The smaller ships should be able to dock in the star ports similar to planets. I've been playing with the editor too much to do the game play, that is my plan for Sunday. They also said that these star ports are going to be extremely vunerable.

My suggestion would be to allow fleets to defend starports.

Any starbase or starport cannot be attacked unless the fleet is defeated first.

Maybe being within a starbase/starpoint should eliminate the need for logistics.  (also to prevent stacking 100 1-ship fleets as a delay tactic)

What needs to be coded into the ai  is if ...1) a fleet or enemy threaten the starport, then can it rush buy a strong ship that turn? If so do it! The AI needs to place protection of the starport as a top priority.

You can 'base' ships on a starport just like star bases. I have not tested to see if it prevents the destruction of the port, (It should) if it does not.

Maybe, and this is a big maybe- combats should only end with the destruction of one side if it gets destroyed in under x rounds?

Another option is to give starports intrinsic attack/defense so that it takes a certain amount of fleet to kill the home system one at a minimum

The starport is mainly focused on producing ships. That in itself takes an extreme amount of resources, power, and dedication to do efficiently. I don't think efficiency mixes well when you combine military operations on production operations. The drills that occur weekly would disrupt production from day to day. Automated turrets would have to be tested constantly, drawing power that is vital to keep the starport making ships.

On top of which any sort of defenses you create could easily be avoided by a ship as the ships can move and the defenses are stationary. You would have to create thousands of turrets on the starport to begin to have a chance of destroying the invading fleet. Your home starport should be protected by a standing garrison fleet that you created and placed there. I'm not an advocate in making the starports have weaponry.

The problem raised by Gaunathor raises a balance concern. Although, I'm not sure that it will be an issue very often in larger games, but smaller games I can definitely see this as a problem. Although, the balance there would be to gimp Drengin on life support systems. Making sure that they have a harder time moving about the galaxy. But we would have to see how it plays out. Simply put, the Drengin would have to research life support systems to get a decent life support on their ships to travel. Possibly giving the other player enough time to move their starport out of the Drengin attack range.

So is what I wrote. But, I was utilizing the current paradigm to create a reason for the current mechanic of a defenseless starport. I think leaving it vulnerable will prevent the player from abusing a super powered mobile starport.

I prefer to read stories as to why someone would prefer a change vs. the game mechanic. Example (Bad one):

The shortsword does more damage than a dagger.

Reason 1: Players upgrade from dagger to a shortsword so it should do more damage.

Reason 2: The shortsword is bigger and therefore can cause more damage than a small dagger.

I prefer to read Reason 2 vs. Reason 1, even though reason 1 is the motivation and point.

I find it difficult to buy the idea that an empire would build a manufacturing site in such an exposed space that was unable to defend itself,, whether that defense was part of its own structure, part of an adjunct mechanism that accepts and enhances defending units, or both. After all, just look at what an attractive target such a weak, exposed, and expensive construct it would be. Certainly its function alone (building aggressive attack units) would be reason enough to make it a high value target, and to make it capable of defending itself.

WOW that is a fun fact Parrotmath, totally irrelevant to a fictional war time situation like this but thanks nonetheless. I will call my local Congressman about it.

How does this differ? Well things were good and simple when stardocks were planetside but now they are REALLY HUGE targets. End of story. So think of this forum like a town hall meeting were we are looking for answers while we wait for devs to alleviate our worries.

DARCA.

So I posted something similar in another thread, but basically I agree with parrotmath. I don't think starports should have innate defenses at the start of the game. I'm open to the idea of upgrading them using modules via constructors like other starbases (could also have modules to boost range from planet bonus, production overall, speed of ships produced, etc.), but I really don't think such improvements are necessary either (could be a cool DLC though).

In my first alpha 3 game (large spiral), I started one system away (like 10 hexes) from the Drengin. I saw this and realized, like gaunathor, that this could be a problem since they had weapons and I did not.

So I casually tried to see how hard it was to quickly build defense. As Terrans, I was able to easily research the first military tech and build a Fury M1 in 9 turns. I didn't use my survey ship and I didn't rush buy the Fury, though I did rush buy two research improvements. I'm sure those 9 turns could be cut, so I personally think if you start by the Drengin, spend the first 10 turns preparing to defend yourself and then periodically improve your defenses.

And what I think we cannot overlook: right now conquest is the only victory condition and we start at war. Ultimately, I think this will be a player vs. player issue, not a single player issue because we'll meet our friendly neighborhood Drengin and will have time to build defenses before they declare war on us. Or when diplomacy is in the game, we schmooze and prevent war.

I really think this won't be as much an issue as the game develops.

And in the end, if you choose not to defend your starport and are eaten or enslaved, that's kind of just how the galaxy works...

The current way starports are done is untenable in a production game.  On a large map with 3 AI, they got a total of 9 planets and I got the rest by parking ships in their systems to destroy their new starports.  I can post a screen shot if someone needs to see it.

It's not the vulnerability of the starports that I have an issue with; it's the fact that ship production cannot occur on a planet so that destroying your enemies' starports effectively ends the game (checkmate).

My suggestion is different: Make both starports and planet-based shipyards.  Shipyards would require an improvement + manufacturing points.  Each shipyard improvement would increase the construction rate of ships.  The shipyard improvement would be upgradable.  This would give the possibility of creating "shipyard planets" just like research planets or economic planets.  You could even limit planet-based ship production to medium hulls and require that large and massive hulls be constructed solely in space.  That would give an early-game safety mechanism to having all the starports wiped out, but make them a requirement for mid and late game ship production.

Just a thought.

Didn’t realize that there were two conversations on shipyards/starports.  Here is my comment from the other post. 

As far as the shipyard/starports, it really adds to the game play and is a great addition.  Yes, it is very vulnerable and the planet defensives should be enhanced for GC3.  If you can put all those defensive/offensive capabilities in a space station, they should be available to the planet; be it a projection shield from the planet or string of satellites orbiting around the planet.  It should be the equivalent to cannon at a fort to a port, mining of a harbor, or air defensive system for a country; as technology advances, so should the planet defensives/offensive capabilities to include the shipyard in orbit. 

With the starports capability, there also has to be a better way to manage them.  In GC2, the governor’s page provided a list of ships being built by planet and you are still working that interface.  However, quick access to the right of the screen should have a tab for shipyards.  It should go along with the planets, ships, space stations.  It provides a quick view of the starport, type ship in it, days remaining, and rate of construction.  When you select a starport, it highlights it on the map.   

As it should. The AI is incomplete. I highly doubt as the AI moves forward that they will ever leave their starports undefended. Adding starports planet side in addition to in space is, I think, an unnecessary complicating factor.

I want to also reemphasize. Conquest isn't going to be the only victory condition, and ultimately we won't start at war. This really nullifies most (if not all) the worry over starport vulnerability. The vulnerability is an early game issue, and most combat won't start until the mid-game.

I agree.

Yeah, I played Skyrim. Rather fun game. I know there are smaller swords that do more damage than larger ones, but the point is most people would prefer that the sword bigger = more damage. Visual matches the numbers. Whether the game designer does this is entirely up to them, but expectations are also needed to be met from game players and designers alike. Any solution to this problem will  not eliminate the fact that Drengin will win in a small map. Shipyard in space or on planet it matter not. 1 small ship will destroy any of your initial base and they will be able to send more ships to you than you can produce...

I like the in space version of the shipyard and it would be important to note that if an enemy can get to your most inner system then really you should be able to defend yourself from them, else it should be a strategic error so large that you lose.

I'll have to get a few more games under my belt, but I prefer the floating shipyard.