That's the feeling I have so far. Parking ships in a starbase may defend the starbase, but that's not the point. The military starbase should exist to defend something else nearby, and at present, it basically can't.

I think this is the sticking point - many players expect the military starbase to act like a battlestation did in MOO2, but it's not supposed to do that. Just as an economic starbase isn't supposed to generate manufacturing, gold or research by itself, but rather buff planets that do, the military starbase isn't meant to be a defensive bastion in itself, but rather give a tactical advantage to other vessels nearby (which a fully-decked out military starbase clearly does, with its enormous bonuses). Starbases are meant to be valuable strategic targets in themselves, rather than a tactical defense platform - they aren't defenders, but are rather things to be defended.

I still want Deep Space 9 from the later seasons, able to take on fleets of Dominion ships trying to take over Bajor and the Wormhole and augment the fighting power of any other fleets stationed there.

I modded in the ability for Military starbases to increase Planetary Defense in their area of influence. It certainly doesn't fix all the issues, but it does at least give a reason to target them prior to attempting an invasion, instead of just bypassing them on the way to the planet.

While military starbases can be useful in specific circumstances, that usefulness is both limited by affect and time - how often will I actually be fighting within the influence of such a starbase?

And in regards to protecting your planets, my mod helps with that, but still doesn't seem fully satisfactory to me. I'd kinda like to be able to build/station them on the planet themselves - that way you'd have to go through them to get to the planet (something like the defensive fortifications in Starship Troopers, or the Taurus around Earth from X3). Still somewhat niche, but at least more useful.

This is awesome, I want this. I want the AI to use this.

@ Christian_Akacro :

Here's the link to the thread for my updated mod.

https://forums.galciv3.com/466468/page/1

I too would like it if the AI could utilize this; they will build military starbases near their planets, but I'm not sure how well they target enemy starbases for destruction prior to invasion attempts.

The AI is pretty keen on starbase kills, so I'd think it's probably ok.

Thanks! Waiting for 1.1 for steam workshop though. I need something that can manage mods for me. Hope you post it there when you can!

But they do give attack and defence bonuses to allied ships and fleets with the starbases zoc I think? could be GC2 they did that?

They still do, yes. Really huge bonuses by the end game. The argument here is that some players want the starbase to be more directly powerful rather than indirectly - using it to protect stuff in it's own right rather than enhance other protection.

Tell me, do garrisoned ships still have maintenance fees? Or are there only fees for ships that are flying?

I ask because I didn't seems to have as big of maintenance when I had ships garrisoned.

Anyways, the point is that having a military starbase and a planet, you must now have a fleet at both to protect them both. This means spending twice as long building fleets (and possibly twice as much maintenance). It's just not economical and it's not practical to have to double your fleet size if you want to build military starbases.

This isn't an issue for the other types of starbases because the other types really aren't worth upgrading so you only lose one module anyways.

Like maybe if your empire was surrounded by nebula and the only opening was guarded by a military starbase with the speed debuffs would it even remotely be worth it. But even then you're now just surrounded by clouds from which a patient enemy could launch a surprise attack.

Honestly I just use starbases for mining, and even then it's just for trading the resources away because having one ship with 3 fancy weapons on it is nothing in the scale of things. Starbases are really a bigger bane then a boon in this iteration.

There's nothing in the xml which seems to suggest they reduce maintenance costs. Starbases do give some influence, apparently (though I've never seen a non-influence SB increase it's border radius), and also give strategic repair bonuses along with ship range bonuses too. On larger maps, the range bonus is very important.

Not sure that I agree other starbases are useless; I build a fair number just for sensor stations (I dislike the gamey aspect of mega sensor boats), and economic starbases can be a huge boon if they catch multiple planets. On insane/abundant maps, the morale-booster module alone is a Godsend. Influence starbases are handy for holding borders and locking enemies out, and artifacts are equally very powerful. The value of mining bases is pretty much directly based on the value of resource buildings imo; these are currently really weak compared to the effort you need to expend to make them.

The big bonuses from military starbases mean that, by around 3/4 of the way through their upgrades, they reduce the number of ships required for the same damage output by 50% - meaning that eventually you're better off splitting a fleet in 2 and defending both than you would be otherwise (plus, more bang-per-logistics-buck while in radius). But you need to sink a hell of a lot of resources into the base to get to that level. 

Combined with the range extension effect, the military SB seem more suited to a staging base for attacking the enemy from, than as a defensive base for your own empire. Don't build them in your own borders. Build them just outside your enemy's, stack ships on them, and upgrade them to hell and back. Then launch your fleet to attack from there. 

I'd say that, generally, military bases need their progression reworked a bit (beef up some of the earlier bonuses a little more and tone down the later ones), the basic att/def modules should scale with tech, all starbases need a hitpoint-per-module bonus, and resource buildings need to be rebalanced upwards to make mining starbases more worth the effort (Thulium and antimatter being the priority here, with Promethium close behind - Duranthium is reasonable and Elerium is arguably OP).

Well, If I had a starbase orbiting planet Earth, I would expect it to rain death upon enemy ships deliberately ignoring the starbase in favor of invading my homeland. And I would want to see it blow up aliens that's coming to kill me otherwise I will rebel against the government to have one good last hurrah fun because I will be dead soon so it don't matter if I blow up a bunch of stuff for fun.

Additionally it is demoralizing to watch a starbase be useless despite all the investment poured into it.

Come on, even the Death Star of the Empire could shoot back at it's enemies! And the general populace will expect the military starbase to shoot at it's enemies too. Economic/manufacturing starbases get a free pass here because they are not outfitted for combat so civilians don't care about them not being able to fight back.

