improvements to starbase upgrades?

I think starbases need a complete overhaul from the what they had in GC2.

Starbases do stack in galciv2. I think it stopped at a certain point, though. Never needed to test it out.

Maybe have 'em act as a production outpost like in SoSE. Make 'em much more expensive and multi-useful as a result. I dunno.

Honestly, the only thing that really bothered me with 'em was the amount the AI's would create and where they were placed.

How so?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

This topic does interest me greatly. Sec digging up other 4Xs station models... 

The issue for me was simply the amount of micro-management...SBs were tedious and UP in the late game (at least militarily), making it more effort than it was worth...an overhaul may be necessary, but even a simple reduction in the total number of weapon and defense upgrades and sensor upgrades would make a huge difference....

Maybe the option to "privatize" them so that the upgrades are handled automatically, and you just pay a maintenance fee...?

I'm not game dev, but I'd start with putting starbases in the shipyard as their own hull type that can't mount engines, but can mount some components that ships can't. (Economic components and the like.) You would still build them from constructor ships. I don't think you need to have the ships destroyed in the process (maybe have some kind of supply mechanic?), but now the bases take more then one turn to set up. The time would depend on the number of constructor components in your fleet and how expensive the base is. Upgrading I am unsure about. It might be unbalanced to let a base upgrade itself, but having to send out a constructor to upgrade a base might be annoying.

I'm also musing that you could make constructors more like worker units from civilization. Could that work? Like have them just fly around setting up space mines on asteroids and navigation nodes as space roads. No star bases at all just different tile upgrades.

Sounds like Space Empires, nomotog.  They had ship-based 'construction' components, and starbases were just ship types that couldn't mount engines (and had some base-specific bonuses like better attack)

Ok lets get this ball rolling. Will be updating. 

Constructors- They don't get used on on building Stations, but they have a few turns of cooldown ie resupply and get ready for the next project. You can link constructors to stations. Stations auto upgrade their stats over time slowly and they will need constructors only to make this process go faster and to upgrade to the next level. (will spill more details below)

Station types- 

Military- (this has a 3-5 levels of size). early on few weapons, light repair ability, small hangar/warehouses ie range support for the empire and small sensors. Later on more weapons become available, better sensor package, more repair, they can start buffing nearby fleets, more armor, improves planetary ship production capability, they can increase fleet size of near by fleets, they can manage wormholes and make them stable (think Babylon 5), high end upgrades can protect 1-3 planets near them from invasion so you have to go through the military station first, with better sensor pages they can reveal hidden goodies and better protection against randoms/ random events. Can be built anywhere.

Mining- Only one level. Auto upgrades with better mining, small support range bonus, small bonuses to getting worlds up and running, habitat modules  and light sensor package. No weapons ie civilian station it doesn't want the enemies attention. Can only be built in your space.

Diplomatic/Influence- (3 Levels) They can help spread your influence, build embassies for certain empire to establish relationships and help with espionage, tapping into galactic info nets, small econ/trade bonuses, small sensor package, small support range bonus, helps bring aliens to your worlds ie habitat modules, and flipping enemy worlds to your side. No weapons ie civilian station it doesn't want the enemies attention. Buildable anywhere.

Trade- (3 Levels) They support getting worlds up and running, boost econ and trade, more trade routes, placing where other empires trade routes are coming through relations bonus, social production bonuses, small sensor package, small support range bonus, small morale bonus ie investing in the empire, and habitat modules. No weapons ie civilian station it doesn't want the enemies attention. Only buildable in your space.

Good for now.

Yep. I was thinking of Space empires when I wrote that. (I wish SE was as playable as GC is.) I believe other games have done it in similar ways though.

Starbases in GalCiv 2 suffered from neglect as the game went through patches and expansions. Here are those I can think of at the moment.

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The combat engine changed from Dread Lords to Dark Avatar. In DL, ships only got 1 attack per turn and did not weaken defenses. In DA, ships could get multiple attacks per turn and could weaken defenses. Starbases got none of that. Consequentially, starbase defenses effectively got weaker as enemy ships could weaken starbase defenses so damage could be done in DA where it couldn't be done in DL. Likewise, starbases didn't get the ability to attack multiple ships per turn, meaning they could only kill at most 1 ship per turn. As such, an attacking fleet of ships was no easier to destroy (and more dangerous as the ability to weaken defenses increases the danger of having combat last multiple turns).

