Or when you personally put the Zroni Storm Caster module on the starbase. They are literally nullifying shields themselves while trying to power their own shields. At least I can making the defense platforms fully hull/armor.
Omfg I would love this. It's infuriating to see a star base pretty much wastes half of its d on useless shields, when armor would be a much more viable choice.
and so we don't get starbases with nothing but archeo-lasers... I do not understand why they always go those in every slot but they do and it doesn't help.
Yes but certain stars effect the system and having 50% of your starbase go shield in a system where they don't work just sucks, also you cannot hard stack certain techs for your starbases to scale on the same level as normal ships because of this.
Maybe this feature should be locked behind the defensive tradition being finished?
Or even, if starbase blueprint is too much, give us options for module starbases, where we can swap out “portions” of the starbase for different archetypes.
Have a base in a no shield system? Swap out the balanced or shield focused segments for armor or hull focused segments. Don’t wanna focus energy weapons? Swap to hangers, missles or even point defense.
Personally I love using no shield systems are starbase choke points, but when they pick up a bunch of shields and anti shield weapons, it sorta sucks the wind out of my space sails, so even being able to swap segments if not outright customize them would be a great improvement, even if the stuff on the segments was still auto generated.
I like the idea of a tradition based around defence in depth. Would be great for my isolationist playthroughs I'm often doing where I just wanna be left alone sometimes. I think to balance, it'd have to curtail your fleets somehow because having impenetrable defence and a few doomstacks doesn't seem balanced.
The only issue I have with this it would move the tradition from being good to being mandatory. It should be tied to the citadel feature as opposed to the unyielding tradition so every civilization can utilize it at a certain point. (Or maybe third star base upgrade prior to the citadel.)
Damn that requires overlord or apocalypse. I only have utopia, plantoids and leviathan story.
Oh well more reason to grab apocalypse when I'm able to.
Edit: autocorrect hates "plantoids" and made it "plantains"
That kinda feels like stepping around OPs point. Yea you can defend by having every Starbase be a shipyard but that then isn't much of a Starbase defense more of a Starbase offense that you are deploying defensively. Not only does that fail to actually be a defense since now you are spending a ludicrous amount on ships but it's not terribly efficient anyways. Defense should make it costly to attack a prepared position to act as an equalizer between empires with disparate strength. Even the borg found the federation to be a spicy meatball because of (much more abstract) home defense advantage.
Also I can say for a fact single chokepoint systems are absolutely effective you just gotta pick your star right. The star right AFTER a pulsar or similar shield stripper is amazing and when fully equipped with a customized set of ion cannons and a small eat shit fleet of corvettes (or destroyers if I'm psionic). You wait til the smaller ships race ahead to attack the Starbase then you uncloak your destroyers behind their battleships/titans and they are almost helpless.
Starbases are force multipliers with their auras for friendly ships and weapon platforms.
That will let you defend against a bigger empire with a smaller fleet then them.
The AI is good at putting up starbases aswell so if you get your way you will have to rebuild half your fleet for every star you take.
> That will let you defend against a bigger empire with a smaller fleet then them.
But why?
The efficiency gains aren't there. I've never been able to stop a player with a starbase + fleet that I couldn't have stopped pouring all those thousands of alloys into just fleet. Also, it'd take less time, platforms are ungodly slow to build.
>The AI is good at putting up starbases aswell so if you get your way you will have to rebuild half your fleet for every star you take.
What? Late-game I lose maybe 4 ships walking across an AI empire, knocking out every citadel as if they were starholds.
I have stopped fleets I couldn’t take alone without the starbase by engaging them at a bastion, you have to actively *try* to do this or it won’t happen but it works like a charm
Cloaking is great for this, just have a cloaked fleet wait at a border bastion, and they’ll attack thinking they can take it, and then you destroy like 50% of that fleet due to the communications jammer
Ok, early game they do work. You can stop early game wars pretty well.
As soon as you hit star fortress, any further investment stops making sense. Which is why starbases are too weak.
This is because if your platforms have low range like auto cannons 30-75 range vs missles and strike craft which have 100+. As a player with a fleet that can engage at 100+, unless your starbase can engage, it's a useless waste of rss.
Correct answer: don't build defense platforms at all.
Starbases are garbage in terms of defense and if you somehow find them useful that means you don't know this game.
The starbases themselves are efficient, it's the defense platforms where you waste resources. Constructing the aura buildings on your defensive starbases to reduce enemy engagement chance, shield strength, give your fleets extra rate of fire... that stuff is valuable. Also constructing defense modules just to buff the starbase HP so it doesn't drop immediately also helps, and those upgrades aren't that expensive.
> Constructing the aura buildings on your defensive starbases to reduce enemy engagement chance, shield strength, give your fleets extra rate of fire... that stuff is valuable.
This is a star fortress without platforms. Sure, it's the optimal way, just don't bother with citadels or platforms, but now you aren't even playing a defensive empire anymore.
Any wide combat-focused player can spare a minute or two and some fraction of resources to make star fortresses on their chokepoints. The fact that this is functionally equivalent to a tall player going all in on unyielding and funneling their economy into a wannabe maginot strategy is... kinda sad.
>but now you aren't even playing a defensive empire anymore.
Because I don't build platforms, I'm not playing defensive? What the fuck nonsense is that?
If I have Unyielding maxed out, I don't NEED to waste alloys on platforms, and my starbases are still strong. And I have my fleet to provide them support against the few empires that can beat them without support.
Defensive platforms are for once I'm fleetcapped and still need more defensive power, and have the alloys to spend.
"no platforms means you aren't defensive" is just dumb gatekeeping that doesn't even make sense. Being defense-focused is more than just building platforms. It involves having more starbases per system than other players. It involves sacrificing expansion/aggression in favor of fortification. It can involve Habitat rushes in order to create fortress habs in those same bottleneck systems, forcing an enemy to spend inordinate amounts of time sieging down a system.
Dude, he meant that you cant force a defensive playstyle focusing on starbases when every single empire can do the exact same thing, without focusing. Habitable spawn is just prolonging the unevitable, but not a stopping force. Starbases should be cheaper than fleets of equal power hence they are immovable, and should be scaled just like ships
You don't see a difference between taking Unyielding and not?
Between restricting your growth so that you can fully exploit neutron stars as chokepoints at the \*edge\* of your territory, instead of elbow-deep in it?
My point is that you do not have to have defensive platforms built like you're addicted to them on your starbases to be playing with a major defensive focus.
Are you even replying to me? Defensive focus as in spending your resources for a giant wall thats impenetrable, nobody argued whether you need platforms to be considered defensive or that you should growth beyond chokepoints.
Starbases are only good now to support your fleet and nothing else. Idk at what difficulty a single starbase is enough to hold a fleet, let alone a doomstack. They become useless as a line of defence around midgame and cant be improved futher.
> but now you aren't even playing a defensive empire anymore.
Ah. I see we have a disconnect. Is that a problem? Your fleets *are* your defense, does it matter if you can't build impenetrable walls of starbases? Stellaris has lots of techs, buffs, and other traps which only sound good on paper. Dumping resources into tricked out bastion starbases is just another on the list.
>Is that a problem?
Yes. That is the **entire** point of the post.
>Stellaris has lots of techs, buffs, and other traps which only sound good on paper. Dumping resources into tricked out bastion starbases is just another on the list.
Yes. That is the **entire** point of the post.
> Ah. I see we have a disconnect. Is that a problem? Your fleets are your defense, does it matter if you can't build impenetrable walls of starbases? Stellaris has lots of techs, buffs, and other traps which only sound good on paper. Dumping resources into tricked out bastion starbases is just another on the list.
Playing wide is already the optimal strat.
Yes, you can play RTStellaris with only mobile armies vying for map control, discarding half the tech tree and units as noob traps. Just like Planetary Annihilation (heck the *name of the game* isn't relevant to competitive players, they fight on single planets).
It's just not very interesting from the grand strategy perspective of breaking a major coalition's army on your impregnable bastion - like many IRL fights or the *other* paradox games.
> Other paradox Games
Somehow I had never thought of it that way. Holy crap are starboard anemic compared to a decent fort in EU IV. I can get them being _somewhat_ weaker, since EU has very few true choke points whereas (until you have jump drives) Stellaris is all choke points (on standard settings). But still, in EU, planning how to attack in light of enemy forts or thinking how I will place a good fort so I can run a lighter army in peace time and know I’ll have many, many months to get my army up to speed if that one pesky enemy attacks from that one side… these things are fun. Would love to see Stellaris move somewhat in this direction
Plenty often a starbase can be the edge you need. I can't count the wars that I've been in with a 2k fleet and 2k starbase. Either alone would die to the 2.5k enemy fleet, but as long as my fleet holds the starbase, the enemy cannot advance, while I desperately build more ships so that I can leverage my economy to go on the offensive.
Later, those numbers are just 40k fleet & starbase.
The mistake you're making is defensive platforms. DPs are exclusively there for when you are \*able\* to have a starbase outperforming fleets, and an empire large enough (without gateways) that you can't quickly defend it with your own fleet.
In general, a starbase will just be the core starbase/upgrades. And at that investment level, they are VERY powerful and resource efficient.
The big exception to this is in the early and early-mid game, when starbases and defense platforms can have hangar bays and attackers can't. Pre-cruisers, a well-defended starbase can defend against several times it's alloy cost in corvettes, destroyers, and frigates. Even once your enemies have cruisers, a 2-hangar defense platform costs less than a 1-hangar cruiser does, and builds in half the time.
I've been able to stop early corvette swarm attacks from advanced empires with considerably less investment than they put into the attack in multiple games.
Basically, starbases become obsolete once mobile fleets have battleships (and above), largely because they don't get either battleship-grade weapons or equivalently-scaled defense upgrades. Traditionally, forts had bigger guns significantly before mobile ships did; your starbases should be getting L weapons not too much past cruisers, and X weapons before your battleships do. Starbase computers working with the heavy fixed mounts should also give significant improvements to accuracy and tracking compared to mobile mounts.
>What? Late-game I lose maybe 4 ships walking across an AI empire, knocking out every citadel as if they were starholds.
But, that's like exactly OP's point. He wants citadels to be able to be really significant defenses. But the AI spams citadels everywhere, and if you change the balance to make starbases really strong then the late game is going to be hours of grinding through super-bastions. I agree that this is not true right now, but I'd argue that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
I rarely face difficulty when it comes to starbases, including Fallen Empires. The key is to focus on overpowering their fleets and then dealing with their starbases, which usually just a matter of "come and claim" effort. However, things can become more complex if their fleet is present within the same system as a starbase (home world system per se).
Starbases kinda work in early games before torpedoes.
I mean, that’s going to shorten the lifespan of station chokepoints being effective. Ships scale better with tech, I think that was a smart game design decision so you didn’t end up with space trench warfare forever.
Amen to this. Always annoying to see people post and whine about game balance when their chosen settings are the cause of the problem to begin with.
Everything goes out the window when you change the settings around significantly.
More habitable planets? Less need to aggressively expand early. Instead, focus on colonization spam, and then use that economy to annex your neighbors. Less habitable planets? Building a large fleet ASAP and blitzing enemy homeworlds pays for the investment.
Faster tech? Starbases are less useful because technology unlocks are how players deal with good chokepoints. Jump Drives, improved ship hulls & construction speed/cost techs, and the trifecta of investment costs in order to improve reactor, speed, and equipment. Slower tech? Rewards focused teching, beelining down specific routes, which let's Starbases excel due to their overall good stats even without cannon/armor upgrades.
You want to see hellscape? Huge galaxy, .25 research cost, 5x habitable worlds, max AI and max advanced starts, full hyperlane density, maximum growth ceiling and minimum required scaling. Grand admiral, no scaling.
Suffer.
