I can't stress enough how much I think a phase-jumping starbase is a bad idea.

The whole concept of a starbase is that it's supposed to be a stationary, immobile weapons platform that is capable of defending a specific location from attacking enemies. If it can go and attack the enemy in their home systems, that makes it some sort of Death Star, and it's not a Death Star ... it's a starbase. Even mobility within a system doesn't strike me as a good idea ... it strongly overpowers that race's starbase.

And they are supposed to be a defensive structure, not an offensive technique.

I once dropped a starbase-constructor into an enemy gravity well and started construction immediately. It completely finished construction before the enemy defenders arrived to attack it, and a quick succession of defense upgrades and weapon upgrades meant it completely destroyed the enemy defenders without any kind of support from my fleet without ever being in danger of destruction. And the defending fleet had about three dozen frigates and two capital ships.

This doesn't seem right - starbases (other than the Vasari Death Star) are useless in defense because an attacker can simply avoid them and destroy their planet without engaging the starbase. In an assault, however, the enemy will always immediately move to attack the starbase, and it's lack of mobility doesn't matter because the enemy will move into range of it.

I disagree. A mobile starbase  is kinda necessary expecially if there is a limit to how many you can construct. What has to happen is figuring our a way  that will not make the starbase completely powerful.

My suggestion is that a player should have the ability to disassemble his starbase and place it on a transport ship that is capible of moving and phasing. Then once that transport finds a suitable place to stop, it can reassemble the starbase in that area.  But it takes twice as long to reassemble, because this new starbase comes with all the upgrades it has before disassembly, and no loss of recources in reassembling it ect.  

The transport ship is weaponless, and if it's destroyed, so is your starbase. Thus moving your leveled up starbase becomes a major risk. And limits your ability of imposing a starbase in an enemy system, since it suddenly becomes a huge target.

I disagree, too. The Vasari one should be able to jump. The other two races both have anti-starbase ships. The Vasari's anti-starbase ship is their starbase. The first weapon upgrade is an anti-structure weapon. But you have to upgrade the SB to make it an anti-starbase weapon. The starbase you are attacking is probably already upgraded, and will beat your un-upgraded one everytime. If you let the Vasari SB phase jump, it can actually perform the role of "starbase killer" because you can build it in your own gravity well and upgrade it without threat of destruction.

And I belive that one of the Fraisers (Blair I think) said a while back that the Vasari SB would "put the Death Star to shame" As it is, even if you took away the Death Star's superlaser, it would win every time. The starbases need a serious buff to even compare to the Death Star.

Souped up starbases, by all means. They're seriously underpowered, especially considering how much fuss was made over them originally. However I don't think you could make a phase-jumping starbase that wasn't a game-breaker. If you can take one "fully" upgraded starbase and send it attacking system after system, its rediculously overpowered. You'd have to run it by "packing" it into a transport, and "unpacking" in the second system. You'd want to make the "pack/unpack" time dependent on the number of total upgrades. You'd have to make some way for the game to recognize if there was already a starbase in the gravity well and not allow "unpacking" if there was already a functioning starbase or one in production/"unpacking".

All in all, I don't think it really makes sense. It almost seems like souping up the starbases for the sake of souping up the starbases. We all know they're kinda underpowered and under-ranged right now, but this seems too much like making them a be-all, end-all because they're new and we like them. I want them to be cool and interesting and useful, but not overpowered.

A better and easier solution is to simply give the Vasari an anti-SB cruiser in addition to the ruiner it wouldn't really unbalance the game and then the Vasari SB upgrade would just prevent other ppl from establishing offensive SB's

judging from that one text description of anti structure damage that the vasari sb is an offesnive anti SB SB is  bit weak. surely, the devs wouldnt think that every time a vasari player wants to a attack a more heavily armed enemy SB they jump in a migrator, construct a base, fully upgrade it and then have an escorting fleet also. if they would want this kind of pattern as a standard tactic, they would have give the phase jump ability already.

and I just think it is a bad idea, SB are more or less stationary, defensive units that can be used offensively to a certain degree, but only with planning and precision. giving the vasari one phase jump would make it just a stronger capship, no more and that sucks.  the only thing I heard and that could be some kind of middle ground is if it is not a normal phase jumping capability. more like requiring an upgrade and insane amounts of am, so that it can only perform a phase jump ever 5 - 10 minutes. that way it does not behave like a ship anymore, there is an opportunity cost to having the capbility, it requires quite a bit of planning and there is no easy way out should you miscalculate in the attack. once you do jump to the enemy, the long cooldown means you will be stuck there for some time and have to fight it out. I mean pjing SBs do make kind of sense for a race that has been on the run thousands of years, have crossed vast distances and even house part of the population there. conceptually, they remind me a bit of the vong worldships of the late star wars books (however good or bad those were).

so, the vasari don't have a dedicated defense buster. well, the assailants did a nice job beforehand. and upgrade to do extra structure dmg and a bit more range would also do the job I figure. that's also diversity and easier to implement than a whole new unit.

