Starbases STACK forever!?!? I think that should be fixed.

Yeah or something... it's seriously unbalancing in that it offers basically on sure way to win- cheap constructors building mega bases... Why bother with a dreadnought?

~SDC~

Dreadnoughts can attack, and M-point for M-point can completely thrash starbases... or better still, drag someone else into your war and let *them* nuke the starbases (naturally, make a point of being first on the scene with a constructor to claim the newly-vacated resource )

Remember, you don't have to attack SBs at all (Terror Stars notwithstanding)... they can't stop you from invading

~SDC~

Before saying that they're unbalanced try winning the game at a higher AI level with that strategy and see what happens to you.

This feature wasn't put in haphardzardly.

~SDC~

Well, the anti-matter missiles (ATT:100) can help situations like this, even with 1 hp. Dunno what their range is: haven't yet fired one. :notsure:

BRAD: The AI at higher levels will stop me from building Bases in my *own* sectors preemptively? By the time the second base is up granting +300% production and +8 a/d, etc.. wouldn't it be a little too late to go trying to attack my ships in that sector with his unsupported ships- his economy better be about 5x mine.

Ok, I'll trust you're right at higher AI levels... (glad you're giving us all a year's learning curve to support and change the game!) but I wish the beta testers had discussed more about this earlier as a strategy- never saw anyone really posting about it, but I may have missed that. I'd like to know how it plays out at high AI. I hope the AI does this occasionaly *if* it's going to stay in the game.

CATELEPTIC:
With the DEF bonuses orbiting ships get and 3 SB's in a sector granting +10 DEF/ATT, etc... you BETTER take out the SB's before you go after the defending ships in my sectors... that's what I was concerned about, not people attacking the SB's, but having no way to defeat them with their supported ships nearby.

But as I wrote above, maybe the stonrger AI's have some tricks up their sleeves, we'll see.

~SDC~

I don't think it's just that the AI will strike at you but that it will be much harder to devote those same resources to building all those constructor ships in the first place!

I find constructor ships very cheap to build by midgame. usually my production planet is churning them out in about 2 turns, that's nothing. Maybe it's jsut different ways of looking at the strategies... I'll up the AI a notch and see what goes on.

~SDC~

Even at "sub-normal" levels, you'd better be protecting those starbases if you're at war and would like to keep control of them. The AI can - and will - go after them if it gets the chance. Bye bye starbases. Hello leveled up enemy AI ships on your doorstep.

~SDC~

This is an interesting thread -- I just finished a game (gigantic galaxy, Normal intelligence for all) where I built perfectionist starbases (every possible upgrade), and I think it was a mistake on my part. The AI wasn't smart enough to take advantage of it, but I think it was a mistake nonetheless.

There are three basic lines of upgrade with starbases -- since each of them requires separate investment, it's inappropriate to lump them all together too much. Yeah, a fully tricked-out base is one of the most valuable things in the game, but it's one of the most expensive, too. How much is too much to sink into a starbase? Here are the upgrade lines:

1. Mining/Production/Social/Economic upgrades. Some of these are extremely valuable, and can only be had by building a starbase -- so, this line is worth investment, and woe to the AI if it doesn't commit that. But let's suppose that while I do this, it does the same, or conquers planets while I'm building, and ends up with production capacity to match mine. Now what?

2. Starbase defense upgrades. Once you've sunk a fortune into upgrades of type 1, it's silly not to invest in these, right? After playing with them, I'm not sure. Consider the case where Dreadnoughts are up and running, but Avatar tech hasn't been discovered yet. To fully upgrade a starbase's defenses will cost 150 per constructor times 5 constructors, or 750 for a defensive bonus of +15. For that my opponent could buy two Dreadnoughts, or 2.5 Antimatter Missiles. That's enough to smash the starbase. But what if the starbase is protected by a fleet? That brings us to

