Advanced weapons, 80hp yet destroyed by a ship with minimum weapons and 20hp
GalCiv3 Forums
As example, within this engagement i always lose my space station....
How is a 7/3 14/3 7/3 with 80hp losing vs a 6/12 0 0 20/24hp????
There are many variables in a battle... Speed and accuracy play a big factor beyond the hard numbers...
The 7 will not do any damage and will give you up to 3 damage per round which may be several times before the other weapons hit...
the 14 and 7 will provide up to 21 damage depending on speed and accuracy and several other variables...
Here is my guess..
The lasers on the enemy are highly accurate and fast shooting several times it takes your other weapons to hit.
Your other weapons are not accurate and are slow, thus maybe it's only taking a few off a round.
Mind you thies still means that they need to give you 4 or more times the damage your implying per round.
The numbers don't add up to me as it appears you should win, however, you would need all the numbers in order to draw that conclusion.
We also don't know what kinda accuracy penalty the starbases have vs different size ships (assuming it calculates such a thing). You know think xwings vs turbo lasers, not too likely to get hit, unless the turbo lasers get lucky.
From my experience killing undefended starbases with small ships they kill the starbase with 4x the hit points without taking damage. I think I was using missiles so they may have sat outside range and pummeled it. Starbase weapons and armor should be on at least twice what large ships are packing, currently they are a joke, hopefully next beta they will be improved and won't be pushovers.
Since starbases can be easily avoided I think the best way to make them relevant is to make them able to attack their entire area of influence or automatically attack anything hostile that moves through their area of influence obviously with reduced accuracy the further out the target and with a lot more weapons then they currently hold.
No starbases are valuable targets of opportunity. I feel they should easily be destroyed by anything bigger then a small hulled ship equipped with starter weapons. This forces you to have to decide if you want to allocate ships to defend them or not. I in no way shape or form want to see starbases of the power of say the ones in Sins of a Solar Empire for instance.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be if they are undefended and don't have weapons but if armed and armored they should take someone with them but even a small fleet should take them down. I also think that even though they are only lightly armed shipyards should at least scratch the ship that destroys them. It seems like any stationary target is automatically destroyed without shooting back at the moment.
I don't think I've been as clear I mean to be so let me try this again.
Starbases are expensive, you have to spam modules at them to make them worthwhile but they are still not very effective militarily and for the cost that's unacceptable. They are stationary targets and so much easier to kill or avoid so as the guy who built them I want to guy who wants to kill them to think twice before committing ships to kill my starbases. So for that deterrent I have a few options, loads of armor, not really much help the way combat works in this game. Really long range weapons so I can start defending myself before the attackers close, so far not an option in this game. Lastly load up on weapons so when someone does come to destroy my starbase I take some of them with me. This one seems the most promising for the game. Especially since it seems each combatant can only target one opponent at a time, I want to take someone with my starbase if I arm it. I spent a lot of time and effort to build it so I don't want just any single little ship to destroy it.
Personally I'm not a big fan of having to spam ships for freaking everything. If I didn't have to spend so much time and effort to build the damned starbases I wouldn't be so adamant about starbases with defenses having teeth.
Having said that I do bow to reality and make sure my starbases have defenders at the moment but I would prefer not to have to spam constructors and put some teeth on my starbases, especially my forward ones.
IMO starbases should not be warmachines themselves. They should aid the true warmachines, those who can project the power they hold, which are ships. Investing into an enormously powerful stationary defence is not efficient, as history has proven many times. Even Death Star was mobile... 
Starbases should add bonuses to fleets that are otherwise unavailable to them, aiding in the defence. In this case they pay out to be constructed at strategic positions yet do not mean that you can simply forget about that part of the space.
I apologize if this is exactly as it is in the game, I don't have it.
Since starbases cannot be moved and they can be overwhelmed, they will always have drawbacks. Still I dont see why one should not be able to upgrade a select few in the most important systems, in such a way that they can fight back against a fleet. I will be very expensive, it will take away resources that could have become ships but it will be very satisfying to watch them try to stop a fleet by themselves (and a few escorts/frigats).
Long range missiles and tons of point defense should at least make it a bit costly to engage such a defense base.
If a starbase is at a critical point on a border my practice has been to keep a fleet (or fleets) handy but also to stuff the starbase with fighters. If I have plenty of cheap constructors ( and I always do ) then I pile on the weapons and defenses. The purpose is to intimidate and to prevent losing the base to a loner or small fleet that gets by my other defenses.
I agree starbases defenses should be relevant and should work the same or similar to a large ship, or why even have defenses? Beyond that there is only so many defenses that can be added to a starbase and that's where docking other ships to defend come into play.
Oh wow, i was off for a small while and so many responses 
nice!
And second that, if a ship engages a starbase (with missles). I can understand the rotational speed of the turrets on a stational unable to track small fast ships.
But initially on max distance they should be able to hit a few times. As well with the missiles that should do some damage on a ship without any flak.
Currently the starbase just disappears once that little ship comes by, and that ship goes unharmed.
So i fail to see why to build any defences at all....
Obviously combat is screwed up with the starbases. A fully outfitted SB should survive any single fighter attack and should put some hit points on most attackers.
Just like no planet survives invasion , it's one of those things that is not done yet.
Since diplomacy came in I haven't fought many wars but previous builds a single transport took down about 25 billion, so I did have some failed invasion on high pop worlds. I assume that hasn't changed yet but its good to keep in mind. The same with your observation that the combat system hasn't been finished yet either.
"According to the official Navy Department Library website, 'The 36-day (Iwo Jima) assault resulted in more than 26,000 American casualties, including 6,800 dead.'
