I like the power of Starbases. Their weapons seem powerful enough now that they can target more than one target at a time. A Starbase on its own can be defeated with a medium fleet but coupled with a static defense they are a serious mountain to climb. I think this is good and where it should be.
I dont think they are balanced. The Advent and Tec are pretty close. The meator storm is something the Advent needs to be on par. I think it will get nerfed damage wise but if they do I hope they increase the range to the entire well. This will make it effective at defending the planet it is stationed from. I would like to see its planet attack changed to a focused attack for ships. The fleet attack could do 400 damage to a large number of ships while the focused could do 800 maybe. With this range and damage increase the sb would be effective at defending the planet from being bombed by cap ships even. Its culture upgrade is not that great but does fit them.It would be nice if the sb culture gave some kind of bonus to ships in well.As it is Advent have the worst sb at defending in the game mainly because they really cant defend the planet. The advent has no force projection in the well.
Tec I think has a good balance going on. It has slightly less hull and shield but higher armor then the others. It really shines with its ability to create frigs at 175% rate. This is great. It can build a jav in like 12 seconds. If your well is under attack this greatly increases its defensive and combat abilities as you can creat a little fleet quick. Anything bombing the other side of your planet can be nuetralized by building a few ships. Repair bays arent healing it fast enough? Build a few hoshikos. The fear of moving your fleet in to be destroyed by its self destruct is icing on the cake. The downside to this is it will mostly likely be attacked by strike most of the time so all the flak upgrades will come in handy.It also has good upgrades like supply docks to support your ships in system.It has good force projection for the well and surrounding systems. Downside is it costs for its projection.This can also be a prob if you dont have fleet supply left and you dont want to upgrade it.
Vasari have the best Starbase in game. It can defend entire well so well you cant even leave ships as a scout. Not to mention it has the most hull and shield points maxed out(32k). It might not have damage dealing abilities but its abilities seem to make it invincible almost. Its deflector ability reduces frontal damage by 200%. I have not faced one using this but it seems like it would render any attacking fleet useless. It also heals itself so that anydamage that gets thru is repaired.I dont have much experience with these abilities but it really sounds unbalanced. Any fleet or torp ships will be attacking its front side and cannot even stay outside of its range to attack inbetween casts. Sounds like the only way to defeat it is with strike which attack from different angles.Some people complain that it moves to much but that is crap since you can set its engagement like any other ship. You can make it stationary and sit by all your repair bays if you want. On top of all these advantages you can build a nod on them to warp you fleet in to help defend.
The 30% damage and 100% am loss is not that big of a deal. This does not help you because they can warp in to your worlds behind all your defenses. It is really great to pursue an attacking fleet. It means you have to setup defenses on worlds behind your defenses. This is to expensive. He can warp in his whole fleet and bypass your sb and start killing your worlds. Yes you can do the same to him but doesnt that defeat the purpose of building it?My opinion if this is all we will get as a blockade the damage should be much great around 75%.
Starbases need to be ablt to be retrofitted. Sell and change its upgrades. It would be nice to get 10 slots instead of 8. This will allow us to use the races special sb upgrades more cause most everyone will always get hull and weapons upgrades which takes up 5 of the 8. That only leaves 3 which if you dont get the sb abilities it is much easier to destroy. It would be nice to have more so that sometimes I can get strike upgrades or something else instead of the same ones everytime.
Finally they are extremely vulnerable to the egg+kanracks. Something really needs to be done about the egg nano.