[BUG] Visari Starbase Attacks Before Construction is Done

As the title says.   I was playing a 1v1 single player last night to try out the new hotness.  The computer started building a starbase near a pair of my seige frigates.  The starbase attacked the frigates despite the fact that it was still building.

As a side note, I was able to attack a starbase under-construction and destroy it. Is this intended?

4,624 views 10 replies
Reply #1 Top

If I were building a huge defensive installation in space, not something puny, but truly huge and capable of housing tens of thousands of people, I'd probably start installing weaponry as early as it made engineering sense rather than once the rest of the station had been constructed. With something on that scale, there's really no reason to assume that the weapons can only go online once construction have finished since it is a station being put gradually online as different segments are done. If one were a stickler for detail, it might make sense to gradually increase the firepower during the construction, but a starbase under construction going weapons hot makes excellent sense.

As for attacking them under construction - that's entirely intentional and, in fact, makes for interesting tactics: you need to defend a starbase under construction if doing it in a hazardous area. Moreover, if they were not attackable under construction, you'd have serious problems since people could just dump a new starbase in their opponents gravity wells forcing them to have forces on hand to deal with the starbase at full strength once it finished. A "you aren't going to make huge constructions in our airspace, bub" mechanic.

Reply #2 Top

happend thesame to me with a TEC SB, that make a enemy fleet with a Dunov and several frigates to stop and run away.

 

Despite peter explanation a 1% done SB shouldn´t be capable of scaring a fleet, instead the fleet should focus hi fire and bring it down.

Reply #3 Top

The attacking a structure while under construction is normal and has been with the game since day one.

 

As for the starbase attacking before construction completed, I believe that it shouldn't be the case. Like with any other struction dosn't become active, the starbase should not be able to activate or attack or give any bonuses till after it is completed. But that is my opinion, and the starbase is pretty darn week in it's basic form, so just send in the armada and blow the sucker up! Problem solved. :thumbsup:

Reply #4 Top

Quoting Pezkenin, reply 2
Despite peter explanation a 1% done SB shouldn´t be capable of scaring a fleet, instead the fleet should focus hi fire and bring it down.
End of Pezkenin's quote

Given how few hull points an 1% done SB has, any fleet commander that is scared by it instead of focus firing it down should be demoted due to incompetence unless his fleet is very, very, small indeed.

Reply #5 Top

The attacking a structure while under construction is normal and has been with the game since day one. 
End of quote

Thought so, was having a brain dead moment.

Peter:  By your logic, shouldn't turrets then start firing the moment their construction starts?

Reply #6 Top

:rofl: I started a game with me as vasari and found that a SB being build will move and fire, but wont follow your commands.

 

And Peter a vasari SB with 11% done has about 300 hp out of 3450, no way it can has all his weapon systems fully operational.

Reply #7 Top

Quoting Pezkenin, reply 6
I started a game with me as vasari and found that a SB being build will move and fire, but wont follow your commands.

 

And Peter a vasari SB with 11% done has about 300 hp out of 3450, no way it can has all his weapon systems fully operational.
End of Pezkenin's quote

They can fire there wepons while under construction, I think thats fine, because in movies and shows starbases underconstruction could fire the weapons on it. It makes perfect sense that it could do that. But the damage amount should be reduced based how far it was built.

Reply #8 Top

That is a good point; the death star could still attack when it was being built. I think that as it is built more of its weapons should come on line and there damage should increase. Maybe at 50% you could start to build 1 fighter squad. This would also open up new tactics in the game.

 

 

Reply #9 Top

Quoting RaveBomb, reply 5

Peter:  By your logic, shouldn't turrets then start firing the moment their construction starts?

End of RaveBomb's quote

No. Turrets are fairly small installations with, most likely, a small crew. They are constructed by crews from a construction vessel. How far on in its construction will it need to be before it houses a crew, has ammunition supplied, and has any weapons installed? Most likely, very far in.

A starbase is citysized (actually, significantly bigger than many cities if you consider that we can upgrade them with modules to house billions of people). While it isn't that big when the construction starts, we are talking about something so huge that it is constructed by an on-board crew of thousands - or tens of thousands.

In both cases, some of the superstructure would need to be built before anything else, but given the vast difference in scale of the projects, bringing things on-line as they are completed during the build process makes much more sense for the starbase than for the turret.

Now, you might well argue and Pezkenin points out that there's no way a starbase early in construction will have all its weapons available; Or, you might argue that perhaps it should only get its first weapons online after 5% or, say, 10% construction is done. I completely agree, after all, I said so already in my reply #1,

 

If one were a stickler for detail, it might make sense to gradually increase the firepower during the construction, but a starbase under construction going weapons hot makes excellent sense.

 

Now, in practice that means extra developer work for miniscule gain and the ridiculous situation that you might end up with a handful of frigate sized ships blowing up something really, truly, huge, so given the alternatives, I fully expect the current situation to be maintained as the best tradeoff between what makes sense and what works.

Reply #10 Top

TEC hanger's when upgraded with flaks also start shooting before constuction is complete...