Well the ships defending the starbase always fight their own battle when attacked. Only if the defending ships are defeated, will the starbase get involved.

Its effectively a 'separate' engagement.

So normally, my focus is on the defending ships only, and to me, the starbase is irrelevant -  except for the purpose of increased logistics.

Sometimes i will have 'junk' ships defending a starbase, in which case i do not really care about the ships and my main focus will be on the starbase combat phase. The junk ships are mainly for the purpose of diplomacy and will eventually be sold or upgraded at some point.

There are two basic approaches to defending a fortress.  One is to keep your forces inside the fortress and defend.  Another is to go out from the fortress, then confront and eliminate invading forces. Both approaches have been used to great effect throughout history.  Both approaches have failed miserably throughout history. Whether either approach is flawed is something that is more dependent on individual situations than anything else.  In this situation, the armament of the starbase itself seems meaningless to me compared to the armament of my defending ships, except for the very beginning of the game.  Therefore, hunkering down within the fortress or within starbase range has no real value in this case. The armament of the starbase is primarily a pirate defense as far as I am concerned, not a real military asset.

Its easy changed in the BattleTactics.xml