Question about starbase ranges...

not sure.  you could always inspect the txt files that control those values.  however, i dont remember seeing any change logs regarding the starbases.

One of the starbase improvement steps for the Orkulus  weapons states it gives the weapons greater range. Not sure if that is more than previously but sounds like.

No, starbase weapon ranges are the same as they've always been.  Now, I frequently use an  Akkan with targeting uplink to boost my starbase's range, which is quite effective, but other than that you still have to place them intelligently to get much use out of them.

So I noted as I played last night that as you improve the Vasari starbase weapons, the first increases firepower but the second improvement states its an increase in range and then afterwards firepower continues to be increased.

Is it a typo or does the Orkulus start out with shorter range and come up to norm with improvement or actually get an increase?

I'm pretty sure all starbases come with an upgrade that gives them a weapon system with improved range over their other weapons systems.

For example, the TEC starbase second weapon upgrade gives it a missile attack which has longer range than the other weapons; I'm unsure about the range of the beam weapons versus the normal weapons.  The second Vasari upgrade adds a phase missile weapon to the base; this is probably longer range than the others. 

Interestingly, the third Vasari upgrade increases the number of targets they can attack at any time, whereas the TEC need a tier 7-8 research to do so.  This tells me that, through research or upgrades, the starbases probably even out in terms of weapon range and damge per unit of cost.

actually, every race has a high-tier upgrade to the number of targets, but only the vasari starbase has the extra upgrade to weapons

this advantage is evened out in the other starbases by other advatages

the advent starbase, for example, is able to host more squadrons than the other starbases

Stuff like this makes me feel less wary of the overall lack of range on starbase weapons. This suggests that if you chose your upgrades carefully, a starbase that you thought you positioned really well but is getting flown around can come back and draw the attention it's suppposed to. If you have a ton of strike craft coming out of an advent starbase, especially bombers taking a chunk out of their bigger ships, the opponent might be forced to try and deal with the base directly, putting them in range of their other weapons.

Seems like fair tactical balancing. Plus, a smartly upgraded starbase in a small, strategically important gravity well, like with mineable asteroids, would be tough to mess with.

The bottom line you need to understand is that the devs, from the outset, have had it firmly in their minds never to create the capacity for a "hard choke."  Any choke in this game will always be a "soft choke."  That's just all there is to it.

True. I know they still want you to use at least some ships to back up your D, which I think is very cool.

Heh heh. Soft choke.

I suppose if you could manage to get up the cash you could stick two fairly upgraded starbases in say your home system and really bring th pain.

The problem is that you're limited to 1 SB per gravity well (exception is stars, where you can place up to 4).

The last added weapon for SBs is the long(er) range weapon (TEC has missiles, Advent has Psionic Surge, and Vasari has Phase Missiles), which have a greater reach than its other two weapons.

Its also notable that the Argonev with the 12% missile range upgrade at Tier 7 can engage Ogrovs/Adjudicators without the aid of an Akkan (the other two SBs already have their own method of engaging anti-structure cruisers - the Transcencia can use Meteroid Control, the Orky just chases them).

Just to come back to this real quick, a properly upgraded starbase intelligently placed in the gravity well has excellent coverage. At least that's my experience with the Advent. Problem solved itself.