How is this balanced?

That's the appeal of Starbases; they're essentially fortifications that can be placed anywhere. And building in an enemy GW actually takes quite a bit longer. It's actually a favored Vasari strategy to rush enemy planets with their Orkulus.

Just give it another chance, and the Starbases really do add an enormous amount of strategy to the game. And for TEC and Advent, they still have to build an SB Constructor in the first place, at a large cost. Vasari again, have it easier with their Jarun Migrator.

Well, when you conider that the Vasari use their starbase as an anti-structure (anti-starbase) weapon, and the fact that the Advent have the ability throw meteors at enemy planets but only from within the gravwell (it is not used much) you need to be able to build in an enemy GW. Basically you need to get your defenses/fleet up sooner to compensate or throw a starbase his direction.

But if you just want to complain, there is always Vanilla SoaSE.

The problem is when you're taken off guard by it.  I think the build speed is a little fast (even with the reduction mentioned by swordsalmon) but otherwise it's a great mechanic.

It seems a little overpowered too me but then again the range is relatively small I guess (at least without upgrades) and it also costs a lot of money to make.  My opponent ended up trying to make two of them, and I didn't realize how many resources he lost in the process when I took them out before they were even finished.

The only issue is that it took 3 capital ships focus firing it to even get it to die faster then it built, which is incredible because that's a lot of firepower aimed at one building. 

My opponent didn't do it very well and each time made the base on a planet that my units were near.  However, if he had been intelligent about it, and say put one on my homeworld which was only defended by about 10 turrets, he probably could have finished it.  Granted, it wouldn't have been in range of anything important, but it would establish a big foothold on my planet that he could then use to pile forces onto my homeworld and eventually attack me.

The fact that Vasari have it even easier seems a bit ridiculous to me, but again, I guess it has a limited range.  I'll have to check the resource cost of the V one, because if you really only need a Migrator to build it, it seems a bit imba.

With few exceptions, capital ships don't deal that much damage.  Combat units, particularly long range frigates, heavy cruisers, and bombers would be the best way to kill a starbase quickly.  Keep in mind that once it stops construction, that rapid health increase will stop.  If it has only 1000 hull points left, you can finish it off before any upgrades finish to make it really deadly.

The cost of deploying the starbase is higher, so the net cost (builder + starbase) is the same.  The big benefit is that you can have a migrator in position to starbase when the research is being conducted.

well the fact that it is the Vasari's answer to an anti-structure vessel, it really is not all that imbalanced. And to be honest I have lost more Vasari starbases then any others due to the fact that they can move and so they move out of range of all the nice Defense that I had set up (and yes I now just set them to hold position to stop this from happening).

Well I just did some research and I guess I regress on my first points, even for Vasari, the cost of building a Star Base is greater than an entire capital ship.  If you do end up destroying it, your opponent takes a huge hit in resources and is vulnerable to counter attack.  Also, 1v1 against a level 1 capital ship (if the base hasn't been upgraded at all), it barely wins the battle.  Now obviously, no opponent is going to be stupid enough to drop a SB into an enemy grav well without supporting it with ships, but they really aren't TOO powerful, at least at first.  If nothing else you can back up temporarily, regroup your fleet, then attack while you are building turrets on top of the star base.  This will force the enemy to attack your builders or risk the turrets being completed, giving you time to destroy the star base, assuming you heavily damaged it while it was in production.

The game should at least warn you when one is being built in your space though, I can see players being caught completely off-guard by this.

This is really my pet peeve about this game , that people buy this reason to justify the Vasaris Bases ability to move.

Everytime I play WITH Vaz , or against Vaz ...Its all about putting Starbases on a Strategical Significant Grav or thier Homeworld Grav to gain an incredibly powerful tactical upperhand that I consider imbalanced. Its got nothing to do with building a Vaz base to attack another base. Thats probably required in maybe 1 out of every 30 times Its been used.

The Reason I think Vaz SB is imbalance is because it builds faster then one can kill it , and it creates a Skill-less avenue for building on an Advantage

A good RTS game is one where a player can take a tactical advantage but will require the skill to work on it and make more of it. This is true of fleet battles in sins , often you can manipulate the moves of the enemy if you have the skillwhen you have won an initial fleet battle.

What SB offers is a skill-less , cheap way to build on the advantage. 

