I haven't looked at starbases specifically, but every upgrade has its own file as well that should define how much hull/shields the starbase gains from the upgrade. The actual entity doesn't have starting values?

 Hi,

               I believe if you look at the research entities and also at the ability entities you will see values for each of the upgrade values, the shields, the armor, the weapon range and strength values, etc...

I was looking through this also, and the Starbase entity itself seems to only reference the upgrades instead of holding those values itself, as we would expect in a normal ship or structure.

Hope this helps,  

-Teal

Thats exactly where you have to look, I found it yesterday.  Each sb has the toughness ability and has an ability 0 which is its starting levels.  Just tweak from there.  You can change the # of upgrade slots too