I think the thing is balancing.  I believe the reason the starbases are so weak currently is that you can have 1 per system.  Imagine if the starbases covered 50 % of a grav well and and were far more powerful but you were limited to only building  one for every 5 planets you owned to make a true central spoke for a sub grouping of planets.  Currently starbases show up in every system.  Make starbases have their own crew chain like with capital ships but make them actually shell out damage deserving of the 17,000 credits it costs to upgrade the base.

Star bases do need a range increase, but no way in hell I will support a phase capable star base. As I said, worse then a super capital ship. And how large would this transport frigate be? Star bases are huge, it would be larger then most capital ships.

Why should they limit the number of star bases? They are supposed to stop defenses cold, not allow the usual tactic of launching a raiding fleet and rampaging through the enemies weakly defended core worlds and production centers. That was the main tactic in the first Sins, smash the enemies fleet, and rape his worlds before he could build back up. The star base and mines were made to stop that.

I like the idea of alowing more than 1 sb but the vasari will be extremely hard to beat if 2 sb could gang up on your fleet. I dont know how you could defeat them. As far as the others it could work if the long range weapons were extened to 50% of grav well. Then you will be able to cover entire grav well. I think 2 should be the limit and prolly for only planets.

Well what else does it have that anti-structure weapon for? If you only use starbases for defence, then the only buildings you'll ever get to use that on are enemy starbases that they build in your gravity well. If you use your SBs for offence, then you might actually get to use that anti-structure weapon on structures. But there is a very good chance that whatever planet you are attacking has an opposing SB.

I think that you could limit the phase jumping to make it a little more managable. Only let it move one planet away from one of yours. Then you can't just use one to go on a massive killing spree, at least not with out colonizing all of the planets you destroy. And don't let them use phase stabalizers. Then you can't use them for quick renforcements, and you can't use them in combination with the Kostura cannon to attack anywhere.

OK, after reading everyone's great suggestions and observations up to this point, I'd like to offer my revised views:

TEC:  Purely defensive starbase that fits with the TEC backstory of containing the Vasari and Advent advances.  More range for all of its weapons.  Cannot move.  With an upgradeslot, allow long range missiles to be fired at anything in the grav well.  This allows the starbase to harrass any force attempting to bypass the base.  Slightly increased number of strikecraft allowed.

Vasari:  Defensive starbase that carries the largest remnants of Vasari society and can, as needed, phase jump.  Phase jumping requires multiple upgrades on the starbase and the phase stabilizer structure research.  Phase jumping consumes, in spite of other upgrades and artifacts, almost all of the antimatter stored on the base, due to its size.  It also requires a cooldown in addition to the large antimatter requirement.  It also travels much more slowly through phase space, due to its enormus size.  Allowing them to use phase gates requires more playtesting. 

The base has the least amount of strikecraft available, requiring it to have a supporting fleet, or else it'll get torn apart by more numerous TEC and Advent strikecraft. Make more of its weapons primarily anti-structure(with an ability that would be very effective versus starbases) and reduce the range of  anti-ship weapons, ensuring that it must get up close to defensive ships to deal with them, pulling it into the range of defenses. 

Basically, on its own, it can handle a purely structurally fortified planet.  But if that planet has even small defensive fleet with carriers, it's going to get torn up.

Advent:  I still want to play with them some more.  They should, though, they should get a lot more strike craft.  Their medium range beam weapons should be very powerful, however they should have problems with ships very far away and right up close.  I think they should be able to move very slowly within a gravity well, but not able to phase jump.

In addition, all relevant tech tree weapon/shield/antimatter upgrades should apply to starbases, if they don't already.  Also, I'd like to see the promised but undelivered effects for having starbases in UCGWs.

I'd also love to see a dev pop in and give us some of their thoughts, just so we don't waste time arguing points that they may have already sealed up.

Agreed about wanting some dev input. I'll come up with some sort of consolidated summation tomorrow, tonight I'm decorating a tree and wrapping presents.

If anyone knows a dev or how to get in contact with one, please do so and see if we can get some real dialogue with the people working on this thing.

I think they should have a researchable quantit (just like Capital Ship limits), they should cost more, take longer to build, be immobile (seriously the Vasari one looks stupid moving) have about twice the hitpoints and triple their current range, as well as more researchable capabilities.

Right now they're effectively useless.

There's simply no compelling reason to build them or attack them if the current planet isnt' your target, you can just go right by. Taking them out isn't difficult either.

Hey i was reading some other threads and found an idea about starbases that i really liked posted by Daishzen

So my suggestion for Sins is to add the original phase disruptors ability to the starbases with a few minor changes.  And yes I know we went through this several times in SOASE beta.  The changes to the ability would be as follows:

1.  preventing phase jumps would be a researchable, upgradeable ability for starases

2. the ability would have a per second/minute antimatter cost.

          This would prevent a lone starbase from stopping a fleet in its tracks permanently and allow the possibility of retreat, albeit a retreat that would probably cost a lot for the attacker.

 he also suggested a range increase  

i think that this is a great idea for the starbase balance issue

I thought I was the only one who thinks starbases moving silly.......In Starbase control room, navigator uses 1 giant eight way joystick point.... towards.... enemy ........forever.

