How do you defend starbases?

from Stardock Forums
I’m becoming a little tired of going through all the trouble of building starbases only to have evryone else blow them up after they declare war on me. On most of them I install a defense module or two but they still get wiped out. I tried keeping a ship on it, but it bugs me the way it looks. It looks awkwardly stacked. I’m strange, so what.

Anyway, is it possible to make it so that starbases can have “orbits”, like planets do? This way it would make it easier to defend them (in my opinion) and easier to look at.

Quick question: I’ve never gotten to the point where I can build a “terror star”. I’m curious, do they kill population or destroy the whole planet? And from how far away can they do it?

Thanks

“The releasing of anger can better any medicine under the sun.” - Pantera
563 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Best way is with ships on it im afraid, and yes it Irks me a lot you can see the ships stacked on it.

Second best way wont come until late in the game when you can build the lightning shield, Avatar Killer, Overlord killer Etc.

~SDC~
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Terror Stars destroy the whole system, but they have no range... they have to "attack" the star from an adjacent parsec just like any other unit. Factor in their fixed maximum speed of 1 (no modifiers... except an occasional bug where you *can* increase their speed) and they become kind of difficult to use.

Still cool though!
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm.... when I first establish a starbase in contested territory, I'll park two of my best ships on top of it, and make upgrading the defenses priority one. Once the starbase is defensively maxed, it usually is better at defending itself than the ships are. By the time you get to Barrier Shields, nothing short of many Dreadnoughts (or a few, if they have better bonuses than I do) will take it out.

If someone makes a concerted effort to take one down, they can, but unless I blew it, they won't have what it takes to take it down before I can reinforce the starbase by getting two good ships stacked back on top of it, guarding it while it repairs.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
thanks for the info, and i'm glad the ship stacking bothers someone else too, i thought it was me being picky, perhaps they'll change this
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Not only do stacked ships on starbases look ugly, they are also a major pain to manage if you put them on guard/sentry and every time you try to examine your starbase you cancel those orders instead. Perhaps something similar to the SMAC Shift+RightClick funtion to select map squares instead of the units on top of them would be a good idea here.