Okay, starbases kinda suck. We all know this. They are useless past the mid-game and defense platforms are quite literally a waste of alloys. To add insult to injury, the auto-design for starbase loadouts is short on power and very prone to making dumb decisions and suboptimal loadouts.
So, here's what I suggest:
So, here's what I suggest:
- Remove all weapons slots from starbases. Starbases can serve as anchorages, trade hubs, or shipyards - but not bastions.
- Reinstate designable, placeable defense platforms, fortresses, and citadels. These designs would be accessed through a menu via an upgraded starbase, and be placed in the system manually similarly to how megastructures currently are. Upgrading techs for larger starbases also allows you to build bigger and better fortifications. The 'combat' auras from starbases would be aura options for fortresses and above. You can make as many of these as you have alloys for, and their damage-efficiency:alloys ratio is higher than with a fleet, but they're still expensive, immobile, and need investment to be effective.
- Reinstate distance-limited auras (these used to be a thing) and make minefields and other obstacles viable. Bring back FTL snares for handling Jump Drives as another constructible thing.
- With defense platforms and minefields being placeable, this makes the current meta of 'spam kinetic artillery and X-slots' less viable. It's kinda difficult for artillery battleships to pick things off at range when there's minefields and enough close-range firepower to shred those battleships awaiting those who enter via a certain jump point.
- Placeable fortresses also allow you to design a defense properly with stronger 'tanky' stations in the front and artillery and hangar ones in the back.
- This prevents stupidity like 'this starbase is wasting 70% of its defense slots on shields in a pulsar', by making defenses designable. You should be able to train the AI to spam a certain defense platform/fortress/citadel type in pulsar systems.
- Makes playing tall and turtling a viable playstyle while also reducing fleet use. Current meta for defense past the midgame is just turtling with a fleet, but with the expensive defenses, you have to choose between static forts and mobile fleets.
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