Lets add up the cost:
Starbase:

Economic SB + factory module + zero G scaling + Orbital Replicator + Interstellar collector

= 5 consturction modules (250-300 manufacturing) for +5% raw production and +50% mnufacturing

Compare this to a planetary improvement:

Basic Factory (30 manufacturing) + Xeno Factory (45 manufacturing) + Mega Factory (67 manufacturing) + Manufacturing Center (101 manufacturing) + Industrial Sector (151 manufacturing)

= 243 manufacturing for 40% manufacturing or 394 manufacturing for 50% manufacturing.

If your starbase affects multiple planets this is not a decision any more. And the hidden benefit of it all is that starbases enable you to have more population on your planet because they cost 0 tiles and eventually bring some approval on the table, too. Plus the push the optimal blance of on planet M/R/W-modifiers vs. food bonusses in favor of the food bonusses. And population is multiplicative with both +% raw production and +% manufacturing.

At some point you will be building starbases from the net profit of the others you have built.

Also I am not building them at once. In more practical cases I will have like 5 or 9 SBs per system (don't forget SBs can benefit multiple planets) and by the point where I could scale up to 14 per planet (if no asteroids, nebulas, planets etc. are in the way...) - which is age of ascension tech - the game is way past decided anyways.

Note that 18 SB requires the vigilant trait. There are other traits I like better.

I usually play 8 civs at 'large', so I usually end u with about 10 planets. I don't play higher, because it makes turn durations obnoxious (past ~ turn 200) on my computer.

5 early at the very least at home system, and 9 when I get the first range extension (before turn 100 I think). 2nd range extension doesn't happen before about turn 120ish or so (depends on the civ I play), when I unlock the third tech age (so yeah, I guess 14 is lategame, what else could it be?). Even then I usually have different tech priorities first. And besides, at this point I am usually firmly ahead of the AI anyways and don't really care about min-maxing that much anymore. But would I do it at this stage if I actually needed more economy? Yes.

Of course I delay all this if a war is brewing.

And really guys, what micro requirement? You command once when telling the constructor where to go and a second time when just kicking off all auto upgrades on it.

I don't really need a lot of diplo techs. universal translator and the specialization is a must anyways, because of the governance branch (+% production and all the other juicy stuff) and then sometimes I get the next diplo tech for the flat bonus and non aggresion treaties. Done. Bridges the gap where I would rather build SBs then warships.

We play very similar. I do however, stick my basic 7 Starbases(6 Eco, 1 Culture) per system in their neat little hex formation(again some terrain obstructs as do close systems), from around turn 20-80. I also drop Military Starbases in the "open Spaces". And yeah there is little Micro for me too with the new system. I have 500ish starbases my last game for 49 planets. I dont think I ever hit the 14 SB's per system though, never really looked at it that closely before, as long as I get the initial 7 covering all thier planets in a starsystem with the range extendors I am happy.

Have you tried making them horrendously expensive to begin with? I would be interested in hearing how that plays. (makes more economically logical sense as well)

I know I made this post a few months ago, but I couldn't decide if it was smarter to create a new thread to ask this and then rehash everything in this one, or just use this one so that the context of what I want to ask is already here. Sorry if I chose incorrectly, I went with using this one.

I just want to ask if the whole starbase thing is still like this (16 bazillion starbases per planet), or if it's been changed. I haven't played much since I made this thread and figured it'd be easier to just ask here instead of digging through 6 months of patch notes.

Edited to add: Also, is the AI any better yet or still the same?

It has been a while since I played, but one thing I remember about the AI was being confused about their build choices on planets. Also, I *think* they had a problem upgrading buildings, or changing their builds when they added worlds to their empire based on newly acquired resources which would change their optimal setups. That kind of stuff.

An "administration" system sounds interesting to limit starbases. In my opinion it should be structured in a way that limits your ability to spam starbases (especially economic) and makes choosing where to put them more interesting. Hopefully it is something similar to how logistics limits fleet size, or even a simple exponentially increasing cost system. Something, anything, to get rid of eco starbase spam. I just hate it.

Let me get this straight. Those who are complaining about the number of starbases allowed to be built and will not longer play the game because of it are doing so just because you're allowed to build that many and you don't have the "will power" to not do so in order the have the game played the way you want? Okay... that makes sense.