Ships hull sizes got bigger from Dread Lords to Dark Avatar. The bigger hulls may have required more logistics points to put it in a fleet, but they got more room to mount stuff, and they got more hit points. Consequentially, ships could attack starbases with more hit points, attack, and defenses then they ever did before. In fact, if you had the technologies, you could build a huge hull that could out class any starbase.

Starbases did not get much in terms of new gear. Aside from sensor modules, the starbase repair kit, and a bunch of civ specific modules in Twilight, they didn't really get anything new.

Needed fleet support. There were too many starbase modules to install on a starbases to bring its defenses fully online. Consequentially, it was more prudent to defend a starbase with a fleet of ships than it was to use constructors to upgrade a starbase.

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The only advantage I know of that starbase defenses had was, they could be researched far quicker than ship weapons, ship defenses, and ship hull sizes. That meant that you could design a fortresses of a starbase before the other civilizations could design ships powerful enough, and fleets large enough to damage and destroy them. This advantage of course depended on the tech research rate of other civilizations and your ability to produce constructors. If the enemy was too fast and you were too slow, then this advantage was quickly lost.

As for ideas:

Because I would argue that starbases have limitations that didn't get addressed as GalCiv 2 was developed, and that starbases had limited ability to be customized, I would argue that maybe you should be allowed to design your own starbases as though they were ships. When you design a starbase, you get to choose if it used military starbase modules, influence starbase modules, starbase defense modules (or ship weapons and defenses), etc. You get to determine the amount of stuff and what kind of stuff you get to put on your starbase.

Maybe when building a starbase in space, you build up the starbase in steps. The design template determines the order that the modules are installed and so forth (so you don't need to manage it). You would only need to send the constructors its way. Maybe you could also override the order when it matters so you could prioritize the development of defenses in one situation, or mining modules in another.

Maybe starbases should have a flexible size. In other words, you could increase the size of the starbase later when it suits you (and requires constructors to add modules that increases the size). More size increases hits points and room for modules, but might require technologies to do that and may increase the maintenance costs of the starbase.

Can join fleets to for protection. The fleets protect the starbase, and it does what it does. Since I suggested it could use starship modules, maybe it could use military starbase modules and Atlas modules to boost the combat effectiveness of the defensive fleet. Likewise, if you use flexible size like I suggested above, maybe the increased size increases the logistic demands the starbase has.

New module types. Maybe a habitation module which could provide a tax base. A starbase factory module to build ships (worry about how that would work later). Starbase research modules? Maybe with enough modules (and enough types), your starbase will still count as a planet when determining when your (or another) civilization is defeated.

Store excess constructors? Sometimes you can't install another module, but you see yourself getting access to new starbase modules in the next 10 to 20 turns (or something), so you want to keep a few extra constructors nearby for later. Instead of leaving them vulnerable in open space, you could instead store them (or just their materials) for later. Once you have the new technologies, you then could use the stored constructors to upgrade. This way you can avoid losing constructors (when they otherwise would be lost because they were nearby and unprotected).

Super starbases as a planetary ring?

That would be some sort o' super defense for the planet, too.

Though I would think building something like that would really detract from fleet resources and leave ya fairly vulnerable to someone else that's fleetin' up.

I'm hoping starbases are just really big ship hulls that you design in the ship designer and can get unique looks for.  That would make more more emotionally invested in a particular starbase.  Over time, you should be able to research larger and larger starbase hulls.

Some reduction in the "constructor spam" would be useful.  Starbases need to be functional quickly, but also upgradeable.  I think the easiest way to deal with that might be to:

- Select station, go into shipyard designer

- Select additional modules to be added and get a time estimate

- You can either manually build and send constructors, or constructors on "auto" will go and upgrade a station that has pending upgrades.

