Starbases Suck (Defensively)

Just like every gal civ game ever. They might need a bit more oomph, but I wouldnt expect them to stand up against more then a few light fighters

Options should be meaningful though. And as it stands, if you want to defend a starbase you are better off building N warships and stationing them at the base than N constructors to improve the base firepower/defense. And it's not like it's a close call or anything, it's that one option is so stunningly better than the other, that the second option is nothing more than a trap for the unwary.

Would be an interesting idea if starbases wouldn't get destroyed in one turn. They would just get severly damaged, losing all their abilities until repair and during this stage enemy troops could capture it. Right now it's just too easy to blow em up.

Do starbases still have modules that provide bonuses for attack and defense?

Yes, they do, but those modules are not cost effective, and even if they were value effective, you can't add enough modules to allow a starbase to be anything more than a speed bump.

Given that defenses are going to deplete as they get attacked, maybe a solution would be to quadruple both the base starbase defenses, and the value of their defensive modules.  That would definitely make them more of a hazard, both on their own, and with a defending fleet to support them.

It seems likely to me that this is just another balancing item on the endless list for SD.      I would add that at present you can go benevolent and build only culture stuff on starbases and take over the galaxy without a fight (well, maybe blowing up pirates or leftover stuff from a race that you just overran (or overinfluenced, lol).   At least with all the AI on normal.  Haven't tried on higher difficulty.

Historically fixed defenses, most of the time, were not equal to mobile units.   (my free military history 2c.)

I'd have to argue that the strongest fully upgraded starbases should be expensive, but offer some degree of defense as to justify their cost. They'd have to be as powerful as say, an upgraded weapons starbase in Sins. Able to stand up to a moderate fleet.

That and offer something that you cannot ignore as an attacker. Ex: Maybe lots of damage to ships within their radius?

You misunderstood my question. I was talking about the starbase support modules that boost ships near them. I found in earlier games it was better to do that and have ships defend them than to try to arm starbases for self-defense.

To be honest the modules or whatever should depend on what technological era your in the best modules should be for the last technological era. Just like it takes a long time to research huge hulls, weapons, or defenses it would take a long time to research your best defence and offence

I also have to admit that all starbases seem nerfed to me. I mean I remember taking maxed out culture starbases, turning them into terror stars, and flipping the entire map through cultural domination. In GalCiv 1. Nothing in GalCiv 2 or 3 comes close. Thank god. Or Brad. Whomever works best.

But their offensive and defensive power was more in buffing the ships near them than in defending themselves. 

In GalCiv 2 Dread Lords, I complained about the lack of defensive ability for starbases. After upgrading a starbase to max (including researching all techs to do that), they were not well suited to their own defense. Fleets could be made that could kill a fully upgraded starbase. It was better to keep a fleet on the same tile to defend them... if you even bothered.

It became worse in Dark Avatar when the combat system got changed and starbases did not get improved to take advantage of it. The changes was from all ships being restricted to 1 attack per round to as many attacks as the ship had weapons (so a ship could kill multiple ships per turn). Starbases never got more attacks. Likewise, the changes to defenses was from defenses working at full power for every attack (so if a ship had a weak attack, it would practically be useless against a well defended ship) to each attack would weaken the defenses of a ship to 0. Starbases didn't get stronger defenses. They became vulnerable to fleets of many ships as they couldn't kill them quickly and their own defenses could be weakened to 0. Further more, ships got even larger, so you could eventually build huge ships that could out class any starbase combat wise, let alone what could be done with fleets.

It became even worse in Twilight of the Arnor. You could now add HP boosting modules to ships. You could add fleet modules to ships (for both attack and defense). Some of the tech trees got remodeled in such a way that some starbase modules got denied to some civilizations. Hell, in some cases it looked like it was remodeled deliberately to have some modules harder to get access to (and became nearly useless by the time you got them).

Overall, I found that starbase defenses were not worth while beyond the basics. If you went for the early bird advantage, it might be useful for a while (if you got it just right, enemy ships would attack on mass and be destroyed in a futile attack against a tough nut). Ultimately, I found that it was best to use ships to defend starbases, namely mining starbases for galactic resources and economic starbases for planets. I found influence starbases to be useful for a time, but it was something to be disposed of once I finished culture flipping a planet or securing the influence in a region through other means. Military, well, I never mastered their use, and many of their modules were the ones that were made harder to get in Twilight. Terror Stars, its best to forget about them.

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In GalCiv 3, the ability to have fleets team up with starbases is a nice boost. It is also a nice boost that fleets with starbases (or planets or shipyards) can exceed normal logistics early in the game (it is 40). Further more, since sensor ranges don't have a limit in this game, it is possible to see attacks coming (and do something about it). It seems that stardock has continued to leave them the support role. They can be defended, but they can't be expected to defend themselves. What advantages they offer is the real reason why you build them.

I can see why they did make bases weaker, because starbases were way too much in GalCiv 1, at least pre-Altarian Prophecy.

Right now a military starbase can add a pretty hefty movement penalty to all enemies in a 9 tile radius, while halving the movement cost of your forces and giving +4 to all weapons and defenses (those values can be further boosted by modules that specifically boost certain weapons or defenses).  It gets particularly potent when you have multiple military starbases with overlapping areas.

Still, to defend those starbases, it makes much more sense to have a fleet of tiny fighters using the movement boosts to quickly intercept attackers and win with the weapon & defensive buffs, rather than giving the starbases defensive boosts.

I personally think that is is good that you need to use ships to defend a starbase. They are high-value targets and it should take a little effort to defend them against attack.

yea, they aren't really for fighting or defending in combat directly. I think balancing is difficult to, as it took some months of testing to get it right in the galciv2 community patch. So far I like most of the bonuses that starbases give, they seem balanced and I like that we need ships to defend them properly.