Thanks for the clarificaiton Annatar, I remember that you can do it, but have never tried since I have always been preoccupied with the unwelcoming party.

I can understand your frustration Dorian and I agree that SB's can be pestered by strike craft and I have had it happen to me.  In learning from my misfortune, I no longer keep the immobile SB's away from the planet.  I stick it in the middle my defense turrets and hangar bays.  I always have a PJI in my gravity wells so that if a fleet tries to bypass my SB and planet it will take some time (unless they have researched certain late game techs).  But I also try to have a small fleet or two hanging around for defense and to assist the SB's.

In my play, my starbases are meant to keep people from taking my planets.  Not to destroy fleets that decide to try and bypass me.  If the try to bypass one planet then, I will need to bring a main assualt fleet back from the front line to engage and corral them near a starbase.  In nuetral spaces, I try to put it near one of my phase lanes and hope to take some of the ships out before they jump.  Not to mention that having a SB in a gravity well will take all their anti-matter and do 30% damage when the ships jump out again.  So even if they happen to bypass the SB completely, you are still hurting ALL of them.

It really comes down to a style of play and how we interpret the use of the SB.  I have to agree with Annatar, there is no "need", but it would be nice addition if FLAK was an option.  There are many ways to counter the carrier spam.  They are mostly with the hangar bays.  Every single race has an anti SC tech (with perhaps the Advent??  haven't played them yet and don't know).  The Vasari has a "fly paper" or "tractor beam" ability that draws them in and keeps them from being able to do anything.  TEC has FLAK cannons.  It is a matter of keeping the hangar bays really really close to the SB so that their defensive abilities can cover the SB and then spawning a couple of light frigs/anti SC ships to either herd the carriers into defense platforms or the SB or scare the carriers off.

And just for the record, I only spam carriers when I play Vasari and only because they don't have a dedicated anti structure unit for the Starbases. I hate spamming but it is a strategy that some will use.  Just know how to counter it.

Worry about your own posting there, buddy.

What about an 'Improved Targeting Sensors' upgrade as the final level for weapon upgrades?

It would let a starbase's basic weapon system target strikecraft as well as upgrade the range of all weapons on the starbase.  The maximum target limit for some or all of the starbase's weapon banks could also be upgraded.  It would be very expensive and might require research to unlock.

Let's not forget that SB's can be deployed in systems you cannot colonize, therefore there is no way the player can "shield" his SB with the other defensive structures. In this application they truly have little defense against SC.

I find that SB's at stars or other bodies that cannot be colonized are much more strategically valuable for two reasons: You can make a trade stop out of them, and you damage all enemy ships that phase out. The latter is very important to me, because I want an enemy fleet to be 30% damaged and out of antimatter when I bring my fleet or defences to bear on him. Not toly that, but if you put 2 or more SB's ahead of your main colonies, and the enemy chooses to ignore them, the damage effects will be cumulative (right?). That is the main reason I asked for phase jump disruption initially.

That being said, I personally find SB's in planet grav wells of little importance, except at maybe a research or production hub planet, so I am speaking from the perspective of a player who deploys his SB's where he cannot build other defences.

MAYBE, maybe SB's could come with a constructor ship, tactical slots, and a small radius to build rudimentary defensive structures. That would be acceptable, but I like the idea of an upgrade better myself.

I agree with most of what you say here, Shadowhal, except this one key bit about adaptability. IMO it doesn't work this way simply because fleets are adaptable, but SB's aren't. Because they are fixed, and there is presently no way to rework their upgrades, one is unfortunately stuck in the awkward position of choosing between a SB that is skilled against carriers, skilled against frigates/cruisers/capships, or really mediocre against both. The SB should be more formidable than that -- at least in my opinion. Once an enemy scouts out your SB and determines its weakness, as surely it must possess, it is simply a matter of dispatching a specifically-tailored fleet to deal with it... making the expenditure of all those thousands of credits, crystal, and metal for nothing.

One more thing.. A lot of people suggest that if people are afraid of starbases being knocked-off by SC, for instance, they 'simply leave behind some flak'. I really don't agree with this solution, because as much as it does work, it works very poorly. I like to build defences so that I don't need to leave behind fleets at every one of my bases. Sure, garrisons are sometimes necessary at particularly threatened worlds, but I think that with sufficient investment a defence should be able to hold its own against most fleets for at least a while... at present defences don't work without immediate fleet support, even against mid-sized fleets. Leaving behinda  few flak frigs to sit by a starbase seems a strange emulation of what the game is missing: flak protection of defensive installations. If these are such advanced, innovative and millitarized civilizations, why can't they figure out that instead of fixing flak ships in place beside their defensive structures they could just BUILD a defensive structure that performs the same function without needlessly taking up fleet capacity?

Maybe I am wrong, but at present I just feel like the SB is barely, but irritatingly, incomplete.

As always, it seems you have a problem with tactics, and want them removed from the game.  If a unit needs an adjustment, by all means lets talk about it and thrash the issue out.  But let's not ever remove tactics from the game, nor tactical possibilities.

