Thanks for the info and appreciate the fast reply..

The Vasari Starbase presents the highest threat.  The Advent base is only a real threat once it has its meteor control upgrade.  Without it, it's just a big fat sitting duck.  The TEC base is always a big fat sitting duck.  So long as you don't give it the opportunity to use the big red button, it's the least threatening starbase by far.

As has been mentioned, the Ogrov and a big fleet of bombers are your best course of action to take down a starbase.  If you can knock out the fighters, a TEC base becomes completely and utterly helpless at this point and it's just a matter of time before you bring it down.  It doesn't matter whether it has tens of thousands of credits of upgrades, it can't retaliate against your attackers.  The Advent starbase's meteor control gives it an extremely powerful attack with significant range (enough to retaliate against an Ogrov).  This is a very high level ability, but if you see meteors do not engage it and instead back off and use bombers.  If the Advent base doesn't have its meteor control, treat it like a TEC base.

The Vasari base is what causes problems.  No matter what you're using, it can chase after it and attack it.  Your standard responses - Ogrovs and Carriers - can both be killed very easily if you let the starbase overtake them.  A good way to beat this starbase is to play keep away with your carriers.  Just keep running away from the starbase while your bombers fight it.  This will not work if the enemy has a fleet helping the starbase.  The only other approach is sheer attrician; bring in an overkill of Ogrovs and slaughter the starbase as quickly as you can. 

FOcused fire from a large fleet works as well, but that takes time to put that together

I'm a little slow to recommend ogrovs. Sure, they're antistarbase....but only anti-starbase. They can only target buildings and are damn expensive to boot. I prefer bombers. The carrier can outrun an orkulus. The bombers can target the support structures (like a repair bay, always take out the repair bays before targeting a starbase, letting a unit with 6+ armor heal is just a baaaad thing for you the attacker).

The bombers can then take out an enemy capital ship if your opponent has one. You can switch to fighters at any point. You can keep fighters with the bombers so you have fighters to counter enemy fighters. (Outside of flak, the best answer to fighters is fighters).

Overall, I have a hard time picking a unit that takes up 12 ship slots and isn't versatile, when carriers take up 14 ship slots and are much more versitile.

I think Ogrovs are a bit pricey .

Against the ai, I use 10 to 12 Ogrovs and direct my bombers and LRF (if it is an Orkulus) at the sb after the nearby repair bays are gone.  Sbs seem just as likely to target LRFs as Ogrovs.  You can position your caps between the ogrovs and the sb, the sb is gone before it can inflict much damage to anything.

Has anyone noticed if you postion mines at the missle cruiser's extreme range if will move closer to the sb to the clear patch?  That's what it appears to be doing in my current game.  The ai may have other reasons to close within the sbs range, but it seems if you leave a clear kill zone a little closer in front of the sb the ai missle cruisers move to it.  They avoid the mines but don't last long with an angry sb.

From a multiplayer perspective - very rarely if ever do TEC players use ogrovs in your average 'skilled' game to take out starbases because of the way people tech and play TEC. Carriers/hoshikos are 3 military labs where most TEC players stay in the midgame, and the next step in TEC is the switch to heavy cruiser at 5 labs, so there's no reason to be at 4 labs (unless for mass lrm upgrade, and mass lrm is pretty bad if scouted).

The best strategy with starbases is simply to keep scout frigates shift-moving through your enemy's territory. When the enemy tries to throw up a starbase, change your rally points, cancel any research, get extra LRMs and hoshikos, kill it while it's constructing. Once they get 2+ repair bays and a group of flak around the base, you're basically forced into getting an early carrier fleet of bombers to deal with it or you have to wait until their fleet gets out of position and your fleet can tank it. But if it costs 3000/400/400 to throw up a starbase, that's a 10 lrm advantage right there; go in and end it.

You should never, ever, ever engage a TEC starbase head on with LRMS/HCS unless:

-You have an Akkan with Armistice and are paying very close attention to when the red button starts

-You are absolutely sure he doesn't have 5 military labs (early game, but nobody builds argonev's early unless they're already down to 2-3 planetsand getting crushed).

The orkulus: as a rule of thumb, 30 bombers for a level 1 takes it out sufficiently quickly, plus 10 bombers for each health upgrade.

The advent starbase is not dangerous, just walk around it.

Later game, just trick your opponent into jumping his fleet to a different planet, then move in with your main force and kill the starbase with a bunch of bombers. Even a skeleton defence force has no problem killing ogrovs.

Main point: either early game, crush them with mass LRMs while they're constructing, mid game, ring around the rosie with bombers, late game, roll them with heavy cruisers while their fleet is away.

-RaptorJesus

Error.

18000 credits worth of Ogrovs deal 50 times more damage than 4700 credits worth Orkulus.
Play it once, see it isn't even close to what you think it is.
A fully offensively upgraded orky deals less damage than two ogrovs to a well developed starbase. And majority of that damage is not the crappy level 1 offensive upgrade but the level 2 phase missiles.

Stick to bombers. Can't go wrong with investing in carriers that can actually leave the grav well.

I gotta agree with Amish here (not that I ever disagreed with him)..

Bombers are awesome against SBs. Issues are flak and fighter and repair structures around the SB. If this is happening you need to look at counters.Dont be shy to repair them every once in a while, a whole fleet of chewed up bombers doesnt help. Recall them, repair them, reinforce them, then send em out in a whole wave to take out one structure, then pull them back.

Best advice if you hit a heavily defended SB is too look at locking down that system without getting bogged down. Take out the factories, stop him producing units if possible. Take out the repair bays, and ALWAYS be on the look out for fabricators, if you can stop your enemy building and reinforcing you can begin to chew away at the defences.

Be carefull though of spending too much time worrying about the SB system only, look for other ways around the SB, planet. If its a players HW and thier last planet, as long as you can effectively lock them in, and have second fleet, just keep them stagnate.

As advent, you can use the anti-structure (adjudicator) unit, but keep it in the middle of your fleet and keep guardians around to stop any fighters targeting this ship alone.

Vasari SB you need to micro around them, but again, bombers rule.

ADVENT and TEC SB - Get a vasari player to build and SB in enemy system. SLOWLY, walk it towards the enemy SB + defences and let it start to take out the structures around the SB first whilst upgrading the SB. Also, keep your fleet near to the SB. IF you can hit SB from both sides it helps too, as it means only one part of your attack is recieving direct fire.

But Always remember, you dont have to kill it, if you can go around it, or just take out the planet. Taking out mil labs too is always good as it limits the types of upgrades the SB can get.

Z axis I have had mixed results with, although some have said that there are loopholes in structures firing up and down through the Z axis. I havent worked out the glitch.....yet

Ok, thats news to me. Ive always noticed when attacking from the front and back seems more effective.

Why do starbases turn then to face fleets if there is no difference between front and rear?

Either way, there is zero difference if the starbase is facing whatever side to the enemy.

The starbase has a fixed number of targettable enemies, wherever they are. I have seen Orky shoot at four or five targets directly in front of it, but I've never seen it shoot at more than that, even if there were targets in every possible direction at once.

I believe that the starbases just have a max number of targets they can shoot at and that it matters not where they are.
I may be wrong, but I sure as hell haven't seen a starbase shoot 16 targets just because they were in different directions.