The real answer is put the starbase in the right place the first time or take the hit. Yes, that won't always be possible or easy or whatever. It isn't supposed to be. It is a simple reward/penalty system that raises a series of inconvenient decisions and challenges. For me, this is a very good thing. Seriously,it is not that there is no problem to fix here, as far as I see, it is taking out some of the challenge and interaction with the map.
For me it is not a good thing.
A new player doesn't know that there is a tech to increase the range, so they will never place it right the first time around and find out about half way through the tech tree after 20 hours of play or something if they are taking it slower to get familiar with the game, after which you might have already 20-30 if not more stations around which easily could be only half of them if you'd have known.
An experienced player might know about it and do that right from the beginning. Well played, a one trick pony of a decision/challenge-system that punishes players the first time they pick up a game, after which they won't make the same mistake a second time, at least if they care, and after which the lacking feature becomes just cumbersome for longterm micromanagement.
As far as I read while lurking there are tons of threads out there complaining that the micromanagement of Space Stations is insane and by not making it possible to move them later on the game designers at least trippled the amount of space stations needed to cover some stuff because most people are NOT going to bother with tearing down 2-3 stations just to replace them with a single one with greater range later on because at this point the map is filled with crap and you lose track off stuff easily and just want the game to come to an ending. And the problem is regardless of the resource settings at the beginning of the map creation.
So you may find it good the way it is, for me this means next time I won't give a damn about space stations until I have the extended range tech researched. Or at least only build one if I need them to overcome a huge gap to next planet I can colonize and maybe tear the few ones I have created that way down later to replace them with a single one.
I am quite well experienced with 4x games already... and therefore I don't really need the resources placed on the map anyways to win against AI. While I appreciate them as they make things go a bit faster I can perfectly live without them and still win.
So the only thing this makes me want to do is... avoid using Starbases in GC3. In any other game this is not much of a concern because without a hexgrid system they work entirely different anyways. Other games mostly have starsystems with connections between them and a single starbase covers the entire system for the most part and it doesn't matter where you place it.
As far as I am concerned you shouldn't be able to move shipyards, but since they are randomly placed for you upon construction, they weren't going to get away with that.
Actually I find the feature of moving shipyards and sponsoring them by various planets in range a quite interesting unique concept/feature that no other 4x game I know of has. So if it wouldn't be possible to do that the game wouldn't even stand out from the crowd at all because it is exactly those minor differences that render GC3 a unique game.
And if Starbases would be moveable and would have a similar Anchor/Unanchor as well as Sponsoring system it would do favorably for the game as well because it would offer something no other game in the genre has.
Would you agree that the Sponsoring/Sharing is a theme that makes a difference in combination with moving?
That one space gap is a trap and you fell for it. So have I. Several times. Better luck next time.
Well, as I wrote above. It's a one trick pony. Won't fall for that a second time in any other map I create.
However you want to justify the "realism" or "common sense" of the mechanism is more your problem than mine. I have no problem imagining any number of concepts to fit the bill. It's deviously clever game design and deserves a little imagination.
And you forgot to complain about the restriction of starbases being too close together. If you are talking about things being inconvenient and hard to justify, why not that point? It seems somewhat selective to me.
Well nice straw man argument. "Your problem, not mine..."
And I never actually said anything about realism or of starbases being too close together. Realism and Closeness are an entirely different topic. If you find the restriction too lose and convenient then make your own thread about that.
