Constructors/Starbases are killing my enthusiasm for this game

Let the constructors pile up in a star. Launch them togethre and make them into a fleet. They behave as a "super constructor" then.

I think what is happening is that you are making your production lopsided between sectors. Those starbases are indeed increasing your productive capacity so the money you allocate to production is allocated between planets according to their productive capacities. You are creating super-productive sectors that grabbing the lions share of the production money. There is very little money left over for the backward sectors. The consequence is the backward sectors produce almost nothing. This can be solved by distributing your starbases more evenly.

I understand that you can reach a point where you have so many production enhancing starbases in one sector that more starbases will contribute nothing further to production. (I think production is limited by planet quality).

The money problem can be reduced by putting trade enhancing modules on starbases in any sector through which your trade routes pass (look for the freighters). These increase the revenue from your trade routes.

Cause your trade routes to pass through sectors containing starbases packed with trade enhancing modules (or build starbases in those sectors). The revenue from a trade route going through a corridor of such starbases can be phenomenal.

Umh, you can destroy your economy with excessive numbers of starbases.

Why build so many starbases anyway?
I never build more than one per sector - you CAN build more and the effects add up, but I think this is a bit silly.

You can have much fun and win with only one base per sector, and you won't have to to so much constructor/starbase-management.

Another thing.



You could take Frogboy's tip one step further. Send that heap of constructors into your newly acquired sector and build an instant starbase to boost production and defenses.



Any way, I do not have to pay starbase maintenance because I have not downloaded any upgrades but I only build three starbases in in a seriously good sector when I want to churn out warships. The other sectors get only one starbase.


BTW I see your point Alysenne. I tend to let my constructors pile up and send them out in batchs with an auto-destination. I would go mad if I moved them about individually manually.
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starbases are a godsend, they let me level the playing field against the more difficult AIs who can't use them as well.

Alysenne, the way you use them seems a bit extreme though, just one or two per sector is usually enough. Your finances could be better spent building a fleet and steamrolling the alien scum instead of playing SimStarbase.

If you find it boring, don't play that way

Personally I don't play with more than one starbase in any sector, except of course to harvest resources.

There will be rally points in the Expansion pack so that should help ease constructor micromanagement.

I love constructors and starbases... I try to grab up as much resources near/in my sectors as soon as possible and then place starbases along my trade routes. I also usually let them build up in my star systems for a while (like was said earlier in the thread) and fleet them for the super constructor... but i almost never have more than 2 starbases per sector and usually only have 1 in empty or useless sectors that my mini-freighters pass through.

A couple of games ago I was planning an invasion. I built a fleet of 16 constructors. The day of the invasion they deployed in an enemy sector and built 2 starbases with attack modules so my fleet could decimate the orbiting ships.

The AI fleets at this point were superior in type and A/D/HP and this allowed me to succeed in the sector takeover.

(A sector with 6 systems that in the previous year was effected by that +15PQ event. A plump plumb indeed )

If you are so far ahead, the terror star is a fun use of constructors. My last game featured 3 Arceans planets in a triangle on space apart. They were much stronger than me militarily, but when they lost 3 planets in a turn and their capital a few turns later, they were begging to surrender.

Be warned that Terror Stars are expensive to complete and that everyone in the galaxy seems to have watched the Star Wars holovids. I had a terror star with a defense bonus of +11 destroyed in one attack by a battleship, so they are more fragile than I expected. However, it would destroy game balance if they were cheap, fast, or tough. (Unfortunately, the Arceans and the Altarians couldn't deal with three terror stars).

Before blowing up planets with them, I built out all the culture mods on both including the cultural palace and roamed from sector to sector with two. The join me or die stategy went well -- I went from the weakest of the five remaining majors to having systems from all majors flip to me.

The let-them-pile-up advice is good, but I've just been managing them as they pop out... I put all the constructor-producing planets on auto-launch and I just use auto-pilot (right-click) to send each of the constructors to the desired destination.

Production wise I go as high as 3 production-bonus starbases in a single sector (if it has 5-6+ planets between its systems) ... when I do that I tend to have sectors with very little production, and they generally remain less developed (I would keep social spending going on them, but then my high-production sectors wind up wasting tons of money because they've either built all the social stuff I need or do so in a hurry) ... I think in the future I'll just have one governor set aside for such low-production planets, and only slap on soil, habs, the bank, the other 0-maintence econ building (stock exchange), and put terraforming at the end of the list to catch any remaining production (unlikely to ever finish)... that way the planets will make me some decent cash.

In the Huge and Gigantic Galaxies, I never use them. My economy piles up boku bux. I can buy whatever I need outright (no leases) I just don't need them or the tedium. And once I have enough ships to do the job, I just turn down the ship building $ to bare min.

On the smaller maps, however, I pile them up. But I don't build more than 1 per sector unless there' 2 resources in it. They are needed badly. Early and mid game, you just need a productin boost al your economy is not sufficient to buy things. And they are not so tedius on those.

It goes without saying I like to pile up resources (econ, science, morale, etc) I even get the military ones though those don't seem to do all that much for me.

I believe that I read somewhere on this forum that there is a 300% cap on planet production bonuses. After how many maxed out startbases is that cap reached? I'm too lazy to try and figure that out, but I suspect it may be less that the 6+ starbases that Alysenne is using. Anyone know the answer?

I've found that production-boosting starbases usually hurt me more than they help, because they just make my less-useful planets totally useless while making my best planets far better than I need them to be. Once I've fully harvested all available resources I tend to flip production to capital ships, and use what contructors I do make for resource-camp duty, adding defenses to resources, or culturally pushing alien planets already in my sectors over the edge into my lap.

-EtherMage


~SDC~

The cap is 3xPQ for "free" production and 10xPQ for "paid" production. It is not a hard cap, and you can go over it somewhat. The source of the bonus does not matter: whether it's from a starbase, social project, or racial ability.

To figure out if you're near the cap, just add together the social and military production. The number to the left of the '+' sign is the "paid" production; the number to the right is the "free" production. Research does not appear to be capped.

In the free expansion pack, there will be rally points, which you will probably find very helpful in managing your constructors.

I build starbases, but mostly with trade and/or culture modules. I think that building and maintaining FPP and AMPP is cheaper and thats better idea since both of them increase economy as well.

One trick you can do is colonize the class-14's and 13's in the sectors where you already have +production Starbases anyway. This has many benefits. You'll get the Soil, +morale, and +econ improvements up in no time. That's all the more free production you've milked out of those Starbases. I've done this before and have been very pleased with their performance.