Continuing on suggestions for Military Starbases.

I agree with everything except for the increased logistics to fleets in the ZOC. You are already getting lots of potential free firepower and defense to the fleets in the ZOC, no need to also stack more ships.

Once again, fully upgraded they give 145% bonus to attack and defense for all ships within ZoC. I don't think they need more than that, really. I'd agree with perhaps front-loading the bonuses a little more so they're more relevant early on.

I'd like this for more than just military SBs, tbh. I like to use star bases to produce a sensor net, but they're currently not worth it when you can build a major sensor stacker. Replacing the existing sensors with repeatable sensor modules that stack is aok by me - even if they removed the stacking on ships.

As for Node's suggestions:

I'd also strongly suggest dumping the preclusions. Having to specialize starbases is fine without the ZoC lockout, and the ZoC lockout is fine without having to specialize; having both makes certain starbase types a bad option. I'd rather have all the production buffs on my manufacturing world than have an influence or military base, regardless of anything else.

My hope is that MSB (Military Star Base) should be a 'force multiplier' early game and an impregnable fortress late game. 

Think about this. 

A HUGE hull with all tech at end game has 575 hit points and can Alpha strike with Nightmare torpedoes for about 900 a strike.

The same tech at end game the (MSB) has only 200hps and will die under one Alpha strike. My goal is that near late game if you want to take out a heavily invested MSB, you better bring a Big flipping fleet, pack a lunch and hope the Odds Gods are in your favor. It should be a drawn out battle that will cripple any one large late game fleet. After all you sent nearly 15 to 20 constructors with modules and paid for the production. Its the same as if you built a HUGE hull. 

As such it should survive one if not several Alpha strikes. So it should have easily 1500 to 2000 base hit points NOT including defenses. A late game fully upgraded MSB should be something that is very tough to take out. 

I don't think an MSB should stand up to a whole 25+ log late-game fleet - but it should be able to go toe-to-toe with the even the largest tech-equiv ship in the game fairly comfortably. That way, with a garrison fleet it should be pretty hard to dislodge, but if you catch one undefended then you can take them out.

My usual suggestion for military bases is a series of modules that increase planetary defense and possibly planetary defense fighters (but not resistance) in the influence of the base. 

I also agree that a military starbase, and possibly all starbases, should not be easy to kill. A heavily reinforced starbase should be on par with a planet to break, but reinforcing them to that point should not be to easy so not every starbase is that tough.

Possibly allow a second set of mutually exclusive ring like choices for all starbases to achieve this, something like:

-bonus defense ring: unlocks a series of modules that reinforce the starbase with more hp/defense/weapons etc then normally allowed

-bonus range ring: possibly move the range extenders into this category, making defense vs effect a real choice.

-bonus support ring: increases range of ships from this starbase, useful for deep space forward bases. allows extra tiers of sensor improvements (for those of us who dont like sensor ships::P). gives unarmed ships extra moves early game. 

-bonus population ring: allows the starbase to have population that does something or other, can't think of something appropiate.

(to be clear, you would get the econ/culture/mining/military choice, AND, this extra choice)

 Or possibly a "specialization ring" for each of the existing starbase types offering you a further choice. 

My basic observations of starbases:

All starbases should have a clear purpose that is very distinct from the others and where their purpose is filled by that type of star base very well.

Culture = influence spread. I think this works well enough. Mining = mining, straightforward. Econ = econ.

My point here is twofold:

1. Non-mil SBs have so many basic Mil capabilities (weapons, defenses). You can literally build a shitton of military construction on the non-Mil SBs. I have to spend more than a full huge 24-construction module constructor to build all the Mil components on a non-Mil SB.

2. Conversely, Mil SBs are kind of neat but kind of meh. They have all the same core capabilities, and their only claim to fame are some support systems which, while useful, are not only non-critical, but they are on separate tech paths from primary weapons / sensors.

I personally would like to see Mil SBs become more relevant in the game. On the side one thing that the game is lacking severely IMO is zone control and control of the raw amount of space ... in space. This is an opportunity for Mil SBs to become very relevant and meaningful.

