Maybe advent could get mines for real cheap to place on the other side of planet. As it is looking now vasari will have the cheapest mines so that wont happen.I like to play advent most so I would really like to see them get something to be able to keep their planets from getting killed as much as the others.
Anyway Im just theorizing because I have not been able to play mp.
has anyone ever considered that just because the starbase is moving does not mean it keeps the planet from being destroyable? I mean who stops me from splitting my siege frigs into groups and attacking from different sides? if you micro it with some care, you still do a lot of damage, because mighty and moving as it is, the sb can still be at one place at a time only.
I would think that would be difficult even as slow as it is because siege are not very agile. If it uses the players full attention then that is an advantage anyway as opposed to dropping some ships in to bomb and forgetting about it. Also it would be hard to do this at more than one planet at a time where u could plant siege at multiple planets without to much micro where the sb are stationary.
It's like the Terrans and Advent saw the war bog down into a stalemate and found ways to fortify their systems heavily, hence "Entrenchment", while the Vasari took one look at what was coming, said "screw THAT!" and spent their time thinking of new ways to bypass defenses instead.
The Vasari gained the least in terms of defensive improvements in this expansion. Their defensive structure upgrades seem the least desirable of the three races. Their minefields are the worst, both in ease of deployment and in raw utility (although they're cheaper). And they don't get any kind of torpedo cruiser, making it very hard for them to crack a defended system in the early game; they really need a heavy fleet to have any kind of chance against a starbase. And their starbases are the least suited to act as the core of an impenetrable defense (especially since you'll be spending 10 tac points or 1 SB slot for a phase stabilizer); compare a Vasari SB with 25 points of defenses (that it can be pulled away from) to a Terran or Advent one fighting inside a web of 35-45 points of defensive structures. The Vasari can get a defensive fleet there faster, because they NEED to; they're far less able to just let the defenses fend for themselves.
But on the other hand, the Vasari starbases are the best single combat units in the game, hands down, and their superweapon is extremely good now that it lets you bypass choke points. For some people, that's a good tradeoff, for others not. Bottom line, not a single element of that comparison would be considered "balanced", and yet the overall result IS well-balanced, in the simplest measure: the number of times you wish you had an ability that the other races had. For each person who wishes their TEC or Advent starbase moved, there's a Vasari player wishing he had a torpedo ship or that the Ruiner didn't suck. (Similar logic was used to test the balance of Starcraft's three races, way back when.)
Besides, there's no need for all three races to do the same things, gaining the same abilities; if anything, I think the TEC and Advent are too similar in their Entrenchement gains. I'd have liked to see them do different things. Imagine, for instance, if the Advent SBs cost 1/3rd as much but you could build three per gravity well. Imagine if the TEC torpedo cruiser was actually a very heavy vessel (say, 20-25 supply points per), with more abilities and correspondingly higher damage. That sort of thing; they could have made the races very different, but we ended up with two that gained fairly similar benefits from this expansion and a third that gained VERY different bonuses, which means that inevitably the discussions focus on the Vasari. It's not like a TEC player would get truly jealous about something the Advent got or vice versa, because they overlap too much for that.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