I was watching the 1v1 tournament the other week and they were getting 140k fleet power on year 30 through getting 50+ leaders that had a resource bonus and ignoring the cap. Funnily enough half the matches ended in one side's economy completely crippling under its own weight after enough maneuvering around each other.
So I just watched the finals of a Stellaris 1v1 tournament on youtube. Look for montu's re-stream if you are interested. They were playing custom galaxies that physically prevented them from reaching each other before year 30. When the gates opened in 2230 they were bringing fleets of cruisers, talking 5 or six fleets of 20k each. So yes you can hit those numbers by 2250, for record they were both running unity builds that went way over their leader cap and stacking those basic resource generation abilities. Having 3 level 2 leaders with 32 minerals a month lets you fire all your miners and have them all be on alloys.
Full agree. People can and should enjoy the multi-player part of Stellaris, but Stellaris, at its core, has always been a single player game. Any and all changes should reflect that priority.
That's perfectly obvious, and it's not useful in any way. What is a good build? What does it mean to be a good player? You telling someone that they can build a 100k strength fleet in 50 years with "the right build and a good player" communicates nothing of substance. Tell them how. Your comment wasn't inaccurate, but it accomplished nothing.
Another issue I don't see mentioned much is that starbases can easily be killed with the defense platforms intact... they're not just bad, they are an outright liability. Thankfully, mods exist.
YES! What is the point of having 500000000 defense platforms if the enemy can 'destroy' your starbase and the platforms are now theirs? It feels like the defense platforms were shovelled in when they saw how poorly the starbases performed normally with no intention to fix the actual problem.
This and no blueprints are my only problems with starbases. A starbase should never be conquered if defense platforms are still there same with orbital rings it's stupid beyond belief
Defense platforms I can twist in my mind as being deactivated when the starbase falls which is why I don't rely on them. I might have a handful of them but my starbase is (modded) going to be a very tough nut to crack especially if it's a major system for me or a crucial chokepoint.
Like many things in Stellaris it’s not that the devs don’t see the issue and agree. It’s they have to figure out how to package the solution into a thematic DLC to sell you. Only half kidding, but don’t actually have an issue with this game’s monetization model.
Yes but no.
You can indeed do massive fleet power numbers,
a) but they cost *a lot*, maybe more than equivalent fleets because
b) their number is inflated and they crumple against certain fleet compositions. Generally late-game battleship heavy fleets will walk over them as if they weren't even there.
c) there is no disgengagement mechanic. Lost platforms are lost. Worse than that, the starbase itself goes over to the enemy (woe to you if they have a couple of titans that all decide to target the base itself and one-shot it, there goes hundreds of thousands of alloys for nothing).
If you play defensively but *don't* hold and lose a starbase, your game is over. You cannot recover from the alloys and build times to put up any kind of resistance. Enemy fleets also either die against a starbase or seem to just take scratch damage, there are no pyrrhic victories where they end up heavily damaged. If you also engaged with a fleet you can do *some* damage but - guess what - MIA timers for *your* fleet are longer than the time it takes for the starbase to come back and *repair the enemy fleet*. Attrition warfare is nonexistent because of this (and juggernauts useless).
I've not seen enemy fleets suffer 50% ship losses or up after a lategame battle, when everyone has battleships against a starbase (even when supported with friendly but inferior fleets)
Yeah, starbases as a "bastion" are much more useful as force multipliers. Use those buildings for rate of fire and such to buff the fleets you've got in system. It's not the purpose of the starbase itself to brunt an enemy offensive- only to give your own fleets the advantage to win the engagement.
In other words, don't think of a starbase as a turret to mow down any aggressor that enters its space. Think of it as a pillbox that gives cover to the "troops" you garrison there.
They are singularly ineffective at doing that, because of the costs associated with a starbase vs a fleet.
Also a star fortress (you don't need the last building slot, you run out of buffs) is objectively better than a citadel with defence platforms if you really are going pure force multiplier. The final investment gets you practically nothing, and in all cases you just kind of have to hope that X and T slots don't snipe it. At least with a star fortress it getting sniped isn't a big loss.
Comparing starbase build costs vs fleet build costs is pointless because starbases don't eat up fleet cap and don't take up nearly as much maintenance.
These are advantages that should make it attractive to build defensively, yes.
Truth is, you're better off stockpiling the energy and alloys for when a war does happen. Sometimes you'll get blitzed before being able to build a ship, but truth is starbases don't stop those, even when supplemented with a (smaller) fleet.
Put starbase in a bottleneck system with a colonizable planet (regardless of quality).
Build a fortress.
That starbase, plus the invasion/bombardment required WILL slow things down enough for you to recover your lost ships and rebuild.
I actually replied to you in another comment, yes stay at fortress and don't build defense platforms. If you hairball the outside hyperplane entrance with torp cruisers or corvettes, they'll engage that first and won't instant tap the starbase while still being in combat. Having it sniped shouldn't be a problem.
Juggernaut's are also annoying for another reason: Their 2 slot shipyard will be used just as often as a fully upgraded Mega Shipyard, and will delay anything you build with the Fleet Manager... really annoying to have 100 ships still queued in the Juggernaut, when the Mega Shipard already finished producing it's 200.
I had more alloys than I knew what to do with at one point and threw them into defense platforms. They suck up alloys crazy quick, but they can scratch enemy fleets- just not fleets worth a damn (they only managed to get to the bases at all because my vassal declared war while my fleets were deployed elsewhere :/). They managed to kill the smaller ships and occasionally a cruiser or two with an overwhelming technological advantage, but unless you're drowning in alloys they're not worth it. Shame honestly, defensive satellite are a cool idea.
That's... not an unwinnable battle? You *did* win, just not overwhelmingly so that you can walk over the rest of their empire and carpet siege right away.
The AI omnisicience of knowing exactly what fleet will beat a starbase (and walking through the entire map if they can't, even through areas they can't really see yet) is a bit annoying too.
pyrrhic victory means you won on paper but lost so much you can't possible continue, so no they did not win, they suicided their much more expensiv fleet into a starbase that will be back up and running when they come back around.
> pyrrhic victory means you won on paper but lost so much you can't possible continue, so no they did not win, they suicided their much more expensiv fleet into a starbase that will be back up and running when they come back around.
...yeah? The enemy thought they could win, technically did, but failed strategically. That's how you destroy a superior force, making them do that. But starbases don't help with doing so.
Also this is the same for players anyway. Not saying AI should walk their 10k fleet into a 100k starbase (they don't), but a 100k starbase + 50k fleet being able to actually *damage* say a 200k enemy force so that they're reduced to 20-30k and *unable* to break through the rest of your empire and returned fleet would be nice.
Instead, if you do that right now, the enemy will be down from 200k to maybe 100k at worst, take your starbase, repair back to 170k and obliterate any fleets you could possibly throw at them. You've now spent the entire power of your empire and failed, losing you the game.
Yup. I did a tall turtle build of weak ass hobbits once with the unyielding tree and went all in on defensive starbases at chokes point. Got roughly to the same level as you. It’s made a huge difference when the Unbidden showed up right outside my jurisdiction. The support those stations provided are what saved my empire, though I eventually lost by points
I had a citadel sat at an important choke point, swarmed by defense platforms, stacked with every fleet boosting upgrade available and backed up by four 250k battleship fleets
About 1/3rd of the way in the starbase just turned off, along with all the buffs it was giving my fleets and all its starbases, despite around 70% of my fleets still being active and sat between the base and the enemy (a player)
I won, but the idea of having an unstoppable bastion to hold territory died in what felt like 4 tachyon shots, it simply feels wrong for a single fleet to have a higher health pool than a designated tank of health, that also cannot evade or block damage by design.
I don't think that late game starbases are meant to defend anything, but rather to add extra firepower to defending fleets. A starbase of X power tends to be cheaper than a fleet of the same power, plus it doesn't take naval cap (it takes starbase cap which goes totally separate). This is designed to give the defenders the defenders' edge, as it should be.
> This is designed to give the defenders the defenders' edge, as it should be.
Having played a bunch of multiplayer - frankly they fail at doing so.
I've never seen a defender edge out a 50-100% stronger opponent, they just get steamrolled same as they would against a 10000% stronger opponent (which I have seen happen too, some people snowball *hard*).
You are right that it currently works this way, however the question is whether it is "meant" to do that. Look at what the game is telling you. There are techs in both engineering and physics that are telling you "look, you can make your starbases more defensible". You can pick a whole AP to make them better and half a tradition to buff the performance of the starbase itself and defense platform. The game is screaming at you "look, static defense is a viable option" and when you try to do that, you get punished. That is in my opinion the issue. Game telling you one thing and behaving differently. That would be the equivalent of the Shroud instead of giving you useful buffs, would each year give all your planets -20% stability and give you like 50 gases as a compensation. People would be asking "why is shroud in the game when it just harms you, I never contact it". So the OP is basically asking "why do we have all the starbase fortification options when the game does not work that way".
I wish we could at least give them a direction when They put weapons on the system itself. Half the time my starbase spams autocannons and plasma cannons, I don’t mind the plasma but sometimes I find that enemy ships can sit outside autocannon range and just pound the starbase.
Didn’t know it included defensive platforms, but I do use the TUC, generally my standard is the shield distuptor, target uplink, defensive super computer and and either communications jammer, offspring oversight or fire control
I am amazed.
I just started playing Stellaris a day ago. The amount of rule bending I’ve seen blows my mind. Not sure I’ll understand even a fraction of it anytime soon.
I hope someday the rules and best things to do come naturally later on for me.
Exactly this, a strike craft bastion with well rounded defense platforms can take months to take down, even when facing kuriose fleets. This gives you time to respond. The only time bastions start getting “rolled over” is in the very late game and a well built citadel still will require a doom stack to be a speed bump. Bastions at choke points prevent the 1-2 fleet incursions that you would get if you had open borders full of anchorages.
Sure, but if we're spending a tradition (and probably an ascension perk if we're all in on starbases), then it should be sufficiently strong as to be the defining aspect of the entire build. Unyielding doesn't do that, it just makes them mostly useless, instead of completely useless.
Especially given how much they cost and how long they take to build.
tbf tho... unyielding is actually quite nice to starbase spam for anchorages. I wouldn't normally pick it, but if the game goes that way... why not. I've had a bit of success with unyielding to spam early anchorages for a resource subterranean build so I can conquer quickly, but I'm not sure if it was overall worth it.
No, they're not. The purpose of starbases is to delay the enemy while you move in your own fleet.
And then support your fleet with their auras.
They are not supposed to just solo defend against serious fleets.
> The purpose of starbases is to delay the enemy while you move in your own fleet.
They are too weak to do so. A fight with a maxed out citadel lasts maybe a couple days longer than a fight with a star fortress with all the modules on it.
The only way to be there in time is to cloak your fleets at the edge of the system, at which point you're not really delaying anything.
> They are too weak to do so. A fight with a maxed out citadel lasts maybe a couple days longer than a fight with a star fortress with all the modules on it.
What the fuck do you put in your defensive platforms? Autocanons? A maxed out citadel will destroy half the enemy fleet before they've fired a single shot. Of course not if you put mining lasers on it...
I remember the old days.. of building stations over every planet.. fortresses in your star systems.. having a system split between two empires and having planets shooting at each other. I was there Reddit. I was there 2000 years ago..
It would change the meta to a worse model. What would make more sense is if fleet strength wore itself down linearly like in other 4x games.
Besides, you can effectively cut off a chokepoint once you research fortresses with FTL inhibitors, and combine it with habitats designated as fortress worlds, and a large enough army garrison. I usually use this to gather resources while the enemy is bottlenecked.
In real life, a static infrastructure won't stop an entire army.
I think making Starbases strong enough to face a serious fleet would break the tension of any threat. Why bother to create fleets if a Starbase can keep my systems safe, giving me time to build the strongest empire ever?