Remember that also, the ability to move could be considered the Vasari SB's 'super ability'. Like the Argonev has Big Red Button and the Transcendia has Disorientation and Meteor Swarm, but the Orkulus... doesn't really have any super-powerful abilities.

Really, I've never had much of a problem against Vasari SBs. The only problem is that SB rushing can occasionally be annoying, but still fairly easy to deal with. The Orkulus is the only SB that even when upgraded, a good fleet can still actually fight against it.

I remember one time when the AI tried to do this to me on one of my back water worlds. We were both advent, I had one hanger defense with two fighters and a bomber. He got his starbase built, but he didn't use it for anything except using the two strikecraft that came with it, and once I realized that it was their, I just built another hanger with all the strikecraft on bombers. It didn't last to much longer after that, and I don't think the thing did any damage either except maybe destroy a couple trade ships.

BOMBERS ARE A STARBASES WORST NIGHTMARE.

Try using them.

Even a 20k SB will fall within 5 minutes to a legion of bombers.

no, the base doesn't build itself, and no, you don't build the starbase "out of thin air."  all bases require a constructor to build them, and it takes 2 tiers of researh to get the constructor for vasari, 3 for the others.

i think you are overreacting a little bit to the insult of having a starbase built on one of your back planets.  i'm not saying it can't benefit your enemy to do this to you, but think about it.  in many instances, it doesn't do you any real harm unless you allow it to.  for instance, ask yourself this question:  do you even need to take out that newly-built starbase on your planet?  or if you do, do you need to take it out RIGHT NOW vs. waiting for a while to do it?  have you ever thought of using a little asymettrical warfare?

think about it.  what real harm does having an enemy starbase sitting at your homeworld do in most cases?  it destabilizes the phase jump lanes, which means your ships jumping from that planet will take some damage and have their antimatter removed.  so... just build a frig factory on another planet.  how does that sound?  route all ships that you can't afford to take damage or lose antimatter around that planet entirely.  let the starbase just sit there, taking up resources.  i have won many games against both human and AI by COMPLETELY IGNORING all of their starbases.  i pissed one guy off by taking all of his planets while being careful to never touch all his pretty starbases.  i just left them all sitting there.  he was pissed.  he kept saying "you should have to destroy the starbase before you can take my planet!"

the vasari sb can be a little more annoying beause it can move around the grav well taking out all your structures.  so what to do?  Scuttle all your structures in that grav well, and rebuild them on other worlds.  let the pretty vasary sb sit in your grav well with nothing to do.  it's not like it can bomb your planet or anything.

the best use of this tactic is the enemy using the starbase at your planet as a beachhead for his invading fleet.  even in that situation, you aren't doomed by any means, but this reply is already long enough.

and yes, you should be able to build an SB anywhere.  think about it.  those neutral mining areas... wouldn't it be nice to occupy such places with starbases?

Lose a battle.

Win the war.

Yeah, most people tend to forget that you can lose a bit before you win. I mean, war only really consists of two things anyway...

As skilled as lum spamming

or

Marz upgrading to lvl 3 to bomb HW

P5 has a point on its use tho.Its rarely used as a siege weapon against another sb.More so on sneak attacks and traps because of its fast build speeds.

I think this is just another "im going to bitch" thread. Seriously SB's are easily countered. I have yet to run into a SB I cant smash within minutes. The only thing it does tactically against my Fleet is tie up my Bombers while I have to engage either the enemy fleet or the static defenses. Either way SBs arent even worth complaining about considering there are more pressing issues within the game like the bugs that have been popping up, or the fact that MP needs more attention from the Devs.

well ive moved on to new games , since i find it really daft that Sbases can build so fast even when under attack , and then upgrade so fast , and all the player has to do "capatalise" on this isnt to work hard at tactics micro or selecting counters ...all he has to do is press the bloody upgrade button on his Sbase.

Leaves very little room for any proper gameplay . Frankly I tried to get back into Sins , but entrench has really made it hard , and i only liked it cos it had "quick start".

lol starbases are not the end all be all of no tactics trust...most starbases that are built in your gravity well if watched for die way before they are constructed. too bad to see you go this is a really fun game.

some people just want to have a reason not to like something different added to a game, starbases gave players a better way to fortify. Before there really wasnt much in the way players could create a defense that gave a opponent a real challenge. Even so, players still find it easy to overcome Starbases, and its sad to see people leaving over nothing more then another way to overcome or repulse your enemies that is mostly a logical step in improving the game.