Starbases are easy kills for an Overlord

Haven't decided yet. Starbsaes are not meant to be invincible, they're meant to only be tough enough to survive minor attacks.

I have to agree with Magus. To have a starbase with soooooo many upgrades get destroyed by one ship is hard to take. Unless your military production can support having one or more overlords to protect each starbase, it is impossible to protect them. I am hoping that we can get an upgrade so a starbase maxed out on defense can take on one or two overlords until help can arrive.

How about a successful attack on a starbase destroys one upgrade and reduces HP by 20% (to make the next attack easier). Then a starbase would at least need several attacks to be destroyed. No experience would be gained by the starbase obviously!

I do agree with Brad. A starbase should not be invinceable or require a rediculous number of overlord ships to destroy it.

Paul.

I actually think that starbases would be vulnerable. They are static and not heavily armoured (a heavily armoured station is a terror star). They are designed for economic and cultural extension not combat. So, they need to be protected by ships. Starbase defenses are just there to toughen them up a little bit. I like them as they are - but it is frustrating losing them, but thats the fun - shall I upgrade culture or defense this time?

The only problem is - and I have reported this several times so it may be intentional - you can't really protect a starbase with a ship in recent builds as aoften an attacking ship shoots straight past your guard ship and destroys the starbase. I persobally hope this has been changed fore the next build.

I think they should make it so you can have something like 3 ships "orbiting" the space station... I thought this was in the game in an earlier beta...

Steevo, that happened in my last game. I had 3 War party Dreadnoughts 'Guarding' a resource starbase (no systems in sector). An Overlord shot past my defenders and attacked the maxed defense / mined base. Lost 300 of 450 HP but it did go up 1.9 lvl.
I have some suggestions:
1) There is room on the Ship's screen for a Guard-Starbase
2) Bring back the docking module. A docked ship adds it Attack and Defense to the starbase or takes hits first
3) Add 2 more upgrades, a 'Overlord killer' +10 defense and a 2nd base repair-bay.
4) Increase each of the current defense upgrades by 1
5) Add a HP upgrade(s)

A good end-game starbase has over 30 upgrades. That's a huge in resource investment. These superbases shouldnt be indestructable but they should be able to withstand a first stike by 2 Overlords and more if they are defended by a fleet.

When I play this game, I think of the old Trek show Deep Space Nine. That show had Starbases, Wormholes, planets, starhips, wars, diplomacy ect. Everything this game has was in that show (even space monsters). When this game goes public, you will have a big hit!

Ted,
while I agree with improving the way defending ships work I totally disagree with an extra +10 defense module. I also disagree with a defnesive ship adding it's +ATT and +DEF to the starbase. These are starbases, not death stars.
Ships on defend should be attacked first though, before the starbase gets attacked. An extra repair module would also be nice.

Paul.

I agree Brad - star bases are already tough enough when they're fully equipped.

I agree with Paul - it would be more interesting if attacks destroyed star base modules in a given order (E.g. offense, defense, influence, economics, resources) rather than just generically reducing hit points until the whole thing is gone. Maybe for 1.x?

I agree with Steve - ships should be the first line of defense for star bases.

I’m being too agreeable. Excuse me while I go slam my fingers in the nearest door.

End transmission.

I'm not looking for an invincible starbase but given the scale of the things it does seem a bit much to have one ship come by, take one shot, and goodbye starbase.

In my original post I was thinking along the lines of some of what Ted proposed: some combination of things that would allow a starbase to withstand at least two and preferably three attacks from Overlords.

To that end I second the call for the return of the docking module with the ability for the docked or orbiting ships to add their attack and defense to that of the starbase.

When you gain the ability to build Avatars you also gain the ability to defend against them to some degree.
Doesn't it logically follow that the same would be true of the ability to build Overlords?

Some additional defensive modules would be nice.

Brad mentioned a while back that he was thinking of having starbase modules that would allow one to increase the hitpoints of the starbase. Is this still going to happen?

Another issue is one that has also been raised before: there was some discussion revolving around the use of a constructor to repair a damaged starbase rather than have it be used to add a module. This would also be a "good thing" (tm).

Since we agree/disagree in several of these suggestions, why dont we take a vote? We can let Brad know how his users feel and help him make the final decision in the Starbase debate. If there are any changes to the starbases, he will need time before the release to test them.

Guys,

I have been cheeky enough to sum up the fine range of options (btw I like em all, just have a pref for this and that)-

1) A successful attack on a starbase destroys one upgrade and reduces HP by 20%

2) Protected as they are now.

3) Option on Ship's screen for a "Guard Starbase"

4) Bring back the docking module - a docked ship adds it Attack and Defense to the starbase or takes hits first.

5) Add 2 more upgrades, an 'Overlord killer'+10 defense and a 2nd base repair-bay.