I think starbases show orbit the planet and have a range just where the enemy ships parks for bombardment. the star base sol purpose should be to protect the planet. The other structures should have there own defences. the mines should only be placed between the planets well and outer jump point. Hows this for balance ?

Well, part of the problem with using starbases for phase lane defense is the fact that the lane is so wide you can't cover the whole thing with one starbase. In fact, I discovered that if you park a starbase in the middle of a phase lane, enemies can phase jump in on either side of it at the same time, and it can't shoot at either. They need to have enough range to defend at least one lane if you're going to limit them to one each.

Seeing as how this seems to be most active "Starbase" post:

All your base are belong to us!

This does seems a bit more senseable to me any one else?

Edit: with a little more thought into this perhaps have two kinds of starbases, these more powerfull hubs as a sorta mid to late game defense super weapon with the current starbases being more or less that same since to me they seem more like outposts then real star bases. Hey the the more limited powerful ones could even bebuilt from the outposts with a ablity/upgrade.

Also as to the vasari phaseing why not allow them to have only one at a time with an upgrade for that. that way both camps are happy theres a phaseing base but its not an uber death fleet of stations trick

a contribution to the range issue:

some games ago, I took some serious beating from ai PJIs and decided to try them out. now, what suprised me most was the massive range of these things, they have like 31.500 range. enough to cover a grav well to about 70%, even more for smaller ones. so, to get a bit of perspective, when you do a game where you want to play around with the new things, maybe take the time to research them and build one of them just to see what a range of 30.000 + looks like.

now, based on that I'd say the absolute maximum range of SBs should be lower, but not horribly much so, IF that is the only thing that changes. there are other ways to stop the bypassing (or at least making it more difficult), but I'd say if the range, and nothing else, changes, then the following would be good.

20.000 - 25.000 long range weapons, thus only a portion of its firepower has the massive range and can truly harass ships almost everywhere in the grav well.

~ 15.000 mid range weapons. still long range, but can be avoided without dramatic effort.

less than 5.000 - 10.000: close range weapons. those things should really just kick in for closer bypassers or against a force that decides to directly assault a SB.

the anti structure units (ogrev, adjunctator) should outrange mid-, but not long range weapons. why? well, a SB in its full military equipment is a big investment and not even a direct counter should be able to take it down without any losses whatsoever. if you look at the units' damage, they'll probably finish it off without too much losses if only a third of the SB's firepower is directed at it.

once again, this is only about the range issue and if it is thus changed, of course there should be a rise in cost to accomodate for the increase in usefulness. if other things are used, such as general moving SBs, range increases via buiable upgrades, etc., then the increases do not and probably should not be as dramatic. maybe I'm even all wrong, but with what I suggested, I'd say we could have a structure that can guard an area on its own against modest resistance without becoming utterly unbypassable and indestructable. in other words, a struture that fullfills a clear purpose and is useful in a different way than just a bunch of turrets.

I generally agree with your point, Shadowhal.  But I think the Ogrevs, Adjunctators, and the Vasari's anti-structure ability should be out-ranging SBs' main long range defenses.  After all, strikecraft can still reach the entire gav well, and the strike craft based in the SB and the hangars in the grav well should be enough to soften the direct counter, not to mention the likely presence of a few defensive ships.

I thought that would produce discussion. nevertheless, if you think about it, the long range dmg is in the range of 10 lrms, which is hardly a horribly large number. and if you look at much dmg the structure busters do, how fast the kill stuff, I just don't think it would be such an extreme issue. it just feels wrong to be able to take down a massive starbase basically unmolested. and c'mon, strke craft? any decent player will bring some anti squad capacity with him, I rarely see defensive squads do any damage in any kind of serious assault. they help, but the don't really prevent anything.

No Dev's thoughts posted yet?

Personally i think the range of the starbase is fine....I guess it depends on what u use them for...for the most part i use them to protect my structures around a planet...Boost trade and culture...And add fighters without using a tactical slot on my planet...For these things i think star bases are just fine...What else would u use them for...U cant have one structure hold off a fleet...As far as someone skirting around ur defenses...Its space, and this is what happens in space..In fact, this is why they call it space, cuz there is a lot of it...It is not feasable to b able to stop someone  completly from cruising past a planet in space.

They definitely need more range, but not have the ability to move (unless you are playing the Vas).  The whole point is to instill defensive tactics.

In a MP game the other, and Advnet player had his SB right in the middle of the Grav well by his planet.  Not much strat there.  You should place it by the phase lanes that are connected to the rest of your planetary system.  With an increased range and strategic placement...the Advent SB can be detrimental to any fleet that is trying to fly past it and hit the phase lane.

Add with it a structure to slow down enemy pahse jumps and put some def turrets and a couple of hangar bays as well out towrds the center of the well and an attacking fleet is gonna be shredded to pieces by the time they are able to phase out.

Think more along the lines of using some def strats and less along the lines of," the computer should do everything for me once I build the SB."  There still needs to be some tactics and strats involved in the game.  Come on peeps...be more innovative.