"By comparison, the much larger scale 82-day Battle for Okinawa lasting from early April until mid-June 1945 and U.S. (5 Army and 2 Marine Corps Divisions) resulted in casualties of over 62,000 of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing. Iwo Jima was also the only U.S. Marine battle where the American casualties exceeded the Japanese,[9] although Japanese combat deaths numbered three times as many American deaths. Two US Marines were captured as POWs during the battle; neither of them would survive their captivity. USS Bismarck Sea was also lost, the last U.S. aircraft carrier sunk in World War II." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
I just had a base with missiles and upgraded defenses get clean wiped by three small, poorly shielded ships. It even had a two ship escort which seemed to be ignored. These ships did not "scramble" and help the fight numbers at all.
I just hope this is because the combat part is not finished.
Single ships should have problems with "running out of ammo" unless they have very advanced weapons and can pack a heck of a wallop.
I really think this is a good topic and I hope the Dev Team does considers changes (yes, I know they are still working on combat). Many good and valid comments made here on topic but IMHO star base offence/defense is broke.
TEST:
Built up a Mil starbase in stages to A-18/20/19, D- 23/63/25 and gave it to the Drengin. Took a single standard Ranger missile ship A 0/8/0 D0/20/0 (shortest range weapon?) and attacked 5 times (kill/reload). Ranger won every time taking 0-45hp in damage. Repeated with a Frigate 0/9/0; 0/0/19 and got basically the same results, frigate won every time.
While I agree with many commenters wrt. not making starbases super powerful, right now it just not seem worth it put any off/def upgrades on them. (Actually does work as deterrence to the AI, but if attacked you will die). Seriously, how can anyone justify a 0/8/0; 0/20/0 ship having NO problem with a A-18/20/19, D- 23/63/25 Starbase? As I said .. Something is broke.
My thoughts:
Should SB’s get to fire at enemies in AOE? – No way
Should SB’s be super war machines themselves? - No
Should SB’s upgrade upgrades work better? – Absolutely (and I do believe SD is working on it)
Should spamming fighter be the only way to defend SB’s -No
Should a stationary defense be less efficient than a mobile one? – yes .. but by how much?
Should SB armament be relevant (more than just an AI deterrent) ? – Yes or get rid of them
i totally disagree
While I would accept a small ship being able to disable an economic base for a few turns actually destroying a star base should require at least a moderately sized fleet
as for military star bases , they should be able to destroy anything smaller then a moderate sized fleet and put up a decent fight to anything smaller then a large fleet
Fleet combat (including combat vs. starbases) is evidently still a placeholder. Don't worry about it.
There are many other placeholders still in Beta 3. Off the top of my head:
Just test that the mechanisms exist (and you don't fall off an unfinished freeway ramp). It is OK for the results to be fairly nonsensical and completely unbalanced.
For now, abuse this in your favor by killing any AI starbases you find. (I've killed exactly one!)
starbases are huge and should be extremely well defended...think Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5. They are valuable targets, but should require forethought and a good size force to destroy.
starbases are huge and should be extremely well defended...think Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5. They are valuable targets, but should require forethought and a good size force to destroy.
I disagree that would be completely imbalanced. If that were to the case then they would be more like the stare bases in sins of a solar empire and should be restricted to not being allowed to have another one within 15 hexes of the first.
They should have offensive and defensive capabilities in line with their stats - so either the stats should be changed or the starbases should be changed.
First deep space was one of the most fortified star bases in the end. Remember the first episode when they couldn't fight one cardacian warship. This needs to be balanced. This is how you do it. Make it as hard to research the most defensive and offensive star bases as hard as offensive and defensive ships with huge hulls. Top logistics and specialised fleet support with your best hull hit point boosters. This would then be fair a well fortified star base should be as difficult to research as a good starship. It is easy to forget by watching shows that start off with capital ships when galactic civilization starts out with a scout shuttle. I think only the most advanced star bases should be able to take out the best ships. I actually think this should be expensive like in galactic civilizations two.
That's pretty much what I'm saying, they should match what it costs to build the things. Build a fully optimized defensive station and it should be tough. I would almost say with how much they cost to build they should be armed and armored by default but that doesn't make sense for most races and most of the time your starbases should be in defended areas. I also have to say to Dragoaskani, how can they be overpowered to be tough to take down when upgraded to be defensive when they don't move, don't attack? I don't see Stardock actually making them attack at full strength throughout their area of influence, they probably won't let them attack. They will just be defensive and if they are too tough to take down players will just avoid taking them down and whoever build them is paying more and more to maintain it as they loose territory around it. We all want this balanced and are making suggestions to try to find that balance. I think the way Stardock is intending to use defensive starbases is to buff the ships in the area of influence, so throwing a few defensive modules on an economic starbase to make the ships defending your planets and the starbase itself harder to take down. I'm not a fan of that being the only viable option for defensive starbases.
As the yor with my home world I can pump out by turn 60 one constructor module per turn. If starbases are as powerful as you are wanting I could practically surround my planets with them in no time. What you are saying might be fine for one star bases, but it would only take me 6 turns or so to max out a defensive starbase with current mechanics.
If starbases increase exponentially in power, then the cost will need to go up much higher then it currently is. Cause as is spamming constructors would be super easy to do if you really wanted to.
Starbases should be the way they were in galciv 2 imho. If they are not defended they are fairly easy prey.
Until they take down that beta disclaimer you must click to go play space emperor, I am not going to worry about balancing in the game. When Beta is over and the game is declared pretty much ready, I will complain if the sb aren't beefed up a little bit.
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