I vote for using the Phase Jump ability as a secondary upgrade after Phase Stabilizer Node. Agree with the fleet capacity costs completely.

It has been suggested that the upgrade go into a third level of the stabilize phase space upgrade. This would remove 3 upgrades from the combat potential of the orky, and would add additional research prerequisites. So sadly I do not think this is what is keeping the devs from implementing this. Really I think someone at IC just doesn't think this is necessary or is otherwise opposed to it, so we get band aids like a minute of damage debuffs...

Really how, you should get a team of the best players around and challenge IC with you all using Vasari Rebels, building nothing but starbases and each getting economies of hundreds of credits per second without any fleet upgrades. Maybe then they'll see the fundamental issue.

Also, even with starbases "fixed", the VR will still be a great faction, and the lack of enslaved labor is not going to change that.

Making them restricted to places with Phase Nodes would be perfectly fine with me.  As for making them an upgrade..

Howthe, please explain, as you provide no conceptual basis in your post to support this statement.  As your concept stands, the vasari rebels still, in fact, will be able to acquire enough of these (lets say in a 5v5 the critical number of these mobile starbases would be 5, one for each opposing players homeworld).  There is nothing aside from pure cost to mitigate the mass production of these starbases.  cost alone does not balance these as we have seen in a few multiplayer matches (that have all become one sided vasari starbase spam fests).

Also, any vasari rebel player in the eco position has an advantage no other economy player in game can have.  They can provide a highly effective defense AND offense with one unit that can be spammed with their strong economy (that is never going to be hindered by pesky fleet logistics upgrades, so they will have the best economic potential as well).  

The cost is justified as they are an extremely efficient use of credits.  

With logistic slot/capital ship crews(i do still consider the jump starbase OP even with these requirements), this will help to bring the jumping starbase idea into balance.  Until then I don't expect there to be any serious player approval of the idea, as why would we waste our time testing something that any person with multiplayer experience would know is a suicide game?

As it stands, as a faction, the vasari rebels have no weaknesses at all, and no counters, except for other vasari rebel players.

The other points (#2, #3) are valid and align with your balance change.

Making Phase Jumping for SBs cost slots is a pretty good solution but it still allows the VR to have a 'ship' stronger than any capital for no fleet supply.

Crazy idea:

Phase engines for SBs could become a tier 1 tech that is the prerequisite for remote assembly and also limits starbase upgrade slots to only 4 in total and increases their cost and/or makes them cost a bit of fleet supply.

VR SBs would be a little harder to get but far more flexible in the early game. However, VR SBs would overall be far weaker to compensate their flexibility.

As I have mentioned in another topic:

Reduce the sublight speed of ALL orkulus starbases by 50 percent.

If you are not willing to do that, please at least half the speed of the jump capable Orky.

Right now, a fully upgraded Orky can jum onto your MAX fortified borderworld... fly by the defenses and jump to the next system. Your fleet will need AGES to catch up to it. Usually it will be at your Capital world for quite some time until your fleet can engage it.

Generaly, the movement alone is a tremendous advantage over any other starbase in the game. Making Orkies sublight slower would also make the underused Ogrovs a lot more competivly.

And yes, a at least 5 minute cooldown between phase jumps would solve many problems immediatly.

Don't you think I knew that?  Trolls cater to their audience...

I will say though that some early stripping (like one or 2 planets) actually still works amazingly well....

1 upgrade slot wont be enough unless you make it ridiculously expensive 

Right now we can spam unlimited numbers of these up to the point that you run out of gravity wells and/or the hardware can't support it.

20-40 logistics slot requirements is quite a tame number indeed, and isn't more then a capital ship.    It should be at a miniumum 100% more logistics slots compared to a cap ship(coming to 100), as the relative power of a vasari starbase is far greater then that of even 2 cap ships, or even a lvl 1 titan.  The starbase can be very strong, and it has many abilities that can be upgraded into it, and it can clear out dug in enemy worlds,  Like a titan.  It just levels differently(economically) and when fully upgraded its as strong as a levelled titan.  It should require at least one capital ship crew to help create a hard cap on the absolute number of these that a vasari rebel player can be able to field in the game.   Requiring capital ship crews would also  increase the cost  of spamming these pseudo titans.

