Starbase vs. Fighters/Bombers

i'd like to remember you that even the death star has been destroyed by a small fighter

Back in beta 1, i just had my carriers sit on the edge of the gravwell, and let bombers take out starbases. That doesn't work so well anymore because the damage that bombers do against buidings was reduced in the last update. The anti-structure cruisers are the real SB killers you need to look out for, but if bombers give you problems, just send your fighters after them. Or with TEC, build hangars near the SB, as they can get a flak cannon upgrade.

And Death Star was destroyed by a single fighter because of a critical weak point. Starbases in Sins are designed better than that

They wont put any new tech areas on for this expansion, maybe next one, though it seems too much of a small thing to change!

Deathstar 2.0 didn't have that weakness, anyways.  

Hangars (as TEC) next to your starbase are all well and fine, unless you are using your starbase in a asteroid belt or some other non-planet point.  A carrier fleet alone could decimate the starbase in that situation.  Now, a starbase shouldn't be able to beat a good fleet, but this seems like (to me) a pretty sensible upgrade.  And since its tier 3 you'd have to spend thousands of credits/~thousand crystal/ore to get it.  And it wouldn't really have an impact on the big starbase killer, those longrange torpedo boat things.

Balancing and such would means it wouldn't happen for release, for sure ... but maybe in the future?

well i think that starbases must have flak cannons... it's obvious!

Tbh, I don't think its much of a stretch to make the flak cannons upgrade for the hangars apply to the starbases. Perhaps each level of hangar upgrade grants the base more and more flak cannons. Now, I don't really play with the other races, so I don't know what a comparable upgrade for them would be, but I'm sure something could be worked out.

Either way, it's not that big of an issue: the anti-structure ships are now king at their namesake, so lowering the dmg done by bombers has balanced things out a bit.

IMO, It doesn't make sense for an expensive starbase to have 3 different guns for different ranges and NOT have flak cannons. Sure it has Fighters, but that's no excuse for not having additional guns mounted on the starbase as back up. It would even itself out anyway. You use a slot for the flak upgrade you lose a slot for an additional fighter upgrade. Seem's like a better investment to me anyway.

wasnt there that technical limit that only permits 3 weapon types per ship?

Anyway. Vasari and TEC hangars have ant ifighter abilitys.

Use it.

If you have your starbase alone somewhere: expect it to die. Because you left it alone.  At least put 4-6 flak frigs or some carriers next to it.

doesn't matter what you try.

when the enemy jumps in with 30 or more carriers you're starbase and any hangar or flak defending it will be toast.

even with 20 carriers you will have a very hard job keeping it alive unless you get some real backup fleet there quickly.

Navy Carrier, no matter if on sea or in space are the modern capital ships. Because they offer superior range, flexibility and effectiveness. Every other ship even battleships are just there to support them. Not more, not less. So it is Strikecraft versus everything, ...even against other carriers.

Is this an improvement for Sins? I can't decide, but I think so.

now, why is the opponent attacking you with 20 or 30 carriers? didn't you... like... yknow scout this shit before it... well.. arrived to twist your nipples?

Im always hearing "this and that" but never the part where you ppl say "oh my, here i fucked up by not going over there to cripple that fleet over there because i never knew it was there because i never use scouts."

30 Enforcers will maul your starbase just as well, and they are cheaper. So it would be more like 40. Together with possibly one or two caps keeping them alive with repair cloud spam.

So you see its not that things are overpowered, its that youre pittinga single base against a whole fckn fleet of ships and have the lunacy to expect it to actualy win this.

While you make a very good point do you not find that at this stage in the game when fleets are that big that scouts are pretty much useless?  You certainly can't set them to auto explore anymore as they wont last many jumps and trying to micro scouts and keeping them alive in the end game is waaaaay too much work.

Personally, late mid and end game my method of 'scouting' consists of watching phase lanes and maybe sending 1 ship accross a lane to see whats there before returning.

The Intel Wars are never easy.

Scouts are cheap. I use them as one shot probes. Late game its important to have the phaseimmunity so they dont suffer from  700% jump penalties.

Later in the game, fighters usualy kill single scouts. Most systems have hangars so you need to send several scouts.

Since you need quite a number of scouts ANYWAY due to the whole mine shit, always having some handy should be very well possible for anyone.

The good thing about scouts is that the latest intel you have on a grav well is displayed after your scout dies, together with a timer thats telling you how old said intel is. It shouldnt be too hard to anticipate your ops movement, since in most cases its rather limited anyway. Even if the scout died, it has served its purpose as will the next scout.

As bothersome as it may be: knowing where your op is, is quite helpful in deciding wether to send that fleet of yours away or not.

With Advent, you can also gather intelligence with "Eyes of the Converted" using culture centers or cannons. Advent also have the lingering presence upgrade for scouts, that allow you to see the enemy gravity well for a while after the scout has been destroyed. And one of their capital ships also has the ability to reveal any enemy/neutral gravity well (the chilli pepper shaped one :p). There are many ways to gather intelligence, and knowledge is power.

Well solution is simple enough...play vasari a be there with your main fleet in 20 seconds Ok kidding.

I personally don't send scouts just because i have too much on my hands at the time and managing regular scouting of enemy worlds is quite imposible with only two hands and one mouse However checking out the star lanes is the key element against these surprise attacks and will save your ass many, many times if you learn it right. Computer behaviour is quite predictable and while playing against a human oponent, well...it's all the same...check lines and predict.

Expecting the starbase to handle everything is an absolute nonsense imho. Starbases are balanced as they are right now. Against a computer oponent even too strong i must admit (however i love those fights where my star base annihilates every single punny, little frigate that swarms her, blasting lightnings accros the whole screen...just watching her work in cinematic mode and having a great time:)).

100% agree.

once bugs are gone starbases are just fine the way they are right now in terms of balance and beauty

It would be nice if there was a way to script things at factory worlds, so I could say every 5 mins build 2/3 scouts and auto explore or something different.  I just hate the fact that with everything else I'm monitoring and trying to manage I have to pop back to 1 of my factory worlds, queue up some scouts, then come back and click them to auto explore once they are built, that's my issue with it.  Personally I'd prefer an esspionage system but certainly automating scouting a bit more would help me a lot.