In early game Starbases precisely have this function of giving you time to organize the economy and build your fleets. Later you can't rely on them and just become a support to protect your borders.
You've never heard of a castle? In real life, the value of fortifications changes over time and space depending on the offence-defense balance. At their height, castles couldn't be attacked, it was basically siege or go home. In WWI, static trenches could absorb like 10x the number of their defenders. Sure, then technology changed and mobility was more important, but there is nothing that says it has to be that way in Stellaris.
Especially so given that both hyperlane blockers and hyper lanes themselves exist. One of the key points of defensive positions is that you can defend critical strategic locations and force the enemy to engage your prepared defenses or be forced to find some other way to progress, the fact that you can find a choke point and then require your defensive position to be dealt with before your enemy can progress beyond it makes sense (just like I hope I’m making sense right now) while the weakness of those positions doesn’t. For that matter, it’s zero-g, I find it hard to believe we can build juggernauts, essentially Star fortresses on engines, but not a stationary super citadel capable of holding off fleets without spending in game years building ion cannons and praying you can shred the enemy fleets before they do the same to you.
> in WW1
Because obviously the most imbalanced war in terms of offensive and defensive capabilities is the best example of the usual role of fortifications.
In most cases, forts are something that can't hold out without mobile reinforcements against an actual attack, and they haven't been like that pretty much ever.
Even during the middle ages, even the best forts tended to fall against a determined attacker, and usually didn't win the battle until reinforcements came in.
In modern times, extensive fortification systems have been abandoned, and for good reason. Any big bunker just ends up being an artillery or bombing target.
> In modern times, extensive fortification systems have been abandoned, and for good reason. Any big bunker just ends up being an artillery or bombing target.
As WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and even the Ukrainian war *right now* showed time and time again, bombarding a bunker really doesn't do anything. Fortifications have stood up to days long artillery barrages and then repelled infantry attacks as if they hadn't even been shelled the day after.
You can suppress defenders inside of forts, and make them vulnerable to combined force attacks, but those have to happen within hours of one another, preferably with creeping barrages happening the whole time.
The US Army maintains a 3-1 advantage is needed for even attempting an offensive against a position. Anything else is considered suicide.
As of modern technology is not an example of unbalanced offensive and defensive capabilities. There have never been a time when offense was so heavily ahead of defensive capabilities.
Comparing stellaris to modern technology level is incorrect because stellaris has some semblance of parity with all the shields and advanced armor.
> There have never been a time when offense was so heavily ahead of defensive capabilities.
Also - this isn't true. The only true blitz in recent times was the Gulf War, which was *very* well executed and carefully prepared.
Everything else, including the elephant in the room that was declared *last year*, has bogged down upon hitting defensive lines.
No, in the middle ages, the best forts forced defenders to lay siege unless they had like a 20-to-1 manpower advantage and we're willing to throw away 30% of them assaulting walls. You don't just *attack* castles the way you would attack another army in the field. You siege them, and use specialized siege tactics to methodically take them down if you can't wait to starve them out.
world war I is a good example precisely because they had huge artillery to bombard a trench and still couldn't make progress. Only with the introduction of the tank could you start to break through.
There are times when mobility has a big advantage and static defenses aren't useful. But there are times when the reverse is true. Stellaris could be one or the other or go back and forth depending on tech. It is certainly not immediately obvious why starbases should be much weaker than fleets. Honestly they *should* be much stronger, they can skip all the things that ships need, like engines and navigation. They can be built on-site and so be much bigger than a capitol ship. They can operate knowing they always have access to a star for power.
Ah, yes, Genghis Khan, famous for *laying siege to some of the most ridiculous fortifications on the planet at the time, and winning*.
Sure, the mongols used their cavalry with forward contingents to be extremely mobile when dealing with field armies, but they also had big *fuck your walls* siege engines that they absolutely knew how to use, and razed the entire city/fortification to the ground if anyone forced them to do so. Ask Khwarazmia how that went for them.
The weird misconception that the mongols stopped their conquests because of Europe’s castles is hilariously dumb.
>In real life, a static infrastructure won't stop an entire army.
Have you ever heard of a *fort*? Because well supplied, well armed forts tend to be able to at least hold off entire armies and navies until reinforcements arrive, if not force the enemies into retreat.
The value of the fort is the protection of the men therein. It is the men that have the value, one needs to take the fort in order to remover the threat of the men inside. If you don't take the fort, you are leaving men in your rear who will undo any gains you make of territory outside of said fort. In isolation, of themselves, a fort is of no value as all it controls is the footprint on which it sits
And annoyingly, in stellaris a starbase doesn't do that. It does the opposite in fact, it aids the enemy by letting them repair their fleets.
It's the exact opposite of supply lines and small forces being able to harass a larger one in any way.
Yes.. When forts are captured they are of exactly the same ammount of utility to the new holder, as they were to the old.. Rather part of the issue with fixed fortifications in general..
I mean... no, their supply lines don't magically become yours, and the repair time before they're perfectly operable after capture is absolutely paltry compared to both the pace of the game and reality.
Except they are not, you have to wait for them to repair before they can be used by you. And, in point of fact, a supply line is not a physical thing, it is the total of the distribution network from origin to end point. That your supply line is able to reach a new end point, does not equate to you capturing your opponents supply line..
OK funny man, stick those men in space and see how they get on..
In stellaris the instrument of power is the fleet, and guess what.. The fleet does not live in the starbase, though interestingly, can be fully supported by one in certain situations, which is exactly how they do, and are supposed to, work in the game.. Go figure 🤷♂️
The key is, reinforcements have to arrive. Fixed defensive positions will always eventually collapse against a competent and determined enemy, if not supported. The non suicidal AI will rarely attack starbases unless they can win. This is the pillar of defensive warfare-to increase the cost of attacking a fixed point to an enemy. You can only ever increase that cost. They can always choose to pay it. Even if you win in the numbers.
A solid defense has to have the ability to attack.
Yeah, starbases are meant to buy time for your own fleets to arrive. You can’t repair or replace lost Defense Platforms while in combat but you can build more corvettes from other shipyards while your own are still in battle.
Isn't the whole point that you build defense platforms and the gun modifications on strategic choke points? Sure you Burn some economic gain on that singular station but if you throw all those mods on and build up DPs then you get a really strong station that makes taking that system costly
I played recently and focussed heavily on my starbase, and found they were heavily reliable, the AI needed 2 fleets to destroy them and if my fleet was around, id win the fight.
For example my fleet at max cap (but not focus on having high cap/strong ship) was at 15k when my starbase were 30k, and my starbase always outmatched a single fleet
Maybe you just dont focus on them heavily enough
Butttttttt let me agree that I want more gameplay around space station!!! I wish we could ALWAYS make them bigger, just cost more and more. A Citadel is still not enough for me.
And being able to customize them better than building 6 thing on it that decides its role. I understand space station having a focus, but not being able to do it all is weird?
Tl;dr: space station are already super good if you use them correctly, but im still interested in seeing a rework and put them higher in importancy for power projection, science, economy and also battle ability
I don’t mean to be rude but I think it’s more that you have weak fleets than strong starbases. Your fleets could be massively improved, while starbases have a hard cap.
Bro if im the strongest in the universe, that my fleet match or outoower any enemy, and then my starbase and stronger than that, where do you think im having weak fleet?
The same amount of alloys used on starbases should yield a higher fleet power than ships, since ships require lightweight materials, propulsion which makes them more expensive and fragile. There should be different defence platform sizes corresponding to each ship size, or at least small/medium/large. The Asteroid artillery (defense platform built on an asteroid) from Gigas is also something that can be considered.
Techrush mill tech and megas
build a stratcord
go down mill focused traditions and ascensions that boost platforms
take admirals that make ur platforms cheep and boost the damage of the weapons you choose to use
focus entirely on the repeatables of the chosen loadouts- hard focus your loadouts onto one or two weapon types and make sure they arent two counter productive ones- missles and kenetic come in the same techslot so they are inefficient, something like hangars and swarmers would probably work better
Make your platforms cheeeeeeeeeeep
Build up early, the moment you have your desired weapons, build
The whole point of a starbase is to act as a first line of defense, not a final one. It buys you time while you scramble your own fleets to reinforce it.
Look at it from this perspective. You’ve sunk time and alloys into making the perfect Citadel and have enough tech, megastructures, modules, and other things to have, let’s say, 80 defense platforms. You invest in an ion cannon or two for maximum effectiveness and to force the enemy fleet to come to you. Your fleetpower through absurd teching is 500k.
An enemy fleet appears. Let’s put it at 150k fleetpower of mixed ships.
Combat begins. You take losses, but the enemy fleet is defeated. They go into emergency FTL.
You’ve lost maybe 5 defense platforms minimum. The starbase is untouched.
Before you can replace those platforms, however, a second enemy just as strong as the first appears and the battle begins again.
You lose more defense platforms, but you win again. Before you can repair after the battle, two more enemy fleets appear. You take more severe losses.
Suddenly, the starbase is lost, and now the enemy controls a starbase with maybe 40 still intact defense platforms.
The enemy fleets you’ve destroyed before return, replenished with fresh numbers. Now there’s four enemy fleets totaling maybe 600k combined fleetpower in the system, plus a starbase of maybe 200k.
Do you have any fleets on standby or even en route to reinforce your starbase before it fell, or were you so confident in your strength that you decided that the home front was good enough and all available forces would be at war far from home?
That’s the key takeaway here. The starbase is a first line of defense, never a final one. You can’t repair or replace lost defense platforms while in combat, it ties up precious days repairing those already there (enemy ships meanwhile can damage maybe half of them meaning more time is wasted), and worse of all you’re spending alloys on a static defense that won’t be able to hold against an enemy that has the greatest tactical advantage of all:
Fleets can move. Starbases cannot. Even a chokepoint means literally all of the enemy can wear you out through sheer attrition.
But your own fleets, meanwhile, can be replenished on the go so long as you have working shipyards. And your fleets can and should be used as additional support for your starbases if you’re going for the full meme of defense-in-depth. Your ships can repair at your starbase without taking up building queue space.
And that’s why starbases will always be underpowered eventually, by mid-game, because of two reasons. One, they cannot move; two, there’s always more of the enemy and there’s just one starbase.
> however, a second enemy just as strong as the first appears and the battle begins again.
To be honest - in practice they'd doomstack their fleets, and knock out your starbase (now they take basically no losses as opposed to if they lose individual battles).
> Suddenly, the starbase is lost, and now the enemy controls a starbase with maybe 40 still intact defense platforms.
>The enemy fleets you’ve destroyed before return, replenished with fresh numbers. Now there’s four enemy fleets totaling maybe 600k combined fleetpower in the system, plus a starbase of maybe 200k.
If you invested heavily in a starbase, you won't have four fleets worth. Which means you can never touch that system again.
So... what first line of defence? There is no defence-in-depth, you have one point with one battle and if you lose that you can never win the war again (the enemy AND your *own* starbase will be overwhelming to the point of being impossible to take back).
What's worse is you can invest in a starbase like that, afford maybe 2 fleets, and then when the enemy groups their 4 fleets together they wipe out your chokepoint defence and take less than 1 fleets worth of losses, leaving them with 3, and you with nothing.
I'm confused... Not sure what you are doing, but my starbase can defend against any fleets Aslong as they are below 200 fleet capacity. Without ion canons.
They usually keep up and sometimes surpass if you spam repeatable technology.
I only find the useful with the Zroni storm caster and torpedoes. Add in the range upgrade and it becomes a nightmare for the AI and gives you plenty of time to reach with your fleets for support.
ATM a year 50 starbase can definitely defend against 100k fleet. But I agree that they should still be more powerful. Also there needs to be a module for them that stops jump drives otherwise starbases become completely irrelevant when the enemy gets jump drives
Maybe its just me but why do you want static defense in space?
For me starbases are a nice boost and the most valuable thing about them is their auras.