Ok, now somehow I feel compelled to issue my opinion also:

I'm an optimizer, so if there is a chance to micromanage something I *must* do it

That leads to me building lots and lots and lots of starbases (when I'm not at war). And that leads ultimately to frustration, since we have no tools to manage dozens and dozens of starbases. Do I have to put research modules on a (econ) base? Depends on planet specialization, but if I have a lot of them I can't remember which are optimized for research when I'm in the starbase build screen. Or I did just finish a research that gives me a new wealth module. So which starbases do I have to upgrade? The same with Precursor research, there is no way to just select all Archeology (exploit relics) starbases and give an order to upgrade all to the new module.

So for me there would be two options: give the player the tools to manage star bases effectively (even a starbase governor which places econ starbases optimally around a planet would be acceptable if he would do his job correctly), or get rid of econ starbases and give every planet an orbital buildqueue where he or she can build orbital sturctures (aka starbase modules) without having to resort to econ starbases (sacrificing the possibility to profit more than one planet from a single starbase). Since orbit is uniform no grid with hexes would be necessary, just a list that shows which structures are already built and which can further be built.

Because if I feel "compelled" to do something in a game, it is someone else's fault, not mine.  My personal compulsions are always reasonable gameplay.  They should be supported or addressed by the devs.  Other people's compulsions are nonsensical and unreasonable and shouldn't be supported, ever.  Ever!

As far as I can tell, there is very little else behind these conversations.

And I am up to 8 starbases per planet with the new rules, anyway.  

It has nothing to do with poor AI.  As has been shown in this discussion, the humans do it whether the AI players do it or not. We become obsessive pattern makers.  

In American football, if you have enough people to tackle another player and drag them to the ground, that is good.  If you then send in more of your players, that is called "piling on" and is considered poor form and totally unnecessary.  Building tons of starbases when the AI is not doing so is a form of "piling on".  It isn't a strategy.  It's a reaction at best.  And it is a reaction without a real trigger.

A better example of AI influence on the human player might be the asteroid mines.  I think they are terribly expensive for the payback.  The AI spams them.  If I don't keep up, I will have overall less base production in my empire.  Figuring when I can invest in asteroid mines and how much to spend is a strategy decision.  It can be argued that the AI is making a poor decision when it is spamming asteroid mines.  It can be argued that it is performing the function of making me make decisions I would rather avoid.  Either way, I am reacting to a specific AI behaviour and strategy with my own counter strategy.  With starbases, the AI is not performing that function.  The impetus to spam starbases is self generated.

As for subjectiveness, that is entirely controlled by what movies you have watched.    As soon as some clever director realizes there is an angle that hasn't been exploited yet, you will see a tiny world surrounded by gazillions of starbases, satellites, and whizzing space ships featured in the next Star Wars movie.  Then the concept will be as acceptable as Deep Space 9, the monolith from 2001, or a mouse that owns a theme park.  It is all subjective.  It is all imagination.  There is no physical or economic reason not to have as many starbases around a planet as there are GPS satellites around the Earth right now.  We just haven't had it made real yet for us by Hollywood.

I agree with both Eris and Builder in part...

First off with builder, no I don't like spamming star bases around a planet it's long and annoying but, helps me get the most out of my planets so as long as I can as a player spam star bases and it gives me a benefit I will.  Thank Stardock for the automation with the starbases have now with auto ordering the upgrades and with the pragmatic constructor module +1 bonus.  

As far as Eris says, I'm going to take whatever advantage I have to attempt to win the game, if this means buying asteroid mines (which I also agree is terribly expensive for the return) especially early in the game where you may need that money for other things.  So in that case star base spamming is the way to go.

Overall, Star base spamming is a part of the game (for now) and until Stardock changes the game on how many star bases an empire can build I will continue to use this strategy even though it is annoying.

It's more like the international space station. I like the idea of having a chart listing the types of space stations in different colums.. I think the automated constructors is a good idea. I do think there is a problem there. I need to have a list of shipyard spongers, so I don't use all my starbases for automated constructors being able to reuse shipyards for multiple starbases, or multiple shipyards for one starbases. If you need an example planets sponcer shipyards. Some, but not all shipyards sponcer starbases. When I build a starbases there should be an option, not a requirement to be sponcered by a shipyard. This would avoid micromanagement if you set shipyards to auto build constructors if you want to build all the modules. Because if you need shipyards for other things there is a lot of deleting. 

I gotta ask sorry, but how are you not having fun doing what you want. If you don't want to maximise production then why are you doing it, especially when you know the AI isn't. If this isn't fun, and you don't need to, then why don't you stop. The reason is this is satisfying some kind of compulsiveness that the brain rewards making this fun. Otherwise you wouldn't do this. Another words you are addicted to making starbases. To be honest otherwise this doesn't make sense.