3. Ship-aiding upgrades. These _can_ be worth the expense, but won't necessarily be. The statement that someone who attacks a heavily defended system needs to kill the starbase first is correct, so let's suppose that's what he tries to do. Let's imagine I have a defending system where my three starbases have all the attack and defense point upgrades, cost of (3 bases x 8 improvements x 150 bc) = 3600 bc for +36 attack, +3 defense to a fleet of N dreadnaughts providing orbital defense. My opponent pulls up just outside this sector with a fleet of N dreadnoughts plus twelve Antimatter Missiles... which cost the defender as much as my starbases. At this point I have three choices. The first is to venture out of the sector and attack the enemy, losing all the advantages provided by the starbases and planetary defenses and putting myself at a numerical disadvantage. The second is to do nothing, in which case I'll lose the starbases to the first dreadnoughts that attacks them. Of course, maybe my starbases have +15 defenses... but now, to be fair, the enemy has 7 extra missiles, and the starbases are just as doomed as before. Now, the third choice, and the only viable one, would be to pull several ships off the planets and park them on the starbases. Now the attacker in turn has two options: switch tactics and look to invading one of my planets (with their reduced orbital fleets), or keep the dreadnoughts back and missile the starbase defenders. (As starbase-to-ship defense bonuses are pretty miniscule compared to attack bonuses, the ships won't be safe from this.)

Okay, that's my analysis. Clearly the stacking starbases strategy can be pretty darn powerful, but unless I'm missing something, it's not unbalancingly so against a sufficiently clever opponent. Does the high-level AI qualify? I haven't tried it yet, but I'm not anxious to, either....

~SDC~

'+300 to productions'

There is a point of diminishing returns on production bonuses, based on the individual planet's class.

Most of the others aren't as big of a bonus as they seem, with the exception of the attack bonuses. +500% economy is still usually only about 150bc/turn, before taking into account graft/crime, if applicable.

~SDC~

First and main thing that annoys me with SB is that they give sector wide bonuses and cost NO maintenance, where the smallest Social Project have maintenance and usually only apply to the planet...

Without much experience it seems MUCH more useful to churn Constructors and build gazillions of SB than to invest in Social projects... Am I wrong ?

Well, I think a +3 for a mfg center is +3 points, absolute increase. A +5% for a starbase upgrade is +1 point absolute for a planet which already has production 20. In other words, the social projects give a larger absolute increase, without that the increase from starbases will be less useful even if stacked.

Perhaps there should be some upkeep cost for starbases though...

"I find constructor ships very cheap to build by midgame. usually my production planet is churning them out in about 2 turns, that's nothing."

Oh, I do, too. Problem is, you won't make it to mid-game without strong resistance from the AI! This means your money will be tied up in getting ready for heavy battles, etc.

Now, if you are playing it with 4 Good v 2 Evil and using partners in war, then it's considerably easier. Try setting 3 to Pure-Evil, 2 to Good ... then play as a Good civ yourself. See what happens!

Oh, set all AIs to Intelligent, this should give the difficulty of 'Painful'

Yin,

Yeah, I see your point- I guess it's just a matter of taste here, where I don't really like the whole map littered with SB's... I thought an SB would be a more singular thing, occuring more rarely than I'm finding them occur.

~SDC~

yeah, this could get kinda silly and it does devalue "production" social projects, especially since AFAIK starbase improvements give 50% of their bonus for "free", while social improvements only give 33% for "free".

BUT there are only a handful of "production" social projects ( man center, fusion plant, anti-matter, some unique ones ). other social projects are still useful. there is also a production "cap" of 10 X planet rating, which you'll probably hit after building a few industrial SBs.

has anyone built a dozen trading posts in a sector and gotten 1000s in trade?

cheers

h

"Yeah, I see your point- I guess it's just a matter of taste here, where I don't really like the whole map littered with SB's... I thought an SB would be a more singular thing, occuring more rarely than I'm finding them occur."

I think on higher levels you will make a few key starbases, pump them up to maximum value (the values get better as you build a single base rather than a bunch of undeveloped ones), then defend them for your life!

You might recall in Brad's description of one of his games that he was in bad shape and decided to gamble an all-out attack on an enemy starbase--which turned the entire game around.

People (including me) were confused at that point why this would be. Well, now you know: On higher levels, a well-developed starbase can hold enough percentage boosts to have a serious impact on your overall abilities...

I'm pretty sure the trade ones only work while the trading ship is in that particular sector. I had over half a dozen of them near my homeworld, and was seeing huge trade on some routes, and comparitively small amounts on others, at varying times.

It could have been some other factor though, such as the natural variation in trade value as the ships move, although that seems less likely to me given the magnatude of the change.