Once the problem is defined, the solution components seem obvious:

1. Enforce a ZOC around Mil SBs with an automatic heavy move penalty (like -60 to -80%). Mil SB should create virtual collision objects and force the enemy to take out the SB before proceeding in that area (or go around). This collision alone is enough. It enables fleet response to the threat. It makes open borders treaties more relevant. It can enable the Mil SB to actually protect other assets instead of being almost completely irrelevant atm until late late game.

Also, enable the SB range techs lower in the tree (at least the first one). The Mil SB ZOC needs to be able to cover space well, and waiting until the upper tech tiers is just too long, IMO.

2. Upgrade their raw HP at minimum to make them the equivalent of a huge class ship (for HP) and a medium class ship for weapon loadout. The Mil SBs shouldn't be "fortresses", but they should be threatening and more than a speedbump to take out. Remember, the player is spending a constructor to make one, more to upgrade it. All the while it enforces a 5-space alternative cost for other SBs.

The raw HP upgrade doesn't need to be passive. Make the "Mil ring" specific upgrade line for HP class. SB starts at ... small? (when player tech has tiny ships) Each HP upgrade takes it up to med/large/huge. Maybe one more tier at "supersize me" (when the tech level has huge class ships, I think it's legit for a SB to have 1 tier higher HP). So the SB HP tier is 1 higher than the ship size tier for the player.

3. Reduce the military capability of non-Mil SBs. A mining or cultural ring doesn't need Doomrays, Singularities, and class 9001 shields and armor. These are the equivalent of support ships -- weak and needing protection. They shouldn't evaporate to an enemy scout, but they shouldn't be very *militaristically relevant*.

I'd say allow non-Mil SBs to build the basic SB defense tree. Hell, enable them to buy the HP upgrade line too, I change my mind.

Let the Mil SBs be the ones to buy specific upgrades (beam, kinetic, missile, shield, armor, ecm). In other words, an Econ SB can be upgraded with "ye generic beam/kin/missiles" (Omega defense or w/e) and have "ok you're fat like a tank" HP, but be fairly weak due to its lesser damage output (no Doomrays bruh) and no defenses.

A Mil SB will have a full loadout.

These changes would instantly make SBs relevant for map control (solving a general game problem atm) and also make them actually relevant from a combat standpoint after 10 turns. The HP I think is one of the largest things to help them scale at least a little when fleets of a half dozen large ships start to get fielded.

Just like in an MMORPG or MOBA, a functional tank needs two critical things:

1. Enough *threat* to force the enemy to deal with it (in this case, the passive ZOC).
2. Enough defense/durability to take a hit from weaker attacks and let the team catch up (the HP upgrades).

Counterpoint: Construction Modules have a base manufacturing cost of 27, while Nightmare Torpedoes have a base manufacturing cost of 128. Huge hulls have a base manufacturing cost of 432, while Cargo hulls have a base manufacturing cost of 42. If I've counted correctly, there are 43 generic and 50 military starbase modules that you could potentially put upon a military starbase. Let's assume that we use a stripped-down constructor which consists of 1 construction module and nothing else on a cargo hull, and which provides 1 construction point per construction module, and further assume that we don't have any of the Pragmatic ideology starbase construction bonuses. To fully upgrade 1 military starbase would therefore take 93 of these construction ships and cost a total of 6417 manufacturing. If we have a Huge hull for 432 manufacturing and 250 capacity with 5 Nightmare Torpedoes requiring 22 capacity and 128 manufacturing each, 2 Warp Drives requiring 16 capacity and 34 manufacturing each, 2 Zero Point Armor plates at 16 capacity and 30 manufacturing each, 3 Arreon Missile Defense systems at 13 capacity and 31 manufacturing each, and 3 Invulnerability Fields at 11 capacity and 38 manufacturing each, then each of our Huge ships will require 975 manufacturing apiece.