There will be politicians using the defenseless military starbases as their own scapegoat for them to become elected and outfit it with guns and armor to keep to his own promises after skimming bit of cash for him/herself maybe.

Vote me for president, and I will make sure our Starbase makes Death Star look like a baby's toy!

wait till starbase is on far side of planet start invasion from near side of planet

You don't have a starbase orbiting Earth, though. You're not building it in orbit, even if it's on the tile right next to the planet. The entire solar system is like 6 tiles across. Anything not on literally the same tile is in interplanetary space, millions upon millions of miles away, orbiting the Sun. The Star Base is more like an Ian M Bank Orbital - an artificial planet, too big to orbit anything smaller than a star. It'd cause huge tidal forces if it were close to a world.

There's actually planet improvements which represent Orbital Defense Platforms; those are the battle station-equivalent which many players are expecting their MSBs to be. They deploy interceptors and are largely worthless. I think perhaps they ought to be buffed and made into an actual unit on the battlefield instead - they can use the same basic code as they do now, but just replace the interceptor with a medium or large hull, packed with weapons and defenses with no engines.

I like that starbases have to specialize (mining / culture / economic / military).  What I don't like is that when the constructor arrives, I have to go answer a question that I could have answered 10 turns ago when I requested the constructor.  The fact that I can request a constructor, however, is a huge improvement over GC2.

From the construction side, starbases really need a "build queue" and "build time" to be implemented.  Instead of having constructors arrive and be immediately converted into a finished product, you would instead have:

• A build queue for what upgrades you want to install on the starbase
• You can queue up things that you don't yet have enough parts on-hand for
• A standard constructor module delivers 100 units of "parts"
• Parts get stored in a central storage tank (up to 1000 parts total?)
• Starbases have a mechanic shop which controls how fast they turn parts into modules
• Tier 1 modules should cost about 100 "parts"

The idea being that when you build a starbase, it starts out with a base mechanics workshop which takes 10 turns to turn a 100 part module into something useful.  You then request additional constructor deliveries (like you do now), but when constructors arrive they automatically unload their parts into the central storage tank.  You queue up as many modules in the construction queue as you have parts on hand in the tanks to build them.

Now you only need to visit the starbase whenever:

• Construction is idle (just like a planet)
• Construction is stalled due to lack of parts
• To queue up new work orders
• To request more constructors be sent

I think one way to make military starbases useful is pretty simple.

Once starbases can have fighter modules, allow the starbase to launch a fighter based attack on any enemy fleet inside their zone of control once per turn. It makes sense, before the base has fighters/assault fighters it has limited projection capabilities. Once it does, it can send its fighters to attack beyond its own weapon systems range.

You could go one step further, and allow a friendly fleet inside a starbases zone of control to have fighter escorts from the starbase.

So, lets say a big enemy fleet is passing through, your defending fleet moves to intercept but isn't quite as big. Well when it engages the starbases fighters join your fleet and boom you have a big (larger than a carriers) fighter wing joining you.

Letting fighters escort fleets within the ZoC is a very good idea.  You could even have installable modules which change the escort range from "same" tile out to a range of five tiles (so five upgrade levels for the flight control center).

Those would have to be some very fast fighters, seeing as the standard fighter designs don't include hyperdrives and the fighters would need a minimum speed of 9 tiles per turn to be able to launch from the starbase, hit any target within the starbase's default area of effect, and return to the starbase all in the same turn.

Escort fighters are somewhat more justifiable, but then there's a question of how the fighters can stay with the fleet without penalizing fleet movement unless you use very slow fleets or assume very fast fighters.

I don't really see it as reasonable for a starbase to be capable of attacking enemy fleets which come near, nor do I see providing free fighters to nearby fleets as easily rationalized. I could see small, free planetary garrison forces for planets close to the starbase, but that would be about the limit of what I would consider justifiable for a starbase when it could easily be several lightyears away from something only a tile or two distant.

Furthermore, I would question whether or not military starbases need to do anything more to assist fleets within their area of effect; we can already obtain rather significant bonuses to ship attack and defense scores within the starbase's area of effect. Adding free ships on top of that seems unnecessary.

Hah wrong game.

Wait... that mod is for Sins not GalCiv? Is this relevant?

edit- response to above post that was also edited.

Hmm I thought i was in rebellion, so I deleted it.  good catch lol

Still, the idea of a movable starbase is a good one. Modders, is this even possible in GCIII?

Military Starbases are of questionable value.  Giving 3 worlds morale, science, cash, and production boosts all at once is sexy.  

My escort ships are generally tougher than a starbase and can solo them with a stack of defenders vs. the AI (human vs. human they may have value - especially if you can drop them offensively and protect them for a turn while they build modules.)

Given the available extremes in ship design, if Military Starbases are supposed to reduce movement, they need to reduce movement to a set number of units (within their zone of control).  As a Baseline; "Enemy movement is reduced to 4" Fully upgraded:  "Enemy movement is reduced to 2."   That way it should take an enemy 2 or 4 turns to reach your starbase and destroy it.   - This should give your mobile fleet ample time to respond. 

Any idea how you get your custom designed construction ships to be queued up by the "request constructor" option?  Or to control which starbase gets the requests? 

I am working on an insane map and I have a shipyard that produces a constructor a turn... and my colony ship producer shipyard is constantly getting bogged down by constructor requests. 

I'm just imagining this gigantic parking lot in space for ships with speed bumps keeping everyone from being maniacs near the McDonal I mean Starbase.