I disagree. A mobile starbase  is kinda necessary expecially if there is a limit to how many you can construct. What has to happen is figuring our a way  that will not make the starbase completely powerful.

My suggestion is that a player should have the ability to disassemble his starbase and place it on a transport ship that is capible of moving and phasing. Then once that transport finds a suitable place to stop, it can reassemble the starbase in that area.  But it takes twice as long to reassemble, because this new starbase comes with all the upgrades it has before disassembly, and no loss of recources in reassembling it ect.  

The transport ship is weaponless, and if it's destroyed, so is your starbase. Thus moving your leveled up starbase becomes a major risk. And limits your ability of imposing a starbase in an enemy system, since it suddenly becomes a huge target.

Souped up starbases, by all means. They're seriously underpowered, especially considering how much fuss was made over them originally. However I don't think you could make a phase-jumping starbase that wasn't a game-breaker. If you can take one "fully" upgraded starbase and send it attacking system after system, its rediculously overpowered. You'd have to run it by "packing" it into a transport, and "unpacking" in the second system. You'd want to make the "pack/unpack" time dependent on the number of total upgrades. You'd have to make some way for the game to recognize if there was already a starbase in the gravity well and not allow "unpacking" if there was already a functioning starbase or one in production/"unpacking".

All in all, I don't think it really makes sense. It almost seems like souping up the starbases for the sake of souping up the starbases. We all know they're kinda underpowered and under-ranged right now, but this seems too much like making them a be-all, end-all because they're new and we like them. I want them to be cool and interesting and useful, but not overpowered.

judging from that one text description of anti structure damage that the vasari sb is an offesnive anti SB SB is  bit weak. surely, the devs wouldnt think that every time a vasari player wants to a attack a more heavily armed enemy SB they jump in a migrator, construct a base, fully upgrade it and then have an escorting fleet also. if they would want this kind of pattern as a standard tactic, they would have give the phase jump ability already.

and I just think it is a bad idea, SB are more or less stationary, defensive units that can be used offensively to a certain degree, but only with planning and precision. giving the vasari one phase jump would make it just a stronger capship, no more and that sucks.  the only thing I heard and that could be some kind of middle ground is if it is not a normal phase jumping capability. more like requiring an upgrade and insane amounts of am, so that it can only perform a phase jump ever 5 - 10 minutes. that way it does not behave like a ship anymore, there is an opportunity cost to having the capbility, it requires quite a bit of planning and there is no easy way out should you miscalculate in the attack. once you do jump to the enemy, the long cooldown means you will be stuck there for some time and have to fight it out. I mean pjing SBs do make kind of sense for a race that has been on the run thousands of years, have crossed vast distances and even house part of the population there. conceptually, they remind me a bit of the vong worldships of the late star wars books (however good or bad those were).

so, the vasari don't have a dedicated defense buster. well, the assailants did a nice job beforehand. and upgrade to do extra structure dmg and a bit more range would also do the job I figure. that's also diversity and easier to implement than a whole new unit.

Star bases do need a range increase, but no way in hell I will support a phase capable star base. As I said, worse then a super capital ship. And how large would this transport frigate be? Star bases are huge, it would be larger then most capital ships.

Why should they limit the number of star bases? They are supposed to stop defenses cold, not allow the usual tactic of launching a raiding fleet and rampaging through the enemies weakly defended core worlds and production centers. That was the main tactic in the first Sins, smash the enemies fleet, and rape his worlds before he could build back up. The star base and mines were made to stop that.

Well what else does it have that anti-structure weapon for? If you only use starbases for defence, then the only buildings you'll ever get to use that on are enemy starbases that they build in your gravity well. If you use your SBs for offence, then you might actually get to use that anti-structure weapon on structures. But there is a very good chance that whatever planet you are attacking has an opposing SB.

I think that you could limit the phase jumping to make it a little more managable. Only let it move one planet away from one of yours. Then you can't just use one to go on a massive killing spree, at least not with out colonizing all of the planets you destroy. And don't let them use phase stabalizers. Then you can't use them for quick renforcements, and you can't use them in combination with the Kostura cannon to attack anywhere.

