Hound

[quote who="shfir" reply="9" id="1993421"]On the one hand, the way the game is programmed each "entity" has four "sides" and each side is equipped with certain weapons. This means that a starbase can only bring 25% of it's weapons to bear on a single target, and in order to get the full damage output of a starbase, the enemy has to be idiotic enough to fully surround it. Instead, I want to see starbases have the ability to bring more (but not all) of their firepower to bear o

All other ships except flak have a researchable upgrade that gives them new abilities. I would like to see Flak get the scouts' mine detector ability as an upgrade.

Another really annoying thing about mines is that when you give your fleet a move order, the ships make huge freaking arcs left and right to turn around, driving right into visible minefields. You simply can't take your fleet close to a minefield and move away without half the fleet happily suiciding. Other than that, the simplest solution to the mine spamming is limiting them to one minefield per ship or squadron. And making TEC minefields cost tactical slots.

Concerning Starbase build times.. In my last game the AI decided to build a Starbase in the middle of a big fight. I thought it was a bad idea and immediately targeted the "construction site" with a Cleansing Brilliance and some 5-6 Destra Crusaders. And 10 seconds later there is a damaged but fully functional Starbase with Shield mitigation firing back at my ships. Seriously now. Can we have the Heavy Construction Frigate not disappear after it starts building so that we can

Final Judgment is indeed bugged - it fires one tiny little meteor that does absolutely nothing to the planet. Meteor Storm is bugged as well - it does no damage to hull after shields are gone. I'm not sure I see the usefulness of a planet bombarding Starbase anyway. They already get Auxiliary Government to prevent enemies from colonizing so there is nothing to bombard unless the Starbase gets destroyed. And attacking with a Starbase is just silly. If you control

Interesting observation. So they probably auto attack according to their shortest range. Or the engagement range is shorter than their weapons range. They should really display as many range circles as they have different range weapons. And auto attack with all weapons that have targets in range. But it sounds like something that will be fixed anyway.

Not only does the Vasari Starbase need a Hold Position toggle but it needs to be the default setting as well. And the Vasari base needs to move really slowly. I don't want to see a stationary freaking base chase ships again. I don't mind it secretly repositioning itself to surprise an incoming fleet but a starbase chasing ships is ridiculous. Can we finally close the can of worms the moving Vasari base opened? Starbases cannot move or Phase jump simply because

I don't mind complete customization but they do look rather imposing for a mere Trade Port. ;) And we already have the civilian structures available. Starbases shouldn't be a replacement for the old structures but something to entrench yourself with.

[quote who="Sole Soul" reply="5" id="1991571"] I want to have a starbase at every planet. I want to put economic modules on them. I want to be able to put a shipyard in a TEC starbase for a decent amount of credits and resources, for instance. I want to be able to have most of my bases be a mild deterrent to enemy forces (in the same way that current defenses are), and support my empire. Then, I want to have one badass base somewhere with every military upgra

[quote]That way even though you may run into a starbase at every planet, most of them will have perhaps one or two upgrades on them, if that...but yes, if a game goes on long enough, which it is my understanding that MP games generally do not, then it could in theory be possible to have every planet fortified with a badass base.[/quote] This is precisely why they need to be increasingly expensive = cost a capital ship crew. What I don't want to

[quote who="Tkins" reply="21" id="1991437"]I really don't think it's necessary to have a Cap slot used. It's going to affect capital ships and it will displace the purpose of starbases. Capital ships are already in an unbalanced state. You get more bang for your buck to use frigates > capital ship (in most cases). Having a Starbase use up cap ship slots means we're only going to see fewer capital ships and fewer starbases. I really don't want a game with 8 captial ships an

[quote]You can have capital ship crew research maxed while at the first fleet capacity level. I've done it. If starbases require a capital ship crew but no fleet capacity, your empire's size still has absolutely no bearing on how many you can support. (Sure, it requires 8 labs, or 32 total logistics slots, but that's doable with only a couple of planets.)[/quote] Since when was choice a bad thing? If you want to build nothing but Starbases with 2 planets it's a losin

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="13" id="1991322"] As for the "1 per grav well", that can be explained much easier than any other limit in game terms so it can make sense: starbases are big. Real big. They need lots and lots of people manning them. Any particular colony may only be able to spare enough people to man one base in its orbit. But how do you explain "x" number of crews max, regardless of the size of your empire? [/quote] Following the logic that the crew come

Using cap ship slots for Starbases is not an arbitrary limit and it makes sense to me. You have a certain amount of crews trained and you have to decide how to distribute them. One Starbase per planet is comparable to allowing only one Frigate factory per planet, arbitrary. I mentioned it in my earlier post that the amount of capital crew slots should probably be increased.

Everything else has limits how much you can build / maintain. It would be illogical if Starbases had no limits other than 1 per location which feels arbitrary compared to fleet supply / capital / tactical / logistical slots. And if someone wants to build 4 Starbases in the same grav well, let them. As long as they have available crew slots

I tend to agree that Starbases should cost something to maintain. There should be some consideration where and how many to build in total. Since they are built for military purposes or for a military application of a civilian tech I would say they should indeed cost capital ship slots. Probably not fleet supply since they are immobile and thus easier to resupply. But the crew they need should be similar to a capital ship. A Starbase, even if only upgraded

Doubling the amount of squadrons you get with the Starbase hangar bay upgrade sounds about right. 4 squadrons would be on par with the other Starbase upgrades. The cost per squadron should be higher than building separate hangar bays of course.

Another thing.. a planet bombardment ability on a Starbase is utterly useless. The current "insta-building a massive starbase before your enemy knows what's going on in his system" aside, if you are able to construct a Starbase in an enemy grav well it means you already have military supremacy there. Which means your caps and siege frigates can bombard the planet at will. I hope the planetary bombardment ability of the Transcencia gets turned into something more useful such as

edited original post for fine tuning the suggestion

I don't mind Vasari Starbases phase jumping as long as they cost 150 fleet supply and 3 capital ship slots and move at the speed of 200. Perhaps it would be simpler to give the Ruiner an anti structure weapon.

* Instead of individual mines, place them as mine field units. This should ease the intense micro associated with mines now. Destroy mines individually though. * Mine fields built in controlled grav wells should automatically regenerate over time if some of the mines detonate * Mine fields built in grav wells should cost tactical slots and mine fields built anywhere by ships should cost fleet supply. * Vasari Ruiner: capable of building a single mine field unit at a ti

[quote who="Cataclysm2000" reply="17" id="1989205"]I think the general consensus here is 1) Starbases need more range 2) Starbases should move 3) Starbases should have built-in flak 4) Starbases should have more squads 5) Vas starbases should be able to be deconstructed and reconstructed OR Vas should get a torpedo cruiser. 6) Players need a reason to fight starbases. They need to provide some sort of heavy obstacle for enemies.[/quote] That's pret

Ok perhaps if Starbases get super long range weapons and abilities to actually be able to defend planets independently, perhaps there is a chance that gimping your fleet with ships like that could be a viable strategy in the future. But only if Starbases become more active and can't just be ignored like they are now.

Wasn't Orbital Commerce a pre-req for the Starbase Trading tech? I was playing TEC and seem to remember it was. Anyway I'd prefer you could only research one military tech and one civilian tech at a time and the new defense techs would surely fit in the military tree.

Bombers can destroy structures but they can also destroy ships. I don't see much future for anti-structure frigates that use up fleet supply but can't fight other ships. Unless Starbases get flak guns to wipe out bombers with which they should.