This indicates that a fully-upgraded military starbase should be a match for at most 6 huge hulls, based on total manufacturing invested. The above analysis is in my opinion quite generous to the starbase; the Pragmatic ideology bonuses to starbase construction can greatly reduce the overall cost, as can using construction ships where a greater fraction of the ship's manufacturing cost goes towards construction modules (for example, if we use a construction ship which is built on a cargo hull and which consists of 2 construction modules and nothing else, we've already reduced the cost of the starbase to 4464 manufacturing; if we use the original construction ship design given above and the pragmatic perk that doubles construction points, we reduce the manufacturing cost of the starbase to ~3209 manufacturing points, while if we use the construction ship design with two construction modules and have the Pragmatic perk doubling construction points we reduce the cost of the starbase to ~2232 manufacturing points). (Yes, I am aware that you can inflate the starbase's manufacturing costs by assuming an even less efficient construction ship design than I used and devalue the huge hull by assuming cheaper components or a different mix of components or even a capacity penalty. I would say, however, that the huge hull design I used for this comparison is already fairly cheap for a late-game ship; it uses only 246 capacity, and less if you have mass reductions on some or all of the components, it could probably do with trading two or four of the defensive components for another nightmare torpedo or two, adding ~90-200 manufacturing points to its cost in the process, and it could probably do with replacing the Warp Drives with something more advanced, like a Stellar Folder, which would increase manufacturing costs by another ~100-200 points depending on what exactly you decided to add.)

This gets messier once you involve manufacturing cost discounts, component capacity requirement discounts, and hull capacity bonuses (and remember that, except for the first, these things tend to make the ships cost more relative to the stations), but the point is that the expectation that a starbase should be capable of engaging a large fleet on its own is on shaky grounds. Especially since you have not only the starbase but also the ability to put ~60 logistics of fleet units in to support it; if the starbase alone is capable of engaging a large fleet on equal footing AND it can be supported by a large fleet, you're making the starbase far too strong.

I don't disagree that starbases could perhaps be improved by making them tougher in the late game, but what you're asking is excessive. I can see starbases being a little stronger than their manufacturing cost might indicate simply because it's not unlikely that you're going to invest more time into building up a space station than a ship even if the two have the same total manufacturing cost, but not to the point that a single fully-upgraded starbase is capable of taking on a sizable fleet on its own with a reasonable chance of surviving.

I think that ultimately the MB accomplishes what it needs to, I think it just takes too long to get there.

1) The bonuses should be a bit more frontloaded.

2) Some of the techs (and the military modules) can be consolidated to provide the bonuses more quickly.

3) The bonuses can apply to the starbases own weapons and defense, ensuring it is the strongest of the starbases to take out.

I think an analysis like this should probably discount some of the modules - if we just take the ones which upgrade the base's military power directly (rather than the buff mods and fighter bays, since those add additional separate ships) then we have around 30 modules. That reduces the cost to around 2000 manufacturing using the least efficient constructor build. That makes it equiv to only 2 huge hulls (and it's worth noting that this isn't just MSBs - it's any starbase with all the generic defense bonuses).

They also, by top level, have 210 beam, 270 missile and 146 gun attack, for a total of 626. They get 110 shields, 132 PD and 121 armour. 

It's still fairly clear that the present stats on the starbases aren't good enough - and they're not good enough pretty early on, too. While at the very, very start of the game a starbase is solid, by the time you reach large hulls they're incapable of going toe-to-toe with individual tech-equiv gunships. I'd suggest the following as a (very) rough first attempt to balance it:

1) +10 hit points per module for all modules. This would allow you to get a fully-upgraded starbase (the 6k manufacturing option) to hit around 1200 hit points, putting it on par with 6 huge hulls.

2) a 50% boost to all attack and defense bonuses from modules. This gives a fully-upgraded Star Base an attack value of 900, spread across all three damage types, allowing it to put out equivalent damage to a single end-game megahull.

This would leave a fully-upgraded SB of any stripe capable of eliminating any individual enemy ship that tried to take it out, and would make it a serious challenge for even two (given the 10 top-level interceptors from it's fighter bays), but would require garrison forces to defend it against a serious fleet assault. Given the big multipliers offered by MSB buff modules (145% on everything), the defensive fleet required to match an attacking fleet would be reduced by 2/3rds; combined with the massive logistical value this can permit an MSB to become effectively completely invulnerable (150 logistics equivalent).