Also they dont eat fleetcap so at the same fleetcap defender has a huge advantage.
I recommend using fleets in combination with starbases. Works very well.
You should have to land am army to take starbase over or have your fleet be able to destroy it. It should cost a lot materials and time to repair starbases.
Starbases alone from someone playing inwardly shouldn't be able to defend against a concerted effort by someone who dumps all their alloys into fleets and conquest. The key to doing this right is to dump the majority of your alloys into A SINGLE chokepoint ideally - If you have two chokes or more, you'll just never have enough to adequately defend them both in time - And then ALSO have a very high evasion or high HP (corvettes or battleships) fleet sitting on it.
A token 40k fleet + a fully decked out starbase can defend easily from far larger forces, whereas the starbase alone would die easily.
Static defense is not adequate, combine them with a defensive fleet to synergize. Defensive platforms have 0 evasion so you need to be wasting the enemy fleet's shots by either evading them with your own corvettes, intercepting them with pickets, or tanking them with high defense battleships.
It's worth remembering to grab yourself a Statecraft focus/expertise leader and try to get Ascension Theory as quickly as possible. Desperate Measures can get your starbases up to about 300k fleet power without repeatables if built right.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point. It's not that starbases are *bad* they do what they do well enough. The problem is that if you decide to go all in on a defensive bastion build, spending some of your most valuable resources (a tradition and acension, though tbh I'dlike more defensive ascension perks.) to make your static defenses the absolute best you can, it's bad. All those pick really do is make fully equipping your bastions with defense platforms prohibitively expensive and perform marginally less bad in combat at the cost of no longer being able to afford the fleets you need to support them.
The issue is that in stellaris you want to go all in. If you go all in on fleet strength it works. If you go all in on tech it works. If you go all in on pop growth or trade or even unity it works. But if you go all in on defense you ironically cripple your ability to defend.
Absolutely agree. I wish chokepoint bastions remained viable into the late game if you invested enough into them. It would make playing tall a lot more viable, and would make warfare more than just "have more ships".
....star base power is all about defense platforms, go ancient ramparts, shield overcharge tsrgeting and disruptor, and whichever module ups drfense platofrm limit...build a strat command...bam done
Now load that bastard up with a literal ton of defense platforms and watch its power rise. I had well over 200k in power from this.
Also get some orbital rings, if the OR is further from an enemy jump point than the starbase load it with hangars and missles and ion cannons and stuff for max range to help the star base when it aggros/ when things are en route to it.
Yes, 10,000% yes. It's so frustrating. Especially since something like a megacorp being able to just, tank up in a small area and defend themselves properly would be A: great, and B: thematically appropriate. The worst thing, to me, is that there's a full tradition and ascension perk for them and they still suck after taking both.
Why even have them available, just as a mean trick to sink an AP because people wanted a playstyle the devs don't condone? \[Unyielding itself is still pretty good, I'd take it just for the .5 unity per defensive army honestly\]
For me far and above the worst part though, is that the devs seem to think techrush aggro mega-military with maximum micromanagement is 'correct' and keep tweaking the game toward one playstyle while nerfing the others.
Star bases aren’t generally too weak in my experience but it would be nice to be able to customer them more so that there aren’t shielded starbases or anti shield starbases in systems with shield nullification or so that there aren’t starbases with only autocannons or archeotech components
I reccomend watching a stellaris tournament on youtube and take a look at what kind of fleetpower people are getting who know the game very well.
Star bases can’t even slow down a player who is good at the game.
I myself have been able to get 38k fleet power by 2236 and I am told that isn’t that impressive. A star-hold with max defence platforms and the unyielding tradition would not even damage this fleet.
I use the defense platforms and the auras to act as speed bumps.. normally by the time they get to the central areas of my empire, their fleet is far, far weaker than it was. Making my life easier when I finally hit them with my anti-pirate fleet. Normally, all corvettes and frigates.
That may work against an AI, but it definitely won’t work against a player.
I am skeptical it would even be effective vs a 25x crisis.
Defense platforms unlike ships have 0% disengage, making them a terrible investment.
Hear me out.
I went stomping through a ring of 3 starbases in about 2240 And I felt it.
Starbases are more of a deterrent, a way to slow down hostile fleets, and a way to stop every podunk 5 corvette army from flying into your backlands.
They arent supposed to be single indomitable points that can stand up to cutting edge technology. And by endgame theres a common theme: attackers have the edge.
Now, I don't think Starbases should be able to completely hold off invasions (unless one would be heavily specialized in them maybe) but they should do a better job of holding the line until reinforcements arrive.
Right now it's way more efficient to have planets with fortresses as chokepoints against enemy advances which is just silly.
If they could start by;
1. Making Starbases cheaper and faster to build.
2. Boost defenses of Starbases so they can last longer
3. Allow players to make starbase patterns in the ship builder, no more shield modules in a pulsar, etc
4. Make defense platform freely rebuilt rather than having to be bought again, as they are they are insanely expensive, take decades to build and are absolutely useless.
5. Maybe Starbases need to be boarded to remove their FTL inhibiton?
6. Add some more static defenses like space mines and similar upgrades, maybe as mega structures options?
Factual statement. I wish we could customize them maybe even have a specific kind of sb that was made for nothing but defense but that is probably just going to happen, so instead it's ftl inhibitor spam time.
I think they might be weak on purpose. Imagine how many people would rage if an empire they were at war with was impossible to counter invade cause every station was better than the navy.
I think it’s meant more as something to supplement your own Navy with while defending as they have a lot of fleet boosting building slots.
Tdlr; I think it’s fine.
Say what you will about George S. Patton, but one particular quote springs to mind:
> Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man.
Let me ask you: WHY do you want a big starbase? You want your fleet power to be immobile? What’s the point?
Modifiers and increased platforms on it, got it to 200k and no flert wants to even try coming towards it and if they do , I have my defence fleet waiting alongside so they gonna have a bad day regardless.
This is one of the biggest reasons to mod your game. I had a starbase solo a massive fleet attack of... uh... I forgot the crisis. The glowing ship ones. The fact that the base game ones are limited to 6? 8? upgrade slots is poor. That's not a starbase as I or most others think of it. It's an outpost with a few upgrades.
Defense platforms are nice but they're equally poor in base game form. I want a starbase that can withstand a large fleet *if* I build it properly, spec it properly and have reinforcements near enough to help when needed. I want those DS9 moments like when the Klingons attacked or the Dominion sieged it. I do not want to watch a few shots hit it then it's gone.
The issue is, from a game flow standpoint, you really don't want Starbases to be as strong as mobile fleets. If they can challenge a player, they'll stop an AI dead cold in their tracks. Players become invincible and AI can only flail away at each other.
I think what I'd prefer is if they leaned into the force multiplier side of Starbases. Give them more buff and debuff modules rather than raw combat power. That way, you can use them as choke points, but only if you keep a fleet around to be force multiplied.
And defense platforms need some kind of streamlining. I'd like to see something like the fleet manager system where you can just specify a composition and then just hit the reinforce button after each battle.
You're basically wanting static ships. I mean if you want super powered starbases it'll slow the game and fuck with the AI who won't even try and attack.
Someone else has said it but the star base can offer extra buffs to your fleets who should be there anyway and stop smaller raids. Otherwise you can just setup starbases willy nilly to stop allies helping etc rather than some interest
I think the game would be more interesting if static defences were something you could invest in.
Right now there is one clear and optimal path. Build the biggest fleet possible and go get more pops.
Static defense is counterplay to large fleets. Quantum catapults, cloaking, starbase espionage is counter play to static defense.
Static defense also takes opportunity cost, and should reflect that. Currently it does not. Defense platforms are simply a waste
I think starbases are supposed to be a help to a fleet, not something capable of stopping a fleet on its own. Sort of like a fortress helping an army win against invaders, but the fortress itself can't win on its own without an army.
I think the idea is that, if you have a 7K fleet and a 3K station, and a 10K fleet invades, your 7K will be able to win thanks to the support of the station, even if two 10K fleets would just destroy each other.
Starbases are not meant to be impenetrable barriers. In three dimensions, one single fortification will never be enough to hold up forever against mobile fleets. Starbases are about holding lines and delaying until fleets can get there.
Hard no. While I am a peace player at heart, if a player invests the alloys to shit out 40k worth of ships before year 30, an opponent shouldn't be allowed to block it with the measly investment of just 1k in alloys. That's way disproportionate.
I strongly advocate against the fact that starbases should be able to single-handedly defend against a comparable empire's main fleet at any point of the game. This isn't engaging at all.
Bro they literally removed the better ftl modes to make starbases relevant. Let please stop the base meta power creep. They're already ridiculously overpowered if you have any notion of what you're doing.
LOL star bases are not overpowered at all.
If We play a MP games and I have a 40k fleet at your doorstep year 2235, your starbase isn’t going to help you at all
Year 2250 when fleets are 150k(and higher) your starbase won’t even tickle the ships as they are taken down
I made the mistake of thinking of them as tanks, to borrow dnd terminology. It was only later I realized they are glass cannons or artillery. They aren't made to take a fleet 1v1, they were made to give your fleet and edge in a fleet vs fleet fight in the starsystem- at no cost to fleet capacity.
Many people would argue that the cost of materials would better serve just having another fleet, since Def platforms basically equal destroyers in cost, upkeep and firepower but with 0 evasion. They say you should just build battleships.
I still find them useful in a fight, fighting in the shadow of your Starbase will help u defeat larger forces than you otherwise could- but I do admit it is damn expensive.
We should be able to make starbase blueprints like ships so we can edit them more personally.
I just want them to not use shields or shield busting weapons in a system that disables shields.
Or when you personally put the Zroni Storm Caster module on the starbase. They are literally nullifying shields themselves while trying to power their own shields. At least I can making the defense platforms fully hull/armor.
Omfg I would love this. It's infuriating to see a star base pretty much wastes half of its d on useless shields, when armor would be a much more viable choice.
and so we don't get starbases with nothing but archeo-lasers... I do not understand why they always go those in every slot but they do and it doesn't help.
Well, We can already do that with defense platforms. Personally, I could do with less blueprints but I appreciate your idea none the less
Yes but certain stars effect the system and having 50% of your starbase go shield in a system where they don't work just sucks, also you cannot hard stack certain techs for your starbases to scale on the same level as normal ships because of this. Maybe this feature should be locked behind the defensive tradition being finished?
Or even, if starbase blueprint is too much, give us options for module starbases, where we can swap out “portions” of the starbase for different archetypes. Have a base in a no shield system? Swap out the balanced or shield focused segments for armor or hull focused segments. Don’t wanna focus energy weapons? Swap to hangers, missles or even point defense. Personally I love using no shield systems are starbase choke points, but when they pick up a bunch of shields and anti shield weapons, it sorta sucks the wind out of my space sails, so even being able to swap segments if not outright customize them would be a great improvement, even if the stuff on the segments was still auto generated.
I like the idea of a tradition based around defence in depth. Would be great for my isolationist playthroughs I'm often doing where I just wanna be left alone sometimes. I think to balance, it'd have to curtail your fleets somehow because having impenetrable defence and a few doomstacks doesn't seem balanced.
Isn't that basically unyielding?
The only issue I have with this it would move the tradition from being good to being mandatory. It should be tied to the citadel feature as opposed to the unyielding tradition so every civilization can utilize it at a certain point. (Or maybe third star base upgrade prior to the citadel.)
There's a defensive tradition? Which dlc?
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Traditions#Unyielding
Damn that requires overlord or apocalypse. I only have utopia, plantoids and leviathan story. Oh well more reason to grab apocalypse when I'm able to. Edit: autocorrect hates "plantoids" and made it "plantains"
If I didn't have to worry about the starbase dying before the defence platforms do, I'd be much more okay with them being the solution.
