As I suggested before starbases should be done in a modular fashion. Moreover I think they should have their own tech tree. There should be a military, cultural, economic and science path for one to follow.

While I really don't have anything to add that hasn't already be said, I'll put in my 2 cents.

Yes, something needs to be done with the Stars. Here they are, this wonderful thing that defines the cluster...and it's decoration. If you're going to have stuff like this, why not put other items that you'd normaly see in space? Black holes, nebula, etc. All you see as you're flying towards it in phase space is this '?' where you're going to end up. Why does it have to be colonizable? How about even just plain open space? Stuff could still be buildable there with some sort of new capital foundry ship that has to be resupplied by either runing back to a refinery or via trade ship. Probably not practical, esspecially with the ability to colonize almost every single gravity pocket, but still a thought.

NEways, back to the topic at hand. I do lke the idea of a star being harvesable, but I wouldn't say for a super weapon itself. Maybe for a band or lvl of tech that requires access to that type of resource. I peronally like the idea of the orbital reserch facility, but you can't build anything there, so you would need havester ships from a nearby system(s).

Like I said, not really anything new here, but stil 2 cents worth...here's your change.

I was not saying that bases around a star would be more powerful in terms of offence, just better equipped for defense since they have to have better equipment to deal with the different environment that they are in. As for cost, I'm all for having the cost be more then average considering all the obvious costs that would be needed to set up the said bases. But I do say that they should give you the ability to build bases around a star even if none of your "intelligent" commanders would build them because one thing is for sure, for every "intelligent" commander, there are many others who are either stupid, crazy, or want to have fun so they do strange things to try them out.

As for reasons to have things around stars, there are many things that can be done with this. Research stations, some sort of harvester that can collect solar winds and use the resulting materials in a usefull manner, or you could even have the ability to sort of "colonize" the star in that you can build large habitats in orbit around the star that basically either count as a planet (in terms of population and maybe production) or at least a chunk of a planet.

Also, I agree with the statement that you should also be able to do stuff in just empty space, after all even though there may not be materials there, it could be an advantage for you to hide some sort of shipyard there and so even if you get blitzed in a Pearl Harbor of the Future attack, you wont be outright dead.

One we really don't want. If you make building in deadspace possible, the game will really become tedious. To win you have to wipe out your opponent (granted, most will give up when victory becomes impossible, but some won't) If you have to go and secure every planet, and then go hunt down some random base....

you can have over a hundred planets in the universe, isn't that enough?

Although harvesting at a star would probably be a nice idea, maybe have the resource trade station send out solar harvesters or something. That way, blocking an enemies acces to the sun is still usefull, but not a deathblow or overly critical issue,as suggested in some of the above posts.

There are two major reasons the stars aren't badly in need of a fix:

The first is that the nature of stars as hubs to attack any of four planets gives the attacker enough of a fair chance to grab a planet and build a forward base so that there can be some really nice fleet battles. Because of this, the attacker has the most important advantage of all if the defender gives him the star: mobility. Defending four locations against a unified blow is impossible, and one victory allows the attacker to quickly rebuild before the defender can gather the strength to fight back. By making stars undevelopable, it encourages ship to ship battles, which are far more entertaining than platform building. The one thing I definitely want to see is an offshoot of this is a larger gravity well to fight in, however it shouldn't be enough larger to take away the aforementioned mobility advantage. Right now, I don't think that a stalemate is achievable for a serious length of time, but correct me if I'm wrong.

The other part is that the odds of two different systems being captured by two factions in an equivalent situation at roughly the same time are very small, so I don't see two equal empires endlessly trading blows. One would almost assuredly be able to attack before the enemy is ready/able to defend or have overwhelming force. Also, the winner of the battle around a star will have an experienced core to rebuild a fleet around, giving him a huge advantage in the next battle, and giving him a good shot at fleet superiority in his assault despite the transit time. If he has this advantage in his opponent's star system, the game's over.

Forgive me my essay.

EDIT: Oh, and the game is plenty complicated with the other civs and all factored in. I think dead space would just add dead time to the games. Anyway, dead asteroids serve most of the uses that dead space would, and they do it plenty well. Plus, given the general speed of the game, any of the outlying planets would serve brilliantly as a reinforcement factory, since without reconnaissance and 100 times the speed the ships have now a Pearl Harbor is impossible. If you want to kill an enemy, it'll have to be more of a Surigao Strait or Midway type victory, and after that the loser should at the very least be on the ropes.

Keep in mind that for huge entertaining battles around stars to occur, there will need to be some way to force them to happen (such as Phase Space Inhibitor ships). Otherwise, a fleet will arrive and simply jump/attack the nearest planet. Your 'interdiction fleet' would then need to chase them. Phase Space Inhibitor ships removes all that chasing around game play lameness.

I see what you mean about mobile factories being needed to defeat the defending owner of a star system. So sure, include them in the game.

These mobile factories should also be able to produce much faster around stars (because of faster AM recharge), thus further encouraging battles around stars. It would also help in the assault on a hostile star system.

No, no, no. You aren't getting pure Antimatter from the star. What you ARE doing is using massive solar power potential to run your on board particle accelerator(s) = AM collection.

Hey Neskonlith (is that your real name ), do you mean these structures would increase the speed of your fleets traveling between stars? Or would these structures be required to travel between stars?

Fusion is constantly creating antimatter, although it doesnt spew it out.
even solar wind colliding with our high atmosphere creates minute traces of antimatter. its not significant, but its there.

sounds to me like you could just line the outside of your ship with a special series of force-tubes to collect antimatter, as high speed collisions of solar winds with... pretty much anything produces antimatter in particle jets.
its better than saying you have giant solar-nets on your ships, and much more feasible than having particle accelerators on your colony ships.