Joeball and Naselus, Thank you. I did not do a cost analysis. Joe you are quite right on cost vrs outcome.

What are your thoughts on Sensors? I know that topic is a HOT tamale but I think a Starbase 'should' be able to see farther than a ship. In my case for MSB's is based on the fact that they are Stationary and do not have to have valuable room reserved for Engines and Thrusters (like on a ship).  I know there are modules which slow down and hamper enemies in AOE but I would like to see those earlier or 'built in' on some of the MSB modules.

Lots of great ideas.

• Front load offensive and defensive modules a bit early.
• Hit Points for all modules so that they take longer to take out. 10 hp per module sounds about right but testing probably is needed
• Possible increased AOE only for MSB and a lower/smaller one for Mining or Econo ones. The AOE here does NOT exude strong influence but 'enhances' attk/def of friendly ships in its AOE.

SB sensors are currently a bad joke really. I'd be looking for a complete rework on them - give a base bonus from modules of like +2 or so, but then have them increase by a % from tech. So:

no module - sensor range 2

1 module - sensor range 4

2 modules - sensor range 6

3 modules - sensor range 8

4 modules - sensor range 10.

level 1 sensor tech - no bonus

level 2 - 50% range increase

level 3 - 100% range increase

level 4 - 200% range increase.

This'd give an end-game starbase a 30+ sensor range, which is worthwhile even on big maps, while even one without sensor modules can see 6 spaces.

I consider station sensors to be a bit too weak despite mostly being very cheap relative to similar-tech ship sensors. I personally do not care that I can build a ship with a sensor range greatly exceeding that of a station; something which specializes in a particular task should be better at it than something for which that task is at best a secondary function given even remotely similar investment, and a station + perimeter sensors costs 69 manufacturing (cargo hull + construction module; you can get it to cost less later in the game) whereas a sensor ship with 10 Navigational Sensors and 1 Hyperdrive costs 141 manufacturing (10 navigational sensors at 9 manufacturing points each + 1 hyperdrive at 9 manufacturing points + a cargo hull at 42 manufacturing points). The investment in the sensor ship significantly outweighs the investment in the starbase; I therefore see no problem with the sensor boat being significantly better as a sensor platform than the starbase is, though I think the current degree of difference is a bit much early on; by the later stages of the game, stacked sensors on ships cost so much more than station sensors if you're using equivalent-tech sensors that I really don't care that sensor stations are considerably worse than sensor ships.

I would also add that ship sensor manufacturing costs scale much more rapidly than station sensor manufacturing costs, if you only compare the costs of the sensor components to the cost of the construction modules required to build the station sensors. Sensor component manufacturing costs are 9/9/34/65/123 for +2/3/4/5/6 sensor range, whereas putting the sensor modules on a starbase costs 27/54/81/135 manufacturing worth of construction modules. Additionally, while none of the station sensor modules increase the station maintenance costs, the last three sensor components on ships increase maintenance by 0.25/0.75/1.25 credits per sensor. If you look at the tech-equivalent sensor component for ships and determine the equal-cost sensor range for a station, you get 11/7 sensor range for 27/27 manufacturing (ship/station, Interstellar Sensors versus Perimeter Scanners), (6 or 10)/10 sensor range for (34 or 68)/54 manufacturing (Sensor Array versus Sector Scanner), (7 or 12)/13 sensor range for (65 or 130)/81 manufacturing (Field Detectors versus Surveillance Systems), and (8 or 14)/19 sensor range  for (123 or 246)/135 manufacturing (Subspace Sensors versus Thulium Sensor Arrays). By comparison with equivalent-tech ship sensors, the later station sensors are rather cheap for the sensor range granted. The total benefit of a station sensor is not very good by comparison to the total benefit granted by a ship which stacks sensors, but on the other hand any ship which stacks sensors of the same tech level as the station's sensors is going to be considerably more expensive to build than the construction ships required for the station sensors.

