Even I have my limits...

After finally deciding to try out Vas rebels in MP after only playing TR and AR, omfg how do they think they could possibly come to balance jumping orkies, phase stabalisers and that STILL ridiculous "leach all ur fleets HP and anti-matter and put it into my fleet" titan.

I think this was done from more of a LORE perspective and not from a competitive MP standpoint.

In other words, "Advanced aliens wtfpwn the puny humans and their half breed advent mutants"

Heres how u balance jumping orkies, u stop them from jumping OR buff other races SBs by a factor of 5 (and more if u dont increase their range aswell... altho a TEC loyal double SB turtle is bad enough already... increase bomber dmg too? no... got it! those currently USELESS anti structure cruisers need either a buff or a cost decrease).

letting orkulus rex move around a gravity well is badassed as it is (THAT should be the T8 upgrade based on the current comparitive strengths of the SBs)

Heres how u nerf phase stabalisers, u remove them OR... no just remove them, jesus that shit is easy street when u dont need to worry about where ur fleet is in regards to defending ur empire, never having to divide ur forces allowing you to easily fight on two fronts with ur whole fleet AND you can jump behind enemy lines with kostura... many LOLs were achieved with this ridiculousness in the last game

Heres how u balance rebel titan, just swap that ability that lets it restore AM and HP to ur surrounding fleet with something else thats nearly useless (like an ability that lets it stay alive for a minute or so longer when the titan dies)... but KEEP nano-leach as on its own (without the fleet restore ability) AFTER last patch, it seems pretty balanced, indeed the titan is doomed without it.

also corvettes may have been nerfed a little too much? not sure yet but i find i dont use em anymore.

Of course people can claim there may be ways around these unbalances (just use caps or another titan to kill vas rebel titan geez wat r u guys dumb?!) well... thats probably one of the more ignorant responses with the author obviously assuming that the titan is gona be all alone all the time without a cap killing support fleet... even some of the better solutions like a microed bomber spam to kill orky (running carriers in circles away from orky to kill it)... really? That doesnt make it balanced does it? No, It does not good sir.

Please don't kill me, I am a nub, but what if you didn't allow the VStarbase to use the phase stabilizer? That way it couldn't jump in right to the front in affect giving them 2 Titans.

One small change I'd advocate is to remove the destabilization on them...that way at least you can retreat from your own planet without killing your fleet...not enough to fix the issue but it'll help....

I believe the original idea was to add an extra level to the phase node upgrade, so it'd be at least 2 SB upgrades...

13 seems a little high...how about 12?  Or maybe 13 labs total, including both civil and military...

Or maybe SBs should require capital ship slots...no, better idea, you get one SB for each upgrade to your fleet supply...

And what about Vasari Loyalists? They have no need of starbases as defense? 

To Seleucia/pbhead: I know 4 used upgrade slots for jumping Orkies sounds way too extreme. But if you let it cost one it has still full combat upgrades. Two doesn't make any big difference either. From 3 three on there is a palpable and in my opinion reasonable difference. I don't consider the skill upgrades viable combat upgrades when compared to the raw power of weapons/armor. So how would you possibly balance that thing if not by severely limiting its combat potential? Any input appreciated. 

You are right, 2 upgrades less does hurt indeed, and I'm partial on agreeing with you that upgrade slots won't solve the matter. I've focused a bit too much on balancing the Orkulus directly I think.

How about approaching this differently: Let the Mobility research impose an additional level of taxation, say 10-20%. Let the jumping ability be a normal stand-alone, one-level upgrade and let it impose another 10-20%. That way a non-eco player would need to keep his fleet at a reduced size if he wants to keep his babies around. And an eco-player would do well not to build too many of those at once to keep up his economic potential.