If your team has 5 of these in a 5v5, then they have 5 more titans.

More titans means your team will win, as 2 titans beat 1 titan.  Its really quite simple, and needs an obvious nerf in both the efficacy of vasari starbases and in the amount that these can be spammed.

So for the cost of one constructor, one starbase construction cost, and one starbase upgrade, you will have a starbase capable of walking through the enemy worlds, which can be upgraded as the tactical situation permits.  Imagine how many of these you could spam creating wave after wave of these monsters.  Getting a kostura cannon up and running only exacerbates the imbalance, as you now can send a starbase anywhere in the map anytime you wish.

These unupgraded vasari starbase are effective enough lure to prompt a strong defensive action from an opponent and be used to lure away enemy fleets, giving the vasari rebel player near total control of the most important aspects of the entire match.  As howthe has also said, they are easily retreated from a fight at low health as well, and all you need is a friendly cross map phase node to retreat them to.  No losses, while the vasari rebel starbases are killing entire fleets and slowly choking all worlds with their starbase spam so there is nowhere to go.  This is a hard opponent to 3v1, let alone 1v1.

Its simply intolerable.

I haven't been around for very long with this game, but would like to weigh in on the discussion.  I will say that VR is mostly what I play as single player and LAN with a friend.

I would have to agree that something does need to be done about the VR starbases' ability to phase jump.  I do like/agree with a couple of the suggestions here in putting phase jump as a 3rd level upgrade to phase stabilizer and making it cost cap points (although not fleet).  But there are a couple other things to it that I'd like to suggest:

1. Simply putting phase jump to 3rd tier of phase stabilizer is good in being able to limit its power, but it would still have the ability to stabilize phase space for friendly fleets where ever they may be in the star system.  I think that with this upgrade, phase jumping a SB should kick off the cool down for the stabilize phase space.  After all, the SB is deadly, even with less combat upgrades, but a SB supported by a friendly fleet is deadlier still.  Yes, the VR player can still amass their fleet over with the SB and jump it in too, but at least their opponent would have a better idea as to where to put their counter fleet....
2. While I do like the idea of the phase jumping SBs costing cap points, having them cost it right out-of-box, if you will, is a bit much as it would over nerf the SB and put the VR player in a severe disadvantage in static defense.  Now, maybe what I'm saying here is what all of you meant, but I didn't see anyone clearly state it, so I will: the cap point cost should only apply when the phase jump upgrade is applied to the SB.  This way it does not limit the player from putting SBs in all of their gravity wells like other players can, but it will limit how many jumping SBs they have and, consequently, the number of Capital ships they can field at the same time.  As such, I also feel the cost in cap points should be more than 1 point.  Perhaps on the order of 2-3, as it would still probably be more powerful than a Titan.

Anyways, as I said, I haven't been playing very long, maybe a month, so I don't expect many people to give my words weight, but I just wanted to put my own opinion out there.

This is my point of moving phase jumping star bases back to a defensive structure by allowing them to ONLY jump to where phase nodes exist.

You'll still have the option to attack with a Kostura or leveled Antorak.

Implementing this setup would still be an awesome advantage to a Vasari Rebel player. It would just take a bit more time to setup the infrastructure needed to defend anywhere or attack anywhere.

Considering Vasari players did this with just fleets pre-Rebellion in MP games I don't see any issue with implementing it this way.

All tactics in rebellion are an extension of pre-rebellion concepts.

Limiting jumping of Orkies only to where phase nodes exists results in balance and still maintains an aggressive defensive and offensive stance for Vasari given the right technology build out.

This actually adds tactics and strategy versus the dumb dumb build a starbase and attack everywhere with them that has unbalanced VR to the point where it can't be played online.