If I were to suggest a change for ship and station sensors, it'd probably be to drop the ship sensors to +1/2/3/4/5 sensor range per sensor (without changing the mass, this reduces the sensor range per unit mass invested by 50%/33.3%/25%/20%/16.7%), or alternatively boosting station sensors to grant +6/12/18/30 sensor range (which makes the later station sensors, which are already considerably cheaper than a ship with equivalent sensor range using same-tech components, much cheaper). If the two changes are combined, it makes the station sensor ranges 10/16/22/34 and roughly equivalent to a ship with an equal investment in Interstellar Sensors (27/54/81/135 manufacturing points can buy 3/6/9/15 Interstellar or Navigational Sensors; at +2 range (current Navigational Sensors or Interstellar Sensors using the revision suggested) per sensor a ship would have 8/14/20/32 sensor range with that many sensors, or 9/18/27/45 sensor range using the current Interstellar Sensors; as for why interstellar sensors, they're the most efficient sensor component in terms of sensor range per manufacturing point, though in terms of sensor range per mass each sensor component is strictly superior to its predecessor). I'd stay away from stacking penalties as the game only understands very simple stacking (additive multipliers and additive flat bonuses), and I feel that adding a -X% stacking penalty on sensor components with the game's stacking is a solution which is worse than the problem it's attempting to solve.

While Manu cost is a factor, you have to be careful about weighing it too heavily.

while a sensor ship does cost a lot more than a starbase sensor platform, it is hugely more powerful at that role. Further, because you don't need a lot of sensor ships, the Manu cost is not a large investment At all. It's a drop in the bucket compared to all of the manu you spend elsewhere.

another consideration is that a manu world can get such high numbers that its more about the turn cost than the actual Manu cost.

for example, even though a full out huge hull might be more expensive than a full out starbase, the starbase takes more turns because I can only build 1 constructor per turn, and it might take 3-4 constructors to finish the job, maybe more. Meanwhile I can crank out the super ship every 1-2 turns.

lastly, when people are comparing the strengths of a fleet vs a starbase, you have to consider the domino factor.

once a fleet is strong enough to take out a starbase with minimal loss, all starbases in the area are in danger, that one fleet can take out 3-4 bases in short order.

It takes no more than 5 construction ships to fully upgrade a station's sensors. That's no more than 5 turns of construction, and if you've gone up the starbase line in the Pragmatic tree, it's no more than two construction ships (i.e. no more than two turns of construction - 1 free module from Builder 3 + doubled construction points from construction modules) if you're building the station from scratch for sensor coverage or three if you aren't, and if you use a construction ship that has more than one construction module that goes down. No, I do not think I'm overvaluing the manufacturing cost here; you can build a starbase with fully-upgraded sensors for less than it costs to build a single Subspace Sensor (proof: Subspace Sensors cost 123 manufacturing. 2 construction modules at 27 manufacturing apiece provide 4 construction points with Builder 5 + 1 free construction point for Builder 3 + a cargo hull for 42 manufacturing says the total cost of the sensor post can be as low as 96 manufacturing points, the starbase costs only 1 credit per turn in maintenance while the Subspace Sensor costs 1.25 credits per turn, and a station with fully upgraded sensors has a sensor range of 19 before bonuses while a ship with a Subspace Sensor has a sensor range of only 8, despite costing roughly 25% more before even factoring in the hull cost or anything else at all that you might want to put on the hull, and that's for only a single sensor).

To which my response may be summed up as "so what." Starbases are not intended to fight fleets on their own. Starbases are supporting infrastructure (yes, even culture bases); they exist primarily to enhance your other stuff, not replace it. If you are sufficiently concerned about fleets which can destroy your starbases with minimal losses, then protect your starbases by keeping actual military assets in the area (or far enough forward to prevent enemy fleets from reaching the starbases), don't rely exclusively upon their defenses.

The only part of the starbase's cost which is unlikely to be lower than that of the fleet is the construction time required; maintenance is likely to be trivially insignificant by comparison, and it's unlikely that the manufacturing invested is going to be any greater.