Agreed about wanting some dev input. I'll come up with some sort of consolidated summation tomorrow, tonight I'm decorating a tree and wrapping presents.

If anyone knows a dev or how to get in contact with one, please do so and see if we can get some real dialogue with the people working on this thing.

Hey i was reading some other threads and found an idea about starbases that i really liked posted by Daishzen

So my suggestion for Sins is to add the original phase disruptors ability to the starbases with a few minor changes.  And yes I know we went through this several times in SOASE beta.  The changes to the ability would be as follows:

1.  preventing phase jumps would be a researchable, upgradeable ability for starases

2. the ability would have a per second/minute antimatter cost.

          This would prevent a lone starbase from stopping a fleet in its tracks permanently and allow the possibility of retreat, albeit a retreat that would probably cost a lot for the attacker.

 he also suggested a range increase  

i think that this is a great idea for the starbase balance issue

I think starbases show orbit the planet and have a range just where the enemy ships parks for bombardment. the star base sol purpose should be to protect the planet. The other structures should have there own defences. the mines should only be placed between the planets well and outer jump point. Hows this for balance ?

Seeing as how this seems to be most active "Starbase" post:

All your base are belong to us!

a contribution to the range issue:

some games ago, I took some serious beating from ai PJIs and decided to try them out. now, what suprised me most was the massive range of these things, they have like 31.500 range. enough to cover a grav well to about 70%, even more for smaller ones. so, to get a bit of perspective, when you do a game where you want to play around with the new things, maybe take the time to research them and build one of them just to see what a range of 30.000 + looks like.

now, based on that I'd say the absolute maximum range of SBs should be lower, but not horribly much so, IF that is the only thing that changes. there are other ways to stop the bypassing (or at least making it more difficult), but I'd say if the range, and nothing else, changes, then the following would be good.

20.000 - 25.000 long range weapons, thus only a portion of its firepower has the massive range and can truly harass ships almost everywhere in the grav well.

~ 15.000 mid range weapons. still long range, but can be avoided without dramatic effort.

less than 5.000 - 10.000: close range weapons. those things should really just kick in for closer bypassers or against a force that decides to directly assault a SB.

the anti structure units (ogrev, adjunctator) should outrange mid-, but not long range weapons. why? well, a SB in its full military equipment is a big investment and not even a direct counter should be able to take it down without any losses whatsoever. if you look at the units' damage, they'll probably finish it off without too much losses if only a third of the SB's firepower is directed at it.

once again, this is only about the range issue and if it is thus changed, of course there should be a rise in cost to accomodate for the increase in usefulness. if other things are used, such as general moving SBs, range increases via buiable upgrades, etc., then the increases do not and probably should not be as dramatic. maybe I'm even all wrong, but with what I suggested, I'd say we could have a structure that can guard an area on its own against modest resistance without becoming utterly unbypassable and indestructable. in other words, a struture that fullfills a clear purpose and is useful in a different way than just a bunch of turrets.

I thought that would produce discussion. nevertheless, if you think about it, the long range dmg is in the range of 10 lrms, which is hardly a horribly large number. and if you look at much dmg the structure busters do, how fast the kill stuff, I just don't think it would be such an extreme issue. it just feels wrong to be able to take down a massive starbase basically unmolested. and c'mon, strke craft? any decent player will bring some anti squad capacity with him, I rarely see defensive squads do any damage in any kind of serious assault. they help, but the don't really prevent anything.

Personally i think the range of the starbase is fine....I guess it depends on what u use them for...for the most part i use them to protect my structures around a planet...Boost trade and culture...And add fighters without using a tactical slot on my planet...For these things i think star bases are just fine...What else would u use them for...U cant have one structure hold off a fleet...As far as someone skirting around ur defenses...Its space, and this is what happens in space..In fact, this is why they call it space, cuz there is a lot of it...It is not feasable to b able to stop someone  completly from cruising past a planet in space.