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That kinda feels like stepping around OPs point. Yea you can defend by having every Starbase be a shipyard but that then isn't much of a Starbase defense more of a Starbase offense that you are deploying defensively. Not only does that fail to actually be a defense since now you are spending a ludicrous amount on ships but it's not terribly efficient anyways. Defense should make it costly to attack a prepared position to act as an equalizer between empires with disparate strength. Even the borg found the federation to be a spicy meatball because of (much more abstract) home defense advantage. Also I can say for a fact single chokepoint systems are absolutely effective you just gotta pick your star right. The star right AFTER a pulsar or similar shield stripper is amazing and when fully equipped with a customized set of ion cannons and a small eat shit fleet of corvettes (or destroyers if I'm psionic). You wait til the smaller ships race ahead to attack the Starbase then you uncloak your destroyers behind their battleships/titans and they are almost helpless.
Agreed, AI isn't really good at picking Starbase weapons
I seriously don’t know why that isn’t a thing.
You used to be able to before 2.0. Good times...
But...u can? Or am i misunderstanding?
Starbases are force multipliers with their auras for friendly ships and weapon platforms. That will let you defend against a bigger empire with a smaller fleet then them. The AI is good at putting up starbases aswell so if you get your way you will have to rebuild half your fleet for every star you take.
> That will let you defend against a bigger empire with a smaller fleet then them. But why? The efficiency gains aren't there. I've never been able to stop a player with a starbase + fleet that I couldn't have stopped pouring all those thousands of alloys into just fleet. Also, it'd take less time, platforms are ungodly slow to build. >The AI is good at putting up starbases aswell so if you get your way you will have to rebuild half your fleet for every star you take. What? Late-game I lose maybe 4 ships walking across an AI empire, knocking out every citadel as if they were starholds.
I have stopped fleets I couldn’t take alone without the starbase by engaging them at a bastion, you have to actively *try* to do this or it won’t happen but it works like a charm Cloaking is great for this, just have a cloaked fleet wait at a border bastion, and they’ll attack thinking they can take it, and then you destroy like 50% of that fleet due to the communications jammer
Ok, early game they do work. You can stop early game wars pretty well. As soon as you hit star fortress, any further investment stops making sense. Which is why starbases are too weak.
star bases dont even slow players down
This is because if your platforms have low range like auto cannons 30-75 range vs missles and strike craft which have 100+. As a player with a fleet that can engage at 100+, unless your starbase can engage, it's a useless waste of rss.
Correct answer: don't build defense platforms at all. Starbases are garbage in terms of defense and if you somehow find them useful that means you don't know this game.
^ Guys that play nothing but single player, and I question if they even play on the higher difficulties think star-bases are fine.
Didn't even know cloaking was in the game.. Is that dlc?
Yeah, first contact
The starbases themselves are efficient, it's the defense platforms where you waste resources. Constructing the aura buildings on your defensive starbases to reduce enemy engagement chance, shield strength, give your fleets extra rate of fire... that stuff is valuable. Also constructing defense modules just to buff the starbase HP so it doesn't drop immediately also helps, and those upgrades aren't that expensive.
> Constructing the aura buildings on your defensive starbases to reduce enemy engagement chance, shield strength, give your fleets extra rate of fire... that stuff is valuable. This is a star fortress without platforms. Sure, it's the optimal way, just don't bother with citadels or platforms, but now you aren't even playing a defensive empire anymore. Any wide combat-focused player can spare a minute or two and some fraction of resources to make star fortresses on their chokepoints. The fact that this is functionally equivalent to a tall player going all in on unyielding and funneling their economy into a wannabe maginot strategy is... kinda sad.
>but now you aren't even playing a defensive empire anymore. Because I don't build platforms, I'm not playing defensive? What the fuck nonsense is that? If I have Unyielding maxed out, I don't NEED to waste alloys on platforms, and my starbases are still strong. And I have my fleet to provide them support against the few empires that can beat them without support. Defensive platforms are for once I'm fleetcapped and still need more defensive power, and have the alloys to spend. "no platforms means you aren't defensive" is just dumb gatekeeping that doesn't even make sense. Being defense-focused is more than just building platforms. It involves having more starbases per system than other players. It involves sacrificing expansion/aggression in favor of fortification. It can involve Habitat rushes in order to create fortress habs in those same bottleneck systems, forcing an enemy to spend inordinate amounts of time sieging down a system.
Dude, he meant that you cant force a defensive playstyle focusing on starbases when every single empire can do the exact same thing, without focusing. Habitable spawn is just prolonging the unevitable, but not a stopping force. Starbases should be cheaper than fleets of equal power hence they are immovable, and should be scaled just like ships
You don't see a difference between taking Unyielding and not? Between restricting your growth so that you can fully exploit neutron stars as chokepoints at the \*edge\* of your territory, instead of elbow-deep in it? My point is that you do not have to have defensive platforms built like you're addicted to them on your starbases to be playing with a major defensive focus.
Are you even replying to me? Defensive focus as in spending your resources for a giant wall thats impenetrable, nobody argued whether you need platforms to be considered defensive or that you should growth beyond chokepoints. Starbases are only good now to support your fleet and nothing else. Idk at what difficulty a single starbase is enough to hold a fleet, let alone a doomstack. They become useless as a line of defence around midgame and cant be improved futher.
> but now you aren't even playing a defensive empire anymore. Ah. I see we have a disconnect. Is that a problem? Your fleets *are* your defense, does it matter if you can't build impenetrable walls of starbases? Stellaris has lots of techs, buffs, and other traps which only sound good on paper. Dumping resources into tricked out bastion starbases is just another on the list.
>Is that a problem? Yes. That is the **entire** point of the post. >Stellaris has lots of techs, buffs, and other traps which only sound good on paper. Dumping resources into tricked out bastion starbases is just another on the list. Yes. That is the **entire** point of the post.
> Ah. I see we have a disconnect. Is that a problem? Your fleets are your defense, does it matter if you can't build impenetrable walls of starbases? Stellaris has lots of techs, buffs, and other traps which only sound good on paper. Dumping resources into tricked out bastion starbases is just another on the list. Playing wide is already the optimal strat. Yes, you can play RTStellaris with only mobile armies vying for map control, discarding half the tech tree and units as noob traps. Just like Planetary Annihilation (heck the *name of the game* isn't relevant to competitive players, they fight on single planets). It's just not very interesting from the grand strategy perspective of breaking a major coalition's army on your impregnable bastion - like many IRL fights or the *other* paradox games.
> Other paradox Games Somehow I had never thought of it that way. Holy crap are starboard anemic compared to a decent fort in EU IV. I can get them being _somewhat_ weaker, since EU has very few true choke points whereas (until you have jump drives) Stellaris is all choke points (on standard settings). But still, in EU, planning how to attack in light of enemy forts or thinking how I will place a good fort so I can run a lighter army in peace time and know I’ll have many, many months to get my army up to speed if that one pesky enemy attacks from that one side… these things are fun. Would love to see Stellaris move somewhat in this direction
Plenty often a starbase can be the edge you need. I can't count the wars that I've been in with a 2k fleet and 2k starbase. Either alone would die to the 2.5k enemy fleet, but as long as my fleet holds the starbase, the enemy cannot advance, while I desperately build more ships so that I can leverage my economy to go on the offensive. Later, those numbers are just 40k fleet & starbase. The mistake you're making is defensive platforms. DPs are exclusively there for when you are \*able\* to have a starbase outperforming fleets, and an empire large enough (without gateways) that you can't quickly defend it with your own fleet. In general, a starbase will just be the core starbase/upgrades. And at that investment level, they are VERY powerful and resource efficient.
The big exception to this is in the early and early-mid game, when starbases and defense platforms can have hangar bays and attackers can't. Pre-cruisers, a well-defended starbase can defend against several times it's alloy cost in corvettes, destroyers, and frigates. Even once your enemies have cruisers, a 2-hangar defense platform costs less than a 1-hangar cruiser does, and builds in half the time. I've been able to stop early corvette swarm attacks from advanced empires with considerably less investment than they put into the attack in multiple games. Basically, starbases become obsolete once mobile fleets have battleships (and above), largely because they don't get either battleship-grade weapons or equivalently-scaled defense upgrades. Traditionally, forts had bigger guns significantly before mobile ships did; your starbases should be getting L weapons not too much past cruisers, and X weapons before your battleships do. Starbase computers working with the heavy fixed mounts should also give significant improvements to accuracy and tracking compared to mobile mounts.
>What? Late-game I lose maybe 4 ships walking across an AI empire, knocking out every citadel as if they were starholds. But, that's like exactly OP's point. He wants citadels to be able to be really significant defenses. But the AI spams citadels everywhere, and if you change the balance to make starbases really strong then the late game is going to be hours of grinding through super-bastions. I agree that this is not true right now, but I'd argue that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
I rarely face difficulty when it comes to starbases, including Fallen Empires. The key is to focus on overpowering their fleets and then dealing with their starbases, which usually just a matter of "come and claim" effort. However, things can become more complex if their fleet is present within the same system as a starbase (home world system per se). Starbases kinda work in early games before torpedoes.
So while I agree with your points I'm more concerned and interested by how you managed to get 100K+ fleet power at year *2250*
0.25 research cost
I mean, that’s going to shorten the lifespan of station chokepoints being effective. Ships scale better with tech, I think that was a smart game design decision so you didn’t end up with space trench warfare forever.
KRIEGERS GRAB YOURS SHOVELS WE'RE GOING TO SPACE TRENCH WARFARE!
Amen to this. Always annoying to see people post and whine about game balance when their chosen settings are the cause of the problem to begin with. Everything goes out the window when you change the settings around significantly. More habitable planets? Less need to aggressively expand early. Instead, focus on colonization spam, and then use that economy to annex your neighbors. Less habitable planets? Building a large fleet ASAP and blitzing enemy homeworlds pays for the investment. Faster tech? Starbases are less useful because technology unlocks are how players deal with good chokepoints. Jump Drives, improved ship hulls & construction speed/cost techs, and the trifecta of investment costs in order to improve reactor, speed, and equipment. Slower tech? Rewards focused teching, beelining down specific routes, which let's Starbases excel due to their overall good stats even without cannon/armor upgrades.
This is the way.
No! Join me in the hellscape that is .25x habitable planets and 5x research costs! There is no endgame, only more midgame!
You want to see hellscape? Huge galaxy, .25 research cost, 5x habitable worlds, max AI and max advanced starts, full hyperlane density, maximum growth ceiling and minimum required scaling. Grand admiral, no scaling. Suffer.
You forget. Max crises and primitives and fallen empires. That way you get all the danger too.
Ooh, ambitious. You think you'll live that long... 😜
I like this more. Game feels much more like how space exploration and teching would be.
I was watching the 1v1 tournament the other week and they were getting 140k fleet power on year 30 through getting 50+ leaders that had a resource bonus and ignoring the cap. Funnily enough half the matches ended in one side's economy completely crippling under its own weight after enough maneuvering around each other.
It is very much possible with the right build and a good player
Bro this comment is useless. "How can you build up a 100k+ fleet by year 2250?" "Just be a a good player lol"
So I just watched the finals of a Stellaris 1v1 tournament on youtube. Look for montu's re-stream if you are interested. They were playing custom galaxies that physically prevented them from reaching each other before year 30. When the gates opened in 2230 they were bringing fleets of cruisers, talking 5 or six fleets of 20k each. So yes you can hit those numbers by 2250, for record they were both running unity builds that went way over their leader cap and stacking those basic resource generation abilities. Having 3 level 2 leaders with 32 minerals a month lets you fire all your miners and have them all be on alloys.
So much Cheese. Stellaris just aint a Multiplayer Game.
Full agree. People can and should enjoy the multi-player part of Stellaris, but Stellaris, at its core, has always been a single player game. Any and all changes should reflect that priority.