If you are unable to maintain control of a region of space, you should not be able to guarantee that all of your stuff is safe. If you are able to contest control of the space, you should be able to punish attacks or raids which take place within that space. If you are able to assert control over a space, your stuff should be largely safe from attack by anything that wants to survive the raid - yeah, sure, maybe that fleet wiped out a few starbases, but if they lost the fleet, who really lost here? Regardless of the difference in time invested in creating it, a fleet is more valuable than a starbase. Fleets project power, they can defend a region, they force your opponent to take adequate steps to respond to the threat (usually, this means bringing in one or more fleets to counter the threat of attacks by your fleet, and it is entirely reasonable for a single ship or fleet threatening an area to require a significantly greater commitment to fend off the threat than was required to bring the threat into being), they can seize control of an area. Military starbases can do none of these things without fleet support, nor should they to any significant extent since you can combine starbases and fleets, but they do offer a considerable advantage to your fleets within their area of effect. Military starbases are lightly garrisoned fortresses by late game; without additional forces, they should not be able to stand against a full-scale attack and shouldn't really be much more than a speed bump. Garrisoned well, they are considerably more, and on top of that they offer considerable advantages to any of your fleets fighting under their influence. The current setup adequately models the advantages of the attacker (who can require the defender to make a significantly greater expenditure of force to protect everything in the threatened area) and defender (who has an advantage in unit quality due to fighting from what is effectively a fortified position and so will not require quite as many units in any given battle to match or overpower the attacker despite needing more total units to protect everything), though it uses a land war model rather than a sea war model.

If a reasonably large raider can kill three or four of my stations but is in turn killed by my fleet, I consider that a fair trade; dealing with that raider by making the potential targets too strong to attack would (and should) require a significant commitment of my fleet, and destroying that raider frees up any forces committed for such purposes to be put to other tasks. There has to be some risk to leaving a region without defending fleets, and if a starbase requires a sizable fleet to take down even without a supporting defensive fleet, that risk just isn't there to any significant degree.

Joeball, 

A late game 'hardened' HUGE Military Stabase is akin to a death star or close. It would be nice if they had some staying power. 200 HP is far too low for a base you invested 15 constructors in. Other starbases fine, but a star base built only to project military power through armor, weapons and sensor should at least take out half of a late game fleet. 

This is my opinion of course. 

I remember some of the GCII mods by a few here. They made Star Bases a REAL pain in the ass to get rid of. 

This, utterly this, totally this and all the this. Let's not forget it. Military Star bases are there to make it easier for a fleet to hold an area. They aren't there to hold the area themselves. They're not meant to defend a planet, though again they can make it easier for a fleet to defend a planet. It is not a unit. It is a target that must be defended with units. Ultimately, the starbase is a force multiplier - it is not a force in itself.

While I think MSBs need a buff to make them immune from individual ship raids, I do not want to see them becoming single-handed denial-of-space units like some players seem to be asking for.

Looks like its time to fight math with math!

A cargo ship with 9 Sensor Arrays provides a range of 36. Strangely enough, without miniaturization bonuses none of the higher sensors provides any greater benefit (they take up too much mass to actually provide more range).

So we have range 36 for 348 manu. This in circular area terms is 4071.504, but since for the most part we care about the part that looks out, lets cut that in half.

So ultimately this Sensor Ship grants me a 4071.504 / 2 / 348 = 5.85 sensor length / Manu.

So let me take a cargo ship with 2 constructors on it. I am going to assume we have gotten the Ideology that gives us 2 constructor points per module. And just to drive the point home, I am going to assume there is some magic way for me to cram another free constructor point on this ship (I don't know if that exists in game, but again to drive the point home).

That's a 19 radius starbase for 96 manu. Or 1134 / 2 / 96 = 5.9 Sensor Length / Manu.

So with the maximum benefit given to the starbase in terms of extra tech, ideology points, and random bonus X, it just comes even with a sensor ship in terms of manu efficiency.

So lets take out the extra point and x2 constructors. That would be a cost of 260 manu (2 x2 constructor ships, 1 x1), or 2.18 Sensor Length / Manu.

So under regular constructor conditions, a sensor ship is 168% more manu efficient in terms of benefit. And again, I haven't even factored in all of the extra tech cost.

