Can the AI take out an upgraded starbase?

It's not until Unfair and up do I find my starbases in peril if I am not careful, any lower form of AI gets slaughtered before the starbases (and Unfair on up only counts for TEC as they have those nasty Orgovs that are soooo effective, the other two races need to be almost at Vicious Level) and to be honest that is only because they get such a huge resource/research(only cruel and vicious get that) advantage

The TEC AI has a chance with Ogrov spam, but usually it will have long-since gimped itself via continual suicide charges by the time it actually cracks that starbase.  Advent and Vasari... forget about it on hard difficulty.  Maybe they'll stand a chance if you don't have repair platforms nearby, but that will probably require a few failed attempts to wear it down first before they finally crack it.  So yeah, In general these starbases are virtually impregnable.  There is a slim chance one might go down, but it's going to take some ridiculous number of units to do so.

If we're talking about an Advent starbase with the meteor control ability or a Vasari starbase with deflectors or debris vortex then I sincerely doubt the AI will ever beat that monster, and if you leave a few support units to back up that starbase then it's virtually impregnable.  Most human players wouldn't even attempt to take on these monsters without around 100 squads of bombers, an amount the AI will never accumulate, much less use effectively.

Thx for the answers fellas. That kind of sux, as I consider the game over now. Guess I just wont build them now...

Generally yes, if you manage to starbase a good choke point world, the game is over unless you're up against something like a vicious or cruel AI. 

I've been asking for an AI improvement to better challenge players once these kinds of starbases are operational, but I just don't think it's in the budget sadly.

now im not sure if the ai utilizes the pirate missions but couldnt a max level pirate attack(thats alot of pirates) be some trouble for a starbase?

especially after your fleet jumps in once the pirates are gone?

If you don't leave defenders, then yes a max level pirate attack would be trouble.  Of course, unless the world is literally right next to the pirate base, you have time to get support in there.

The biggest problem with the "max level pirates" argument is that however much they may inconvenience a human player, they completely annihilate an AI.

oh yea i remember what they do to the poor ai's worlds

I made a mod for myself where I just changed the cooldown for a Solanus down to one, as an experiment. Ten Solanus killed a fully upgraded Argonev. It was funny.

If you pump up any unit's DPS enough it'll be excellent.  That's just the nature of the game, it's all about dealing as much damage as you can for as little cost as you can (with the ability to tank damage coming in a close second).

Solanus Adjudicators outrange starbases, so they will defeat one given enough time.  The problem is that they're fragile and can't take any retaliatory damage.  The best way to render them worthless (as TEC) is with an Akkan.  Targeting Uplink improves the range of the Argonev, letting it hit the adjudicators while they're firing at it, which is really a death sentence to them.

Otherwise, stock up on strike craft and blast the adjudicators.  A good 12 or so squads should be able to clean up 10 adjudicators in less than a minute, which is actually kinda BS given how exorbitantly expensive the unit is.