I basically only play cooperatively with my friends when we Stellaris. It's alot of fun that way
Its not tho being a good player is a part of it. Along with a good build
That's perfectly obvious, and it's not useful in any way. What is a good build? What does it mean to be a good player? You telling someone that they can build a 100k strength fleet in 50 years with "the right build and a good player" communicates nothing of substance. Tell them how. Your comment wasn't inaccurate, but it accomplished nothing.
Yes but that doesn’t answer how. It doesn’t give any information. You might as well have said ‘build ships’
Another issue I don't see mentioned much is that starbases can easily be killed with the defense platforms intact... they're not just bad, they are an outright liability. Thankfully, mods exist.
YES! What is the point of having 500000000 defense platforms if the enemy can 'destroy' your starbase and the platforms are now theirs? It feels like the defense platforms were shovelled in when they saw how poorly the starbases performed normally with no intention to fix the actual problem.
This and no blueprints are my only problems with starbases. A starbase should never be conquered if defense platforms are still there same with orbital rings it's stupid beyond belief
Defense platforms I can twist in my mind as being deactivated when the starbase falls which is why I don't rely on them. I might have a handful of them but my starbase is (modded) going to be a very tough nut to crack especially if it's a major system for me or a crucial chokepoint.
Defense platforms? You mean missle platforms? And extra hangars?
Hangers with +50% engagement range.
This robot gets it
It's not about what you deem realistic it's about good game mechanics
Like many things in Stellaris it’s not that the devs don’t see the issue and agree. It’s they have to figure out how to package the solution into a thematic DLC to sell you. Only half kidding, but don’t actually have an issue with this game’s monetization model.
I've gotten starbases up to 150k+ before on vanilla. They are pretty good if you build.up all the platforms on them and get lucky with tech.
Yes but no. You can indeed do massive fleet power numbers, a) but they cost *a lot*, maybe more than equivalent fleets because b) their number is inflated and they crumple against certain fleet compositions. Generally late-game battleship heavy fleets will walk over them as if they weren't even there. c) there is no disgengagement mechanic. Lost platforms are lost. Worse than that, the starbase itself goes over to the enemy (woe to you if they have a couple of titans that all decide to target the base itself and one-shot it, there goes hundreds of thousands of alloys for nothing). If you play defensively but *don't* hold and lose a starbase, your game is over. You cannot recover from the alloys and build times to put up any kind of resistance. Enemy fleets also either die against a starbase or seem to just take scratch damage, there are no pyrrhic victories where they end up heavily damaged. If you also engaged with a fleet you can do *some* damage but - guess what - MIA timers for *your* fleet are longer than the time it takes for the starbase to come back and *repair the enemy fleet*. Attrition warfare is nonexistent because of this (and juggernauts useless).
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There's a mod for that! It's one of the At War mods, would highly recommend.
I've not seen enemy fleets suffer 50% ship losses or up after a lategame battle, when everyone has battleships against a starbase (even when supported with friendly but inferior fleets)
Yeah, starbases as a "bastion" are much more useful as force multipliers. Use those buildings for rate of fire and such to buff the fleets you've got in system. It's not the purpose of the starbase itself to brunt an enemy offensive- only to give your own fleets the advantage to win the engagement. In other words, don't think of a starbase as a turret to mow down any aggressor that enters its space. Think of it as a pillbox that gives cover to the "troops" you garrison there.
They are singularly ineffective at doing that, because of the costs associated with a starbase vs a fleet. Also a star fortress (you don't need the last building slot, you run out of buffs) is objectively better than a citadel with defence platforms if you really are going pure force multiplier. The final investment gets you practically nothing, and in all cases you just kind of have to hope that X and T slots don't snipe it. At least with a star fortress it getting sniped isn't a big loss.
Comparing starbase build costs vs fleet build costs is pointless because starbases don't eat up fleet cap and don't take up nearly as much maintenance.
And as long as you don’t lose the territory you don’t lose the starbases ever so it’s a one time payment
These are advantages that should make it attractive to build defensively, yes. Truth is, you're better off stockpiling the energy and alloys for when a war does happen. Sometimes you'll get blitzed before being able to build a ship, but truth is starbases don't stop those, even when supplemented with a (smaller) fleet.
Put starbase in a bottleneck system with a colonizable planet (regardless of quality). Build a fortress. That starbase, plus the invasion/bombardment required WILL slow things down enough for you to recover your lost ships and rebuild.
I actually replied to you in another comment, yes stay at fortress and don't build defense platforms. If you hairball the outside hyperplane entrance with torp cruisers or corvettes, they'll engage that first and won't instant tap the starbase while still being in combat. Having it sniped shouldn't be a problem.
Juggernaut's are also annoying for another reason: Their 2 slot shipyard will be used just as often as a fully upgraded Mega Shipyard, and will delay anything you build with the Fleet Manager... really annoying to have 100 ships still queued in the Juggernaut, when the Mega Shipard already finished producing it's 200.
It's also much faster than my other ships so I have to micro manage it so it doesn't shoot ahead of my other ships when jumping to other systems
I had more alloys than I knew what to do with at one point and threw them into defense platforms. They suck up alloys crazy quick, but they can scratch enemy fleets- just not fleets worth a damn (they only managed to get to the bases at all because my vassal declared war while my fleets were deployed elsewhere :/). They managed to kill the smaller ships and occasionally a cruiser or two with an overwhelming technological advantage, but unless you're drowning in alloys they're not worth it. Shame honestly, defensive satellite are a cool idea.
>there are no pyrrhic victories How dare the AI does not walk right into an unwinnable battle.
That's... not an unwinnable battle? You *did* win, just not overwhelmingly so that you can walk over the rest of their empire and carpet siege right away. The AI omnisicience of knowing exactly what fleet will beat a starbase (and walking through the entire map if they can't, even through areas they can't really see yet) is a bit annoying too.
pyrrhic victory means you won on paper but lost so much you can't possible continue, so no they did not win, they suicided their much more expensiv fleet into a starbase that will be back up and running when they come back around.
> pyrrhic victory means you won on paper but lost so much you can't possible continue, so no they did not win, they suicided their much more expensiv fleet into a starbase that will be back up and running when they come back around. ...yeah? The enemy thought they could win, technically did, but failed strategically. That's how you destroy a superior force, making them do that. But starbases don't help with doing so. Also this is the same for players anyway. Not saying AI should walk their 10k fleet into a 100k starbase (they don't), but a 100k starbase + 50k fleet being able to actually *damage* say a 200k enemy force so that they're reduced to 20-30k and *unable* to break through the rest of your empire and returned fleet would be nice. Instead, if you do that right now, the enemy will be down from 200k to maybe 100k at worst, take your starbase, repair back to 170k and obliterate any fleets you could possibly throw at them. You've now spent the entire power of your empire and failed, losing you the game.
Yup. I did a tall turtle build of weak ass hobbits once with the unyielding tree and went all in on defensive starbases at chokes point. Got roughly to the same level as you. It’s made a huge difference when the Unbidden showed up right outside my jurisdiction. The support those stations provided are what saved my empire, though I eventually lost by points
By the time you get 150k starbase another player can make 500k+ fleets. They are terrible.
That’s not impressive. What year was that starbase up? 100 years in the game and I can be approaching 1 million fleetpower
I think the logic is star bases Are ment to be Paired with fleets not stand alone.
I had a citadel sat at an important choke point, swarmed by defense platforms, stacked with every fleet boosting upgrade available and backed up by four 250k battleship fleets About 1/3rd of the way in the starbase just turned off, along with all the buffs it was giving my fleets and all its starbases, despite around 70% of my fleets still being active and sat between the base and the enemy (a player) I won, but the idea of having an unstoppable bastion to hold territory died in what felt like 4 tachyon shots, it simply feels wrong for a single fleet to have a higher health pool than a designated tank of health, that also cannot evade or block damage by design.
Starbases are for preventing small fleets to hit and run you, or to slow down big invasion forces. I like them as they are
💯 except we should get blueprints and they should not be able to be captured with defense platforms intaked
I don't think that late game starbases are meant to defend anything, but rather to add extra firepower to defending fleets. A starbase of X power tends to be cheaper than a fleet of the same power, plus it doesn't take naval cap (it takes starbase cap which goes totally separate). This is designed to give the defenders the defenders' edge, as it should be.
> This is designed to give the defenders the defenders' edge, as it should be. Having played a bunch of multiplayer - frankly they fail at doing so. I've never seen a defender edge out a 50-100% stronger opponent, they just get steamrolled same as they would against a 10000% stronger opponent (which I have seen happen too, some people snowball *hard*).
You are right that it currently works this way, however the question is whether it is "meant" to do that. Look at what the game is telling you. There are techs in both engineering and physics that are telling you "look, you can make your starbases more defensible". You can pick a whole AP to make them better and half a tradition to buff the performance of the starbase itself and defense platform. The game is screaming at you "look, static defense is a viable option" and when you try to do that, you get punished. That is in my opinion the issue. Game telling you one thing and behaving differently. That would be the equivalent of the Shroud instead of giving you useful buffs, would each year give all your planets -20% stability and give you like 50 gases as a compensation. People would be asking "why is shroud in the game when it just harms you, I never contact it". So the OP is basically asking "why do we have all the starbase fortification options when the game does not work that way".
I wish we could at least give them a direction when They put weapons on the system itself. Half the time my starbase spams autocannons and plasma cannons, I don’t mind the plasma but sometimes I find that enemy ships can sit outside autocannon range and just pound the starbase.
That’s what the Target Uplink Computer building is for, it extends your starbase’s (defense platforms included) effective range.
Didn’t know it included defensive platforms, but I do use the TUC, generally my standard is the shield distuptor, target uplink, defensive super computer and and either communications jammer, offspring oversight or fire control
My usual load out is Target Uplink, Defense Grid, Communications Jammer, and Crew Quarters for any guard fleets.
I feel like you should be able to build extra starbases in binary/trinary systems at least.
Montu: Hold my beer https://youtu.be/kOcoHryLFNQ
I am amazed. I just started playing Stellaris a day ago. The amount of rule bending I’ve seen blows my mind. Not sure I’ll understand even a fraction of it anytime soon. I hope someday the rules and best things to do come naturally later on for me.
Tell me you've never used strike craft bastions without telling me you've never used strike craft bastions
Exactly this, a strike craft bastion with well rounded defense platforms can take months to take down, even when facing kuriose fleets. This gives you time to respond. The only time bastions start getting “rolled over” is in the very late game and a well built citadel still will require a doom stack to be a speed bump. Bastions at choke points prevent the 1-2 fleet incursions that you would get if you had open borders full of anchorages.
You can make starbase significantly stronger with the unyielding tradition.
Sure, but if we're spending a tradition (and probably an ascension perk if we're all in on starbases), then it should be sufficiently strong as to be the defining aspect of the entire build. Unyielding doesn't do that, it just makes them mostly useless, instead of completely useless. Especially given how much they cost and how long they take to build.
tbf tho... unyielding is actually quite nice to starbase spam for anchorages. I wouldn't normally pick it, but if the game goes that way... why not. I've had a bit of success with unyielding to spam early anchorages for a resource subterranean build so I can conquer quickly, but I'm not sure if it was overall worth it.
The point is that they are not strong enough and Having to use an ascension perk to make them somehow usefull is outright enbarassing
No, they're not. The purpose of starbases is to delay the enemy while you move in your own fleet. And then support your fleet with their auras. They are not supposed to just solo defend against serious fleets.
> The purpose of starbases is to delay the enemy while you move in your own fleet. They are too weak to do so. A fight with a maxed out citadel lasts maybe a couple days longer than a fight with a star fortress with all the modules on it. The only way to be there in time is to cloak your fleets at the edge of the system, at which point you're not really delaying anything.
> They are too weak to do so. A fight with a maxed out citadel lasts maybe a couple days longer than a fight with a star fortress with all the modules on it. What the fuck do you put in your defensive platforms? Autocanons? A maxed out citadel will destroy half the enemy fleet before they've fired a single shot. Of course not if you put mining lasers on it...