Basically, once you say "I want X, Y and Z" to be added to this starbase, you should not be interrupted every turn by yet another constructor prompting you for "do you want to upgrade?" and having to remember what module you wanted to add to which starbase.  By having a "build queue" attached to the starbase itself, I just have to keep it supplied with constructors.  It also gives me a better way to remove elements (which should also require constructors) and then queue up new elements.

I'd spend hours watching hundreds of constructors inch across the map to the rally point and micro-managing updates to dozens of starbases. It was tedious for certain. I always wondered why in the GalCiv universe a construction ship was entirely consumed by the mere act of working on a starbase. You might think it would continue to exist, building the modules up over time. 

Maybe the supplies on it are depleted or something. I'm okay with that for initial construction, kind of like how colony ships are consumed to take a planet.

But the upgrade thing was super annoying. Once it's established the Starbase should be able to queue its own upgrades, possibly disabling (or reducing) it's normal abilities while the upgrades are building. That alone would dramatically reduce the micro factor. You could give the base a part capacity like any other ship, and give it some custom parts for its various functions.

I do hope that all the types make a return, I really liked having the variety of Starbases.

Agreed on the tedium as well as the multiple types of starbases. Would ideally like more. Unarmed sensor outposts? Quasi-colony starbases that could produce things on their own? Research labs?

When I think of the micromanaged upgrades and whatnot, I keep thinking that in a fictional universe like this there would be private contractors and other private industries that would be available for construction work. Are we saying that only the central government can build things and only after building a ship who's only purpose is a single-use mission during which it is consumed? Not very advanced. Presumably there IS some kind of private sector in this universe that could be modeled or simulated or included. Perhaps to help build out starbases..

So do I.

However, what I hope even more is, that the AI will be able to make use of all the starbase modules this time around. In GalCiv 2, it couldn't use some of the modules. Either partially (only rarely used culture modules) or at all (Warp Disruptor, Sensors, Terror Stars). The 100-modules-limit was also pretty bad for the AI, but I doubt this is going to return in the new game engine.

There was an auto-upgrade feature in later versions of GC2, however the module prioirty list didn't persist on reloading.  If you didn't want a particular module to be built there was no way to uncheck it.

Basically there needed to be a Starbases governor.

Because it's literally a bundle of construction materials with a hyperdrive. :p

I had a list for starbases on the GCII forums

some of the ideas included

partial build ques- a constructor was necessary for Battle Stations I but BS II-V could be upgraded by the starbase taking a portion of nearby trade routes/planetary production value

some form of ranged attack - what good was investing in an all powerful starbase if I just ignored it

some form of barrier - if i go to war with a race my controlled starbases should be able to block ships of the race im at war with from traveling past them, exceptions for stealthy/fast/powerful fleets. this ties in with the ranged attack a ship could skirt the edges of my AOE as well

AOE growth- the starbases area of effect should not jump to max. in GCII i think the radius of the AOE was 8 it should start at 0 and work itself up to 8 or whatever as you add or upgrade key modules

I hope whatever they do it does minimize the need for constructor spam as that did get tiresome having to constantly manage constructors. I don't mind the use of a constructor ship to initially construct the starbase like in the old games, but I wish you could just simply order upgrades directly at the station by paying credits and waiting for enough turns to pass for the upgrade to be complete rather than needing to constantly micromanage constructor ships to go to your various stations to perform upgrades.

One solution would be to have an intermediary currency for starbase upgrades.  You can have colonies produce "starbase points", which you can then consume wherever you want to upgrade an existing starbase.  The initial construction would require a constructor module, but after that we can just assume we're spending the "starbase points" to hire private contractors to procure materials and execute upgrades.

You could also use this currency for outposts on moons, gas giants, asteroid belts, Oort clouds, etc.

An update to star bases does sound good, but I would want it to retain its believability. Starbases that auto-update sounds too much like magic to me. Perhaps if there was a star system with resources of building materials that could be mined for the updates to a nearby starbase would be good, but please do not make it so unexplainable that it becomes unbelievable.

Also, if you are going to make constructors re-usable, anything short of them going to a nearby planet or building materials resource (as above) would also be unbelievable.

PS: I was very good at constructor spam, and I liked it.