And lastly, sensor starbases often go obsolete. As your empire expands, you often no longer needs sensor within your borders as much. Meanwhile, your sensor ship can be moved to your latest border, or wherever you need it. It always has maximal efficiency.

The number of tiles observed by an object with a sensor range of R is equal to 3R^2 + 3R (+1 if you include the central tile, i.e. the tile containing your ship, station, or colony), not pi*R^2; we're working with hexagonal grids, not circles. As an approximation, it's not terrible to approximate via circle, but the formula isn't that difficult to work out and it's not that difficult to use. This gives an area of 3997 covered by a ship with a sensor range of 36 and 1141 tiles covered by a station with a sensor range of 19 (these include the tile containing the ship and sensor). Furthermore, you are computing area per manufacturing point, not sensor "length" per manufacturing point, when you divide the area covered by the manufacturing cost.

Beyond that, I would question whether or not you actually care about how much area is observed. The primary thing that matters about sensor range is how much advance warning you can get, and for advance warning it is mostly the sensor range that matters (granted, because this is a turn-based game, you more or less need to be able to observe the tile in which a ship ends its turn in order to detect its approach, but this is still more a question of having something close enough to the tile to observe it than a matter of how many tiles are observed; two million tiles observed that aren't in the right place are worth nothing, except in that they provide knowledge of where the enemy is not). It is sensor range, not total observed area, which determines the minimum number of moves required to be able to attack a target without the target having any warning of the attack. It is sensor range, not total observed area, which determines how many turns of warning you have before an attacking fleet hits the observer (i.e. how much time you have to respond to a threat). It is sensor range, not total observed area, which determines how many observers I require to provide a target point with a minimum effective sensor radius*. It is sensor range, not total observed area, which determines how wide the outer edge of the sensor bubble is and thus how likely it is that a ship will pass into my observer's sensor bubble. I could not care less about having up to date information on every unoccupied tile within 5, 10, 19, or 10,000 tiles of every game object I own. I care about whether or not I detect an oncoming hostile fleet in time to react to it effectively, and for that it is sensor range that matters, not the total observed area. Even for exploration it is not the total observed area I care about so much as the length of the leading edge of the sensor bubble (which, under the system used in GCIII, is 2R + 1 tiles), as the maximum number of tiles I can reveal per turn while exploring is equal to the product of the number of move actions on my exploration ship and the length of the leading edge of its sensor bubble.

The later station sensors are unquestionably dirt cheap in terms of sensor range per manufacturing point; your counterpoint of "but manufacturing points per observed area is similar at best" is immaterial because observed area simply isn't something that you should care about. Total area observed is mostly immaterial; sensor range determines how many observers you need to monitor an area, how much advance warning you can get, how close you need to be to another empire's worlds or area of influence to monitor what it does within the region that the computer doesn't want you to send ships through or build stations or settle planets within.

I will also add that you did not compute the sensor range of the sensor ship correctly. Cargo hulls (and, for that matter, all other hulls) have a base sensor range of 2, to which the sensor range bonus is added. Therefore, the sensor ship described has a sensor range of 38, not 36. This is nevertheless immaterial since your assertion that it is the total area observed rather than the detection range which matters is nonsensical. The total area observed has very little to do with how much warning I have of an incoming attack and thus how much time I have to respond to it; since it is how much time I have to respond and over how wide a front I have at least this level of early warning that I care most about out of all the things that sensor coverage gives me, and since even for those situations where I care about how much area is observed (i.e. observation of the activity of foreign empires, for which what matters most is how close my observer needs to be to the targets of interest rather than how much total area my observer can cover, especially since if I require more than one observer to perform my surveillance it is the sensor range which most directly determines the number of observers needed), it is sensor range, not total area observed, that I care about.

*If you wish to make it so that a central tile has an effective sensor range of R with R being uniform in all directions, you will need your observers to be spaced around the central tile in such a way that at least two thirds of the tiles observed are observed by more than one observer, and of the no more than one third of the total tiles observed which are observed by only a single observer, only half will be on the far side of the observers when looking from the central tile, except for those tiles covered by an observer at a vertex of the ring. A nonuniform effective sensor range around a central point has the advantage of offering greater coverage for the same investment, but does not increase the minimum detection range relative to the central tile (it does increase the average detection range, but you're still looking at a function of the sensor range of the observers, not of the total area observed).