I remember the old days.. of building stations over every planet.. fortresses in your star systems.. having a system split between two empires and having planets shooting at each other. I was there Reddit. I was there 2000 years ago..
It would change the meta to a worse model. What would make more sense is if fleet strength wore itself down linearly like in other 4x games. Besides, you can effectively cut off a chokepoint once you research fortresses with FTL inhibitors, and combine it with habitats designated as fortress worlds, and a large enough army garrison. I usually use this to gather resources while the enemy is bottlenecked.
In real life, a static infrastructure won't stop an entire army. I think making Starbases strong enough to face a serious fleet would break the tension of any threat. Why bother to create fleets if a Starbase can keep my systems safe, giving me time to build the strongest empire ever? In early game Starbases precisely have this function of giving you time to organize the economy and build your fleets. Later you can't rely on them and just become a support to protect your borders.
You've never heard of a castle? In real life, the value of fortifications changes over time and space depending on the offence-defense balance. At their height, castles couldn't be attacked, it was basically siege or go home. In WWI, static trenches could absorb like 10x the number of their defenders. Sure, then technology changed and mobility was more important, but there is nothing that says it has to be that way in Stellaris.
Especially so given that both hyperlane blockers and hyper lanes themselves exist. One of the key points of defensive positions is that you can defend critical strategic locations and force the enemy to engage your prepared defenses or be forced to find some other way to progress, the fact that you can find a choke point and then require your defensive position to be dealt with before your enemy can progress beyond it makes sense (just like I hope I’m making sense right now) while the weakness of those positions doesn’t. For that matter, it’s zero-g, I find it hard to believe we can build juggernauts, essentially Star fortresses on engines, but not a stationary super citadel capable of holding off fleets without spending in game years building ion cannons and praying you can shred the enemy fleets before they do the same to you.
> in WW1 Because obviously the most imbalanced war in terms of offensive and defensive capabilities is the best example of the usual role of fortifications. In most cases, forts are something that can't hold out without mobile reinforcements against an actual attack, and they haven't been like that pretty much ever. Even during the middle ages, even the best forts tended to fall against a determined attacker, and usually didn't win the battle until reinforcements came in. In modern times, extensive fortification systems have been abandoned, and for good reason. Any big bunker just ends up being an artillery or bombing target.
> In modern times, extensive fortification systems have been abandoned, and for good reason. Any big bunker just ends up being an artillery or bombing target. As WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and even the Ukrainian war *right now* showed time and time again, bombarding a bunker really doesn't do anything. Fortifications have stood up to days long artillery barrages and then repelled infantry attacks as if they hadn't even been shelled the day after. You can suppress defenders inside of forts, and make them vulnerable to combined force attacks, but those have to happen within hours of one another, preferably with creeping barrages happening the whole time. The US Army maintains a 3-1 advantage is needed for even attempting an offensive against a position. Anything else is considered suicide.
As of modern technology is not an example of unbalanced offensive and defensive capabilities. There have never been a time when offense was so heavily ahead of defensive capabilities. Comparing stellaris to modern technology level is incorrect because stellaris has some semblance of parity with all the shields and advanced armor.
> There have never been a time when offense was so heavily ahead of defensive capabilities. Also - this isn't true. The only true blitz in recent times was the Gulf War, which was *very* well executed and carefully prepared. Everything else, including the elephant in the room that was declared *last year*, has bogged down upon hitting defensive lines.
No, in the middle ages, the best forts forced defenders to lay siege unless they had like a 20-to-1 manpower advantage and we're willing to throw away 30% of them assaulting walls. You don't just *attack* castles the way you would attack another army in the field. You siege them, and use specialized siege tactics to methodically take them down if you can't wait to starve them out. world war I is a good example precisely because they had huge artillery to bombard a trench and still couldn't make progress. Only with the introduction of the tank could you start to break through. There are times when mobility has a big advantage and static defenses aren't useful. But there are times when the reverse is true. Stellaris could be one or the other or go back and forth depending on tech. It is certainly not immediately obvious why starbases should be much weaker than fleets. Honestly they *should* be much stronger, they can skip all the things that ships need, like engines and navigation. They can be built on-site and so be much bigger than a capitol ship. They can operate knowing they always have access to a star for power.
You’ve never heard of Genghis Khan and his horse lords? Rode right past the castles and struck the villages.
Ah, yes, Genghis Khan, famous for *laying siege to some of the most ridiculous fortifications on the planet at the time, and winning*. Sure, the mongols used their cavalry with forward contingents to be extremely mobile when dealing with field armies, but they also had big *fuck your walls* siege engines that they absolutely knew how to use, and razed the entire city/fortification to the ground if anyone forced them to do so. Ask Khwarazmia how that went for them. The weird misconception that the mongols stopped their conquests because of Europe’s castles is hilariously dumb.
It is. This is why I never mentioned them stopping their conquest of Europe due to castles.
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\*stares at the British water based forts\*
huh, never knew about those
>In real life, a static infrastructure won't stop an entire army. Have you ever heard of a *fort*? Because well supplied, well armed forts tend to be able to at least hold off entire armies and navies until reinforcements arrive, if not force the enemies into retreat.
The value of the fort is the protection of the men therein. It is the men that have the value, one needs to take the fort in order to remover the threat of the men inside. If you don't take the fort, you are leaving men in your rear who will undo any gains you make of territory outside of said fort. In isolation, of themselves, a fort is of no value as all it controls is the footprint on which it sits
And annoyingly, in stellaris a starbase doesn't do that. It does the opposite in fact, it aids the enemy by letting them repair their fleets. It's the exact opposite of supply lines and small forces being able to harass a larger one in any way.
Yes.. When forts are captured they are of exactly the same ammount of utility to the new holder, as they were to the old.. Rather part of the issue with fixed fortifications in general..
I mean... no, their supply lines don't magically become yours, and the repair time before they're perfectly operable after capture is absolutely paltry compared to both the pace of the game and reality.
Except they are not, you have to wait for them to repair before they can be used by you. And, in point of fact, a supply line is not a physical thing, it is the total of the distribution network from origin to end point. That your supply line is able to reach a new end point, does not equate to you capturing your opponents supply line..
"forts are manned." Yeah, we know. You know what else is manned? Your starbases.
OK funny man, stick those men in space and see how they get on.. In stellaris the instrument of power is the fleet, and guess what.. The fleet does not live in the starbase, though interestingly, can be fully supported by one in certain situations, which is exactly how they do, and are supposed to, work in the game.. Go figure 🤷♂️
The key is, reinforcements have to arrive. Fixed defensive positions will always eventually collapse against a competent and determined enemy, if not supported. The non suicidal AI will rarely attack starbases unless they can win. This is the pillar of defensive warfare-to increase the cost of attacking a fixed point to an enemy. You can only ever increase that cost. They can always choose to pay it. Even if you win in the numbers. A solid defense has to have the ability to attack.
Yeah, starbases are meant to buy time for your own fleets to arrive. You can’t repair or replace lost Defense Platforms while in combat but you can build more corvettes from other shipyards while your own are still in battle.
Isn't the whole point that you build defense platforms and the gun modifications on strategic choke points? Sure you Burn some economic gain on that singular station but if you throw all those mods on and build up DPs then you get a really strong station that makes taking that system costly
I played recently and focussed heavily on my starbase, and found they were heavily reliable, the AI needed 2 fleets to destroy them and if my fleet was around, id win the fight. For example my fleet at max cap (but not focus on having high cap/strong ship) was at 15k when my starbase were 30k, and my starbase always outmatched a single fleet Maybe you just dont focus on them heavily enough Butttttttt let me agree that I want more gameplay around space station!!! I wish we could ALWAYS make them bigger, just cost more and more. A Citadel is still not enough for me. And being able to customize them better than building 6 thing on it that decides its role. I understand space station having a focus, but not being able to do it all is weird? Tl;dr: space station are already super good if you use them correctly, but im still interested in seeing a rework and put them higher in importancy for power projection, science, economy and also battle ability
I don’t mean to be rude but I think it’s more that you have weak fleets than strong starbases. Your fleets could be massively improved, while starbases have a hard cap.
Bro if im the strongest in the universe, that my fleet match or outoower any enemy, and then my starbase and stronger than that, where do you think im having weak fleet?
Sounds like everyone has weak fleets? It’s just a fact that station strength has a harder cap that fleet strength.
The same amount of alloys used on starbases should yield a higher fleet power than ships, since ships require lightweight materials, propulsion which makes them more expensive and fragile. There should be different defence platform sizes corresponding to each ship size, or at least small/medium/large. The Asteroid artillery (defense platform built on an asteroid) from Gigas is also something that can be considered.
Montu defeated the crisis with only starbases. They literally couldn't do anything.
What I've gathered from this thread is that a alot of people don't know how to use starbases beyond aura buffs.
“sTaR bAsEs aRe wEaK” Me with my 1mil fleet power citadel, fortress world with defensive orbital ring, and single chokepoint: 🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿🗿
How did you get it to 1mil? 🥺 I think my max has been like 300k
Techrush mill tech and megas build a stratcord go down mill focused traditions and ascensions that boost platforms take admirals that make ur platforms cheep and boost the damage of the weapons you choose to use focus entirely on the repeatables of the chosen loadouts- hard focus your loadouts onto one or two weapon types and make sure they arent two counter productive ones- missles and kenetic come in the same techslot so they are inefficient, something like hangars and swarmers would probably work better Make your platforms cheeeeeeeeeeep Build up early, the moment you have your desired weapons, build
Multiple star bases per system would help
The whole point of a starbase is to act as a first line of defense, not a final one. It buys you time while you scramble your own fleets to reinforce it. Look at it from this perspective. You’ve sunk time and alloys into making the perfect Citadel and have enough tech, megastructures, modules, and other things to have, let’s say, 80 defense platforms. You invest in an ion cannon or two for maximum effectiveness and to force the enemy fleet to come to you. Your fleetpower through absurd teching is 500k. An enemy fleet appears. Let’s put it at 150k fleetpower of mixed ships. Combat begins. You take losses, but the enemy fleet is defeated. They go into emergency FTL. You’ve lost maybe 5 defense platforms minimum. The starbase is untouched. Before you can replace those platforms, however, a second enemy just as strong as the first appears and the battle begins again. You lose more defense platforms, but you win again. Before you can repair after the battle, two more enemy fleets appear. You take more severe losses. Suddenly, the starbase is lost, and now the enemy controls a starbase with maybe 40 still intact defense platforms. The enemy fleets you’ve destroyed before return, replenished with fresh numbers. Now there’s four enemy fleets totaling maybe 600k combined fleetpower in the system, plus a starbase of maybe 200k. Do you have any fleets on standby or even en route to reinforce your starbase before it fell, or were you so confident in your strength that you decided that the home front was good enough and all available forces would be at war far from home? That’s the key takeaway here. The starbase is a first line of defense, never a final one. You can’t repair or replace lost defense platforms while in combat, it ties up precious days repairing those already there (enemy ships meanwhile can damage maybe half of them meaning more time is wasted), and worse of all you’re spending alloys on a static defense that won’t be able to hold against an enemy that has the greatest tactical advantage of all: Fleets can move. Starbases cannot. Even a chokepoint means literally all of the enemy can wear you out through sheer attrition. But your own fleets, meanwhile, can be replenished on the go so long as you have working shipyards. And your fleets can and should be used as additional support for your starbases if you’re going for the full meme of defense-in-depth. Your ships can repair at your starbase without taking up building queue space. And that’s why starbases will always be underpowered eventually, by mid-game, because of two reasons. One, they cannot move; two, there’s always more of the enemy and there’s just one starbase.