6) Increase each of the current defense upgrades by 1

7) Add a HP upgrade(s)

8) Attacks destroy starbase modules in a given order (E.g. offense, defense, influence, economics, resources

9) Some additional defensive modules

10) A constructor to repair a damaged starbase rather than used to add a module

Ted you said -

"When I play this game, I think of the old Trek show Deep Space Nine. That show had Starbases, Wormholes, planets, starhips, wars, diplomacy ect. Everything this game has was in that show (even space monsters). When this game goes public, you will have a big hit!

Thats exactly how I feel. This game has the potential to fire the imagination of true sci-fi fans almost (dare I say it here ;)) in an RPG way! Thats why I asked for Hero's to be considered (adding firepower, range, defence, scanning etc etc to ships etc) and Brad said "they will be in" - but not 1.0)

s

Actually why don't you go after the miltary reasources? 2 fully outfit bases on miltary reasource can protect your starbases from anything. +200% Attack, Defense and HP, by that time no one wants to goto war with you.. (Hope that changes with beta 5 though.. heh)

Other than one thing that bothers me I like the way this discussion is going and the ideas that are coming from it.

What bothers me? The idea that docking bays allow a ship to defend a star base. I have always thought of docking bays as places to repair or upgrade ships (maybe with a future release, upgrading ships will be possible). If a ship is offline for repair, how can it defend a star base?

A ship on patrol around a star base, however, seems to be in an ideal position to protect a star base. The idea of a setting for ships to protect star bases seems to fit this very nicely, but I think we need to flesh out what we would expect in terms of the ship's behavior. I suggest that a ship must be near a star base (within one turn's worth of move points?) before this setting could be turned on. Then they should stay on the same tile as the star base until an enemy ship comes within a few tiles of the star base, then move to attack automatically. If more than one ship is patroling a star base, the ship with the best chance of success (some combination of current hit points, attack points, and defense points) should attack first. If it is not destroyed at once, it should have a chance to retreat (still assuming more than one defender) with the next strongest ship stepping up to press the attack.

Again, grist for post 1.0.

Jack, remember DS9? It had a docking bays for the Defiant and other ships. When DS9 was attacked, the Defiant left the base and defended it, before the enemy got near the base. Lest not forget the wild 2 hour series finale. With 7 years, they really upped the defense of that base!. I'd like a base like DS9 in this game.

I'd like to have 5 Avatars docked at my starbase, 1 for each spoke.

I like Steevo's summary. Its now upto Brad.

Regarding Steve’s summary -

(3) should replace (4). That is, ships guard (and take damage before) star bases. If this is the case, you don't need the docking module to formalise the relationship.

(4) However, like Jack, I think of docking modules as dry-dock modules, built to increase repair rates. If you have a ship docked, that ship is out of commission, but being repaired faster.

In fact, I would like to have the option to build smaller star bases dedicated to repairing ships. A nice battlefront option for the larger galaxies, with their vast interstellar gaps.
- They would be slightly more expensive to build or maintain, since you would have to co-ordinate supply to the base.
- They would have limited expansion modules available – repair, offense/defense, sensors?
- They could provide a repair rate much greater than normal.
- Of course, you’d want a little bird to remind you when they were fully repaired.

(9) How about a Minefield module? Something that is only activated against attacking ships. The best defense…

(10) Perhaps a "Repair Constructor" built at a slightly lower cost, since the infrastructure of the star base is still in place?

End transmission.

DS9 may be a good idea generator for star bases, but remember that everything thrown at it was battleship or lower! Imagine what an Avatar ship (think Borg cube) could do. Then Imagine an Overlord! It would easily have defeated DS9. Also consider how 1 battleship (romulan) destroyed DS9.

I still believe that Starbases should be vunerable to anything bigger than battleship. They can't move! They are sitting targets! Increasing +DEF or +ATT removes this vunerability, making battleships totally useless against starbases.

Improving the ability of defensive ships to protect the starbase is the way to go in my opinion.

Paul.

I agree. Leave Spacestations as easy kills. Just make it easier to defend it by letting us "orbit" ships around them... like a fleet set to gaurd the station.

Agreed. Put enough Dreadnoughts around a starbase, destroy / damage any capital ships in nearby sectors, the starbase will survive. BTW, I rarely lose a starbase.

What has been forgotton in the thread is whether or not starbases will ever be listed on the diplomacy screen. If we can trade planets, why not starbases?

DS9's "Defiant" was indead docked to DS9, but the look of it was that it was a docking "port", not a bay. In a sense, the port was a ready station where the Defiant was on standby status, a stage or two below "on patrol". And I don't recall DS9 having a major repair facility, such as those that were obviously available on the Death Stars and Star Destroyers of "Star Wars". Maybe DS9 had such a facility and just was never refered to in the series.

Also, in regards to the docking bays in Star Wars, Yes, they were used in the sense of being both repair stations and ready stations. Certainly a ship undergoing repairs would not be in a ready status for defending the star base, but it could be made ready quickly (although not fully repaired) while a fully repaired ship, already on standby alert, took the initial duties of defense.

Frankly, I think there has been entirely too much discussion of DS9 and Star Wars in this thread with no mention of Babylon 5, which of course inspired the organic armor ... (God I hope this doesn't start a flame war).

"How will this end?"
"In fire."