This is trivially false. A sensor platform, be it a ship, colony, or station, is only at maximum efficiency if every tile it observes is uniquely observed by the sensor platform and observing the tiles provides valuable information; otherwise, its ability to observe those tiles is redundant (in the case of tiles observed by multiple observers) or unnecessary (in the case of tiles where up-to-date information is not of any significant value), and its sensor coverage is therefore not being used at maximum efficiency. Furthermore, while a sensor ship can be relocated so as to provide coverage where it is needed, it cannot be relocated instantaneously, and it will not always be able to move to its new location by way of a path which allows its sensors to continually provide unique information. Even if it can be moved in such a manner that its sensors will provide at least some unique information on every turn that it takes to move the ship, doing so will not always provide information which is valuable. I have no need of knowing about the present state of tiles 200 tiles from the nearest opponent; it is quite unlikely that there is anything there of any interest to me, so even if moving my sensor ship in such a way that it can observe those tiles while relocating is possible, it is not worthwhile unless doing so does not divert my sensor ship from a reasonably efficient path to its new location.

Even taking 'maximal efficiency' to mean hitting some efficiency target less than maximum efficiency, you still cannot guarantee that a sensor ship will always be operating at 'maximal' efficiency. There are always tiles where turn-accurate state information is of little value, and it's not unlikely that a sensor ship in the process of being relocated will be observing many of these tiles. It is further possible that there will be constraints preventing you from using a sensor ship at something approaching 'maximal' efficiency; perhaps you are disinterested in offending the Iconians by parking a ship in their area of influence despite the optimal placement for your sensor ship being some random point in deep space which for some reason is considered to have a predominantly Iconian cultural identity, or perhaps you're in the process of relocating a few ships and so several of the ships are not going to be providing information on tiles whose state was unknown to you but for those ships, or perhaps you've secured an exploration treaty and alliance with a faction which renders your sensor ships in a certain region entirely unnecessary for the foreseeable future and thus in a position such that they will not be providing valuable information for some time.

Nobody has any comments on giving starbases multiple mutually exclusive upgrade choices? :'(

I'm not keen on having mutual-exclusives on star bases while they have geographical mutual lock-outs. One or the other I'm fine with, but not both.

I mentioned this in the other thread... but the easy answer is repair. right now repairing is so slow, and a really early military star base repair tech (or even base upgrade) would make a huge difference. ie, around the tech level of small hulls.

If military star bases repaired at a rate of heavily damaged to full hp in a few turns (percent based repair) then I would build them early and often!

MSB should have IMO

1) A great sensor upgrade tree that can come close to current sensor boats with enough investment.

2) Bigger range for all of their abilities by default? (I'm a little torn on this one)

3) 500 HP when fully upgraded. (Still very, very destroyable)

4) Have a great repair aura.

I would then need/want to build one before any major invasion and certainly on defense. I'm not going to get into math, I just think the above would FEEL right to players. And ultimately that is the criteria most people are going to judge things by, not their actual mathematical efficacy, but how it "feels" to build/own/use.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested already, but I think fleets should be able to defend starbases by fighting alongside them in combat (much like the battles in Master of Orion II). Perhaps this can already be done, but I'm not sure how. I feel that if a starbase is weak by its own, then I'd send fleets to protect it. But if any enemy fleets can zip by our defending fleet on its turn to attack the starbase by itself, then it defeats the purpose of sending a defending fleet it in the first place.

Perhaps this can be done by stacking a defending fleet on a starbase?

This is in fact one of the two ways to use a defending fleet to protect a starbase. The other way is to use the defending fleet to intercept inbound hostiles at some point between the time of detection and the time at which the inbound hostiles become capable of attacking the station or stations being protected.

Not only can it be done, the size of the defending fleet can be huge compared to mobile fleets - Star bases have a giant logistics bonus.