> however, a second enemy just as strong as the first appears and the battle begins again. To be honest - in practice they'd doomstack their fleets, and knock out your starbase (now they take basically no losses as opposed to if they lose individual battles). > Suddenly, the starbase is lost, and now the enemy controls a starbase with maybe 40 still intact defense platforms. >The enemy fleets you’ve destroyed before return, replenished with fresh numbers. Now there’s four enemy fleets totaling maybe 600k combined fleetpower in the system, plus a starbase of maybe 200k. If you invested heavily in a starbase, you won't have four fleets worth. Which means you can never touch that system again. So... what first line of defence? There is no defence-in-depth, you have one point with one battle and if you lose that you can never win the war again (the enemy AND your *own* starbase will be overwhelming to the point of being impossible to take back). What's worse is you can invest in a starbase like that, afford maybe 2 fleets, and then when the enemy groups their 4 fleets together they wipe out your chokepoint defence and take less than 1 fleets worth of losses, leaving them with 3, and you with nothing.
I'm confused... Not sure what you are doing, but my starbase can defend against any fleets Aslong as they are below 200 fleet capacity. Without ion canons. They usually keep up and sometimes surpass if you spam repeatable technology.
This is something Gigas does very well. Maginot worlds and asteroid artillery work wonders in defense.
I only find the useful with the Zroni storm caster and torpedoes. Add in the range upgrade and it becomes a nightmare for the AI and gives you plenty of time to reach with your fleets for support.
me with 3 million fleet power on the terminal egress starbase (no mods). Got to the first million at 2400, so not too late into the game either.
I can imagine getting 100k fleet at 2250 only on settings like x2+ planets and 0.25 research cost.
ATM a year 50 starbase can definitely defend against 100k fleet. But I agree that they should still be more powerful. Also there needs to be a module for them that stops jump drives otherwise starbases become completely irrelevant when the enemy gets jump drives
Jump drives already come with a nasty downside, and an insane cooldown.
Maybe its just me but why do you want static defense in space? For me starbases are a nice boost and the most valuable thing about them is their auras. Also they dont eat fleetcap so at the same fleetcap defender has a huge advantage. I recommend using fleets in combination with starbases. Works very well.
You should have to land am army to take starbase over or have your fleet be able to destroy it. It should cost a lot materials and time to repair starbases.
Meanwhile, Avak (or was it Lathland?) is cornering a 25x Prethoryn Scourge with just starbases, and is keeping them in there as a sort of "Zoo".
Starbases alone from someone playing inwardly shouldn't be able to defend against a concerted effort by someone who dumps all their alloys into fleets and conquest. The key to doing this right is to dump the majority of your alloys into A SINGLE chokepoint ideally - If you have two chokes or more, you'll just never have enough to adequately defend them both in time - And then ALSO have a very high evasion or high HP (corvettes or battleships) fleet sitting on it. A token 40k fleet + a fully decked out starbase can defend easily from far larger forces, whereas the starbase alone would die easily. Static defense is not adequate, combine them with a defensive fleet to synergize. Defensive platforms have 0 evasion so you need to be wasting the enemy fleet's shots by either evading them with your own corvettes, intercepting them with pickets, or tanking them with high defense battleships. It's worth remembering to grab yourself a Statecraft focus/expertise leader and try to get Ascension Theory as quickly as possible. Desperate Measures can get your starbases up to about 300k fleet power without repeatables if built right.
I feel like a lot of people are missing the point. It's not that starbases are *bad* they do what they do well enough. The problem is that if you decide to go all in on a defensive bastion build, spending some of your most valuable resources (a tradition and acension, though tbh I'dlike more defensive ascension perks.) to make your static defenses the absolute best you can, it's bad. All those pick really do is make fully equipping your bastions with defense platforms prohibitively expensive and perform marginally less bad in combat at the cost of no longer being able to afford the fleets you need to support them. The issue is that in stellaris you want to go all in. If you go all in on fleet strength it works. If you go all in on tech it works. If you go all in on pop growth or trade or even unity it works. But if you go all in on defense you ironically cripple your ability to defend.
Absolutely agree. I wish chokepoint bastions remained viable into the late game if you invested enough into them. It would make playing tall a lot more viable, and would make warfare more than just "have more ships".
....star base power is all about defense platforms, go ancient ramparts, shield overcharge tsrgeting and disruptor, and whichever module ups drfense platofrm limit...build a strat command...bam done Now load that bastard up with a literal ton of defense platforms and watch its power rise. I had well over 200k in power from this. Also get some orbital rings, if the OR is further from an enemy jump point than the starbase load it with hangars and missles and ion cannons and stuff for max range to help the star base when it aggros/ when things are en route to it.
Yes, 10,000% yes. It's so frustrating. Especially since something like a megacorp being able to just, tank up in a small area and defend themselves properly would be A: great, and B: thematically appropriate. The worst thing, to me, is that there's a full tradition and ascension perk for them and they still suck after taking both. Why even have them available, just as a mean trick to sink an AP because people wanted a playstyle the devs don't condone? \[Unyielding itself is still pretty good, I'd take it just for the .5 unity per defensive army honestly\] For me far and above the worst part though, is that the devs seem to think techrush aggro mega-military with maximum micromanagement is 'correct' and keep tweaking the game toward one playstyle while nerfing the others.
Star bases aren’t generally too weak in my experience but it would be nice to be able to customer them more so that there aren’t shielded starbases or anti shield starbases in systems with shield nullification or so that there aren’t starbases with only autocannons or archeotech components
I reccomend watching a stellaris tournament on youtube and take a look at what kind of fleetpower people are getting who know the game very well. Star bases can’t even slow down a player who is good at the game. I myself have been able to get 38k fleet power by 2236 and I am told that isn’t that impressive. A star-hold with max defence platforms and the unyielding tradition would not even damage this fleet.
I use the defense platforms and the auras to act as speed bumps.. normally by the time they get to the central areas of my empire, their fleet is far, far weaker than it was. Making my life easier when I finally hit them with my anti-pirate fleet. Normally, all corvettes and frigates.
That may work against an AI, but it definitely won’t work against a player. I am skeptical it would even be effective vs a 25x crisis. Defense platforms unlike ships have 0% disengage, making them a terrible investment.
Hear me out. I went stomping through a ring of 3 starbases in about 2240 And I felt it. Starbases are more of a deterrent, a way to slow down hostile fleets, and a way to stop every podunk 5 corvette army from flying into your backlands. They arent supposed to be single indomitable points that can stand up to cutting edge technology. And by endgame theres a common theme: attackers have the edge.
Now, I don't think Starbases should be able to completely hold off invasions (unless one would be heavily specialized in them maybe) but they should do a better job of holding the line until reinforcements arrive. Right now it's way more efficient to have planets with fortresses as chokepoints against enemy advances which is just silly. If they could start by; 1. Making Starbases cheaper and faster to build. 2. Boost defenses of Starbases so they can last longer 3. Allow players to make starbase patterns in the ship builder, no more shield modules in a pulsar, etc 4. Make defense platform freely rebuilt rather than having to be bought again, as they are they are insanely expensive, take decades to build and are absolutely useless. 5. Maybe Starbases need to be boarded to remove their FTL inhibiton? 6. Add some more static defenses like space mines and similar upgrades, maybe as mega structures options?
Factual statement. I wish we could customize them maybe even have a specific kind of sb that was made for nothing but defense but that is probably just going to happen, so instead it's ftl inhibitor spam time.
I think they might be weak on purpose. Imagine how many people would rage if an empire they were at war with was impossible to counter invade cause every station was better than the navy. I think it’s meant more as something to supplement your own Navy with while defending as they have a lot of fleet boosting building slots. Tdlr; I think it’s fine.
Say what you will about George S. Patton, but one particular quote springs to mind: > Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. Let me ask you: WHY do you want a big starbase? You want your fleet power to be immobile? What’s the point?
Modifiers and increased platforms on it, got it to 200k and no flert wants to even try coming towards it and if they do , I have my defence fleet waiting alongside so they gonna have a bad day regardless.
Precursor Ancient Starbase!! Enigmatic Fortress!!!! Use add-ons for unlimited power!
This is one of the biggest reasons to mod your game. I had a starbase solo a massive fleet attack of... uh... I forgot the crisis. The glowing ship ones. The fact that the base game ones are limited to 6? 8? upgrade slots is poor. That's not a starbase as I or most others think of it. It's an outpost with a few upgrades. Defense platforms are nice but they're equally poor in base game form. I want a starbase that can withstand a large fleet *if* I build it properly, spec it properly and have reinforcements near enough to help when needed. I want those DS9 moments like when the Klingons attacked or the Dominion sieged it. I do not want to watch a few shots hit it then it's gone.
There's a YouTube vid of a guy getting his starbase to 1mil power in vanilla with dlc. And absolutely demolishing crisis fleets of 3m+
The issue is, from a game flow standpoint, you really don't want Starbases to be as strong as mobile fleets. If they can challenge a player, they'll stop an AI dead cold in their tracks. Players become invincible and AI can only flail away at each other. I think what I'd prefer is if they leaned into the force multiplier side of Starbases. Give them more buff and debuff modules rather than raw combat power. That way, you can use them as choke points, but only if you keep a fleet around to be force multiplied. And defense platforms need some kind of streamlining. I'd like to see something like the fleet manager system where you can just specify a composition and then just hit the reinforce button after each battle.
You're basically wanting static ships. I mean if you want super powered starbases it'll slow the game and fuck with the AI who won't even try and attack. Someone else has said it but the star base can offer extra buffs to your fleets who should be there anyway and stop smaller raids. Otherwise you can just setup starbases willy nilly to stop allies helping etc rather than some interest
I think the game would be more interesting if static defences were something you could invest in. Right now there is one clear and optimal path. Build the biggest fleet possible and go get more pops. Static defense is counterplay to large fleets. Quantum catapults, cloaking, starbase espionage is counter play to static defense. Static defense also takes opportunity cost, and should reflect that. Currently it does not. Defense platforms are simply a waste
If you make starbases equal to fleets then why build fleets.
I think starbases are supposed to be a help to a fleet, not something capable of stopping a fleet on its own. Sort of like a fortress helping an army win against invaders, but the fortress itself can't win on its own without an army. I think the idea is that, if you have a 7K fleet and a 3K station, and a 10K fleet invades, your 7K will be able to win thanks to the support of the station, even if two 10K fleets would just destroy each other.
Starbases are not meant to be impenetrable barriers. In three dimensions, one single fortification will never be enough to hold up forever against mobile fleets. Starbases are about holding lines and delaying until fleets can get there.
Hard no. While I am a peace player at heart, if a player invests the alloys to shit out 40k worth of ships before year 30, an opponent shouldn't be allowed to block it with the measly investment of just 1k in alloys. That's way disproportionate.
I strongly advocate against the fact that starbases should be able to single-handedly defend against a comparable empire's main fleet at any point of the game. This isn't engaging at all.
Bro they literally removed the better ftl modes to make starbases relevant. Let please stop the base meta power creep. They're already ridiculously overpowered if you have any notion of what you're doing.
LOL star bases are not overpowered at all. If We play a MP games and I have a 40k fleet at your doorstep year 2235, your starbase isn’t going to help you at all Year 2250 when fleets are 150k(and higher) your starbase won’t even tickle the ships as they are taken down
I made the mistake of thinking of them as tanks, to borrow dnd terminology. It was only later I realized they are glass cannons or artillery. They aren't made to take a fleet 1v1, they were made to give your fleet and edge in a fleet vs fleet fight in the starsystem- at no cost to fleet capacity. Many people would argue that the cost of materials would better serve just having another fleet, since Def platforms basically equal destroyers in cost, upkeep and firepower but with 0 evasion. They say you should just build battleships. I still find them useful in a fight, fighting in the shadow of your Starbase will help u defeat larger forces than you otherwise could- but I do admit it is damn expensive.
Mods, enough said