See my posts here: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?aid=339787

Tridus, you can place FOUR SBs in a star's grav well. That means that if you place them all together, with hangar upgrades, you have a fighter fleet to rival a carrier group's SC complement. Not to mention that if you're TEC, you can have a repair and ship building upgrade so you can crank out some flak for your defense. Advent get more fighters to deal with this, and as Vasari your SBs move. Do you ever see where the enemy warps in? Good. Place your SBs there and smile as his precious carriers are blown to smithereens as they try to escape.

Btw, an uncappable site should NEVER be a defensive stronghold. It is either always defended by a fleet (easy for TEC and Vasari, one with ship building the other with phase stabilizers), or in the backwaters to take down scouts or provide trade income. You should never leave a single starbase in a wormhole's grav-well without a fleet nearby. Heck, build a SB on both sides, and as TEC you can have the "safe" one with ship-building and repair for retreating forces, while the one on the hostile side has self-destruct! The enemy tries to follow through, only to have half their forces blown to bits, and to face another SB that has just healed the retreating fleet.

Point is, SBs should have two weaknesses. The hard counter is undeniably the new torpedo cruisers, or their counter-part. The soft would be bombers and, to a limited extent, capital ships. The latter should ALWAYS be dealt with by way of a fleet. And while bombers can be a pain to take down sometimes, realize that in order to do significant damage with them to a SB, the enemy needs a large number of carriers. With those same resources you can build up just fighters, as well as too much flak for him to counter with BOMBERS. If you are paying attention, the bombers will be mince-meat after one pass--if that--and the enemy has now wasted so much resources and fleet cap that he won't have enough fleet left to counter your behemoth that's about to knock on his front-door.

Castles were easily cut off from supply lines. In fact, they were often starved to surrender. So why shouldn't SBs be any different? Just as a castle needed a fielded army to push the invaders back, so too must a SB require the aid of a fleet to hold the territory. Otherwise its just a fancy toy that the enemy is just waiting to blow up.

Actually, that's why flak should not be included. Those uncappable areas will be the most contested, since the only way to secure any sort of a foothold in those regions is by way of SBs and a large fleet. Therefore, flak would not be needed...if the player had a balanced fleet consisting of both fighters and flak.

As for the range increase, I wouldn't be opposed to it, but only so it would cover at most 33% of the well.

He doesn't want you to adversly affect his experience ebcause you don't understand the delicate balance of the game that coems from two thinking players locked in a struggle where small advantage can lead to victory.  With such a thin margin, any change, even small one, can through stuff out of whack.  Previously complaints by single players has already caused grave changes to the game that impacted multiplayer adversly. 

While I don't agree with the tone or the manner in which he expressed his opinion, I do support his sentiment.  A single player perspective will always be clouded.  If you had the AI programmed to use 60% light frigates in his fleet, then after about a month there would be 2 possible complaints on this board from single players. 1) Buff light frigates, in cases the AI fared poorly witht his tactic and it was too easy to kill it 2)Nerf light frigates, in case the AI proved to be very successful with such a fleet.  And neither complaint would take into the acount the fact that if you were facing a player, they would naturally compensate for the success or failure that comes with using a fleet made up mostly of light frigates.  There could be no problem with light frigates at all, it could just be the case of AI adapting bad strategy, or a very good one.

If you think that this is not true, then I will tell you not only is it true, but it has actually happened with siege frigates.  They were nerfed to hell because the AI used them very extensively, and they were very effective.  But a player would not have hte same level of success, because none in MP complained about the siege frigate.

No. They have less. But their hangar defenses have anti-fighter abilities and weapons, so just build a few around your starbases?

Honestly, by the time you have enough carriers that their bombers knock out a starbase with repair bays and surrounding hangars, the amount of money you sunk into that carrier fleet outstrips the amount of money you sunk into the starbase.

So will a multiplayer. This is far from an "SP vs MP" issue, though. Everyone's just saying "Starbases need flak!" without presenting a single, solid, defendable line of reasoning for it. That's exactly the kind of changes we don't need. I can say all capitals need flak too, because they can get one-shotted by a swarm of bombers late game, and flak frigates aren't enough to stop them before that happens. How does this statement have any real merit, though? The same goes for the Starbase flak argument.

Ah, interesting. Change one aspect of the game for one group, you enrage the other group. Quite a problem.

Let's say caps were allowed to have flak. Would the flak target only fighters? If not, how much dps would it add to each capital? Flak frigates themselves are only effective against fighters, and have trouble taking down bombers. Does the same remain true for these flak turrets? Would a turret or two really help if you're being swarmed with tons of bombers/fighters that you can't fight off in any other way?

Also, I never get a good response from those that want carriers nerfed... what happens to lrfs? Like a member said before when I asked this question, it would go back to the way it was, pure lrf spam. If they are nerfed, the nerf needs to be small, very, very small, or we'll just trade one spam for another. It all depends on how they're nerfed, I suppose.

Hmph, I must of missed Annatar telling Dorian to basically STFU...  There is nothing uncivil about Annatar's writing style.  Dorian on the other hand;

Now, who exactly needs to be civil?