Just for the sake of organization, I'm going to tally the issues facing Orkulus Rex:

• A jump-capable unit that costs no supply
• Can be constructed in the rear, fully upgraded, and then sent to the front
• Enemy units cannot escape from it without being significantly weakened (owing to Jump Destabilization -- although here, I feel the antimatter loss is far more severe than the health loss)
• Can be spammed by players who pour money into their economy
• Is capable of taking on capital ships, Titans, and fleets, with ease

Suggestions that I have seen so far to remedy this, none of which I like (even if they're combined):

• Phase Jump upgrade requires an extra level to make Vasari starbases jump-capable
• Doesn't really solve any of the above problems: it sacrifices one upgrade slot, but it can still be built in friendly space, upgraded, and then jump into the fray
• Jump-capable starbases lose 2-4 upgrade slots
• The Vasari starbase is outgunned on the defensive by Red Button starbases and Advent meteor starbases; if it loses 2-4 upgrade slots as soon as jump capability is researched, then it essentially becomes useless on the defensive (far moreso than before)
• Jump-capable starbases can't jump into enemy systems
• This basically solves the problem, but it's ultimately arbitrary and defeats the purpose of the mobile starbase as an offensive weapon
• Starbase has to "pack up" and "unpack" before it can jump, resulting in an X second period in which it can neither move nor fire nor escape nor use abilities
• This suggestion actually has the most merit out of all the solutions I've seen, giving players a chance to gun down, or at least severely weaken, an Orkulus Rex before it can cause any trouble, WITHOUT imposing an arbitrary headcount limit on starbases that other factions do not face or otherwise limiting the Orky's capabilities in some way.

My suggestion is as follows: combine the "pack-unpack" suggestion with a non-arbitrary limit on where the starbase can jump, to wit: it can only jump into gravity wells belonging to you or your allies OR into enemy gravity wells in which your culture or allied culture is reducing the gravity well's allegiance (it's not enough for culture to simply contact the gravity well -- culture output must be significant enough to reduce the planet's allegiance and/or penetrate past said gravity well).

Lore justification: advanced telemetry required to coordinate starbase phase jumps; also plays into the Vasari Rebel theme of teamwork and cooperation.

This allows a smart player to defend his gravity well from an Orkulus rush with a T3 upgrade and/or a couple of capital ships (which repel culture). This would also allow smart allied players (particularly the Advent) to spam culture to create a path for Orkulus Rex; by comparison, enemy teams can spam culture to prevent Orkulus Rex from arriving in the first place. But even if it arrives, it would still have to pack and unpack.

By severely, but not arbitrarily, limiting the mobility of Orkulus Rex to situations in which you need to actually dislodge enemy culture generating st, you provide a disincentive to use it -- it becomes less viable for economy players to spam the thing.

This might not be enough, but it's a start.

If necessary, Orkulus Rex might need to lose Jump Destabilization in exchange for Jump Capability (or it might be a toggle?). If so: when you research jump capability, players must toggle between Jump Destabilization and Jump Capability (with a long cooldown -- five minutes, maybe more, so they can't jump in and switch it up).

 This was never proposed the way you describe here. The exact idea was to tie Jump Capability to an upgrade slots which woud use up additional slots only this upgrade was chosen. This way a purely defensive starbase would not suffer at all.

The unpacking/packing idea is interesting but is as difficult to balance as directly balancing the starbase's stats, so I don't consider it viable. 

They did indeed mention this, but as pointed out numerous times it's impact has to be doubted. Concerning your last point: The Vasari Loyalist still has to make up for his lack of a fully mobile star base acting as an anti-structure weapon. The Vasari have always had the advantage of a semi-mobile star base with above average damage potential and the possibilty of increasing its construction speed in enemy territory, so this point is dealt with to a certain extent.

Coming back to the topic of taxation:

While imposing an additional level of upkeep on researching Full Mobility reduces an eco-player's resource output, thus reducing his ability to churn out star bases at will, it has a drawback.

An eco-player could still pre-build his star bases, then research Mobility, then go rampaging. He would take a dent to his economy, no doubt, but the threat he poses doesn't get any smaller. Applying additional upkeep per mobile star base would hamper his eco even more, but only at a point that no one wants him to get to in the first place.

So yeah, I'm a bit discouraged by my idea. (Which is quite equal to imposing a fleet supply cost to the mobility upgrade, now that I think of it... So credits go to whoever came up with it originally 0) 

The reason why I like it is because it can be implemented now via modding...I'm not saying it is the best idea, but it is viable without the devs having to change the engine...

Everything else (SB's requiring fleet supply, or jumping SB's requring fleet supply) would require an engine change or a ridiculous and intricate series of buff files...