How do I...

Hello
1a:
you must send one constructor to create the starbase plus 1 constructor for each module you want to add...
1b: I think they have a small impact upon construction (5%) and the more modules you add, the more the effect is important

2: Influence starbases with all modules can help. Your borders can vary wildly if a civ takes a new world close by, or if they construct an influence starbase themselves. You can always destroy these.
And don't forget that there are also influence resources that you can mine (so there are influence starbases, called I think cultural starbase; and influence-resource-mining-starbases. They all help.

3:There are some random events that can make more planets habitable. But there is no point in colonizing class 0 or 1 worlds (except some very precise situations). They will cost you a lot for nothing. You can have more habitable planets in the galaxy by changing the start game option (galaxy size, planets occasional/rare/abundant, and then habitable planets, occasiona/rare/abusdant). That will wildly change things

Good luck!

1)
a) A new-built starbase has no special modules and systemes installed - you can upgrade it with further constructors. Just send a constructor to an existing starbase and the game will present you a list of possible upgrades.
Economic and influence bases work right away, but only give a very small bonus. To make them truly effective, you have to install a couple of updates, see a).

2) Influencer Starbases, see 1). No other ways that I'm aware of.

3) No way to use class 0 planets. (Except for some very rare random events.)
To make your existing colonies support more people, build farms, more food = more people.
But if you'd like a game with more habitable worlds, just increase the number of habitable planets in the setup of your next game.

Hi Thanks, for the answers!

For #1a) I make a second constructor, and then I move it to the starbase, correct? Now I have the two sitting as a stack, but I no longer see the construct button... what is the actual procdure for doing this second build for adding systems? This was something I tried last night but couldnt get it to work.

For #3 though, what is the AI doing to jump ahead in population after maybe 100-150 turns? Does he just find more worlds or am I missing something? And it's not just one faction moving ahead usually there are a bunch that end up almost doubling me, after I had been ahead by almost double.

#3 Ahhhhh farms!!!! Thanks a ton! Do the farms just help that world or all worlds?

Also, how do I get more squares on a planet activated. I managed to get some new ones on some planets from time to time, I assume through my tech leaps, but others seem rather static.

For #1a) I make a second constructor, and then I move it to the starbase, correct? Now I have the two sitting as a stack, but I no longer see the construct button... what is the actual procdure for doing this second build for adding systems? This was something I tried last night but couldnt get it to work.

it happens sometime to me too.
I then move it to a square along the starbase and move it back, then you have a window asking if you want to upgrade.
I think most of the times i've had the problem when I sent the constructor directlu to the starbase with autopilot. Try sending to a square next to it and then moving it in.
Ottherwise maybe, even when it is stacked you can double click in it and select construct in the detail window that appears.

Maybe they better manage their morale, which gives a boost to population. And if they colonize a lot at the beginning, the growth in the planets with low pop will be slow, but at some point it would accelerate when the pop has increased some. And maybe they made some farms, that will push up the planet population cap

When a constructor arrives on the same 'tile' as one of your starbases you should get a dialogue box asking you if you want to upgrade the starbase. If you aren't there must be an option to turn off the dialogue. You can probably select 'construct' for a constructor stacked on a starbase to upgrade it.

I'm stuck at at work too, dreaming of GC two. Nothing's getting done here today!

Same here
I've never posted so much in the forum.
Have been at it all day...
Talking about it is not as good as playing, but it sure heps pass the time.
And in 5 minutes I'm going home

Haha, yeah there must be a bunch of us in the same spot, I keep looking for excuses to chat about the game while at the same tiime looking for excuses not to work!

I must have been zoomed out to the point where the constructor looked like it was on top of the base but wasn't. I'll play with this more tonight.

Also, I really need to get the hang of ship design. I finally got the medium hull design but could only fit 2 engines (Ion II's) and 2 lasers (laser III's). I think I had basic miniturization, so I'll need to work on that. All in all, I'm glad they have ship design, but I think Space Empires IV had the edge in this area. Especially with mount sizes for weapons. Maybe after I get a better feel for it I'll change my mind.

Being a game developer at stardock since the GalCiv1 days, I never actually felt fully comfortable in the series until I played through the campaign. 

It may sound silly, but I would easilly get overwhelmed trying to balance and organize my empire, and would end up getting trounced at some point (I'm a console gamer at heart...used to more button mashing and less thinking).

By going into the game and having simple, direct objectives to accomplish, it helps you in the sandbox mode where you have to come up with the goals on your own. It'll help you get a good organizational style down and keep you empire from trying to do too much at once. 

Anyhoo, just my 2cents Continue your discussion!

Oh man, SE IV had the coolest ship design system. I mean, you could put anything you could think of on a ship. Organic Techs were always my fav. On the downside, SE IV ship battles were SO tedius. SE V comes out later this year and hopefully the new version will fix that. I just hope Malfador dumps that lousy distributor they had for Starfury (Strategy First I think?). Maybe Aaron Hall will copy the success of the GC II release.

#3 Ahhhhh farms!!!! Thanks a ton! Do the farms just help that world or all worlds? Also, how do I get more squares on a planet activated. I managed to get some new ones on some planets from time to time, I assume through my tech leaps, but others seem rather static.

Farms only provide food for the planet they're on and your total food supply for a planet limits it's population growth. For example, a planet that's producing 10mt of food per week can support 10 billion people (think I got the units right). Adding more farms or beefing up your farm tech can increase the number. There are other population factors - like as your population increase your unhappiness increases (morale/approval declines). It's up to you to balance. You can't just throw down 20 farms and expect 200 billion happy people to spawn.

The number of tiles on a planet IS limited, as is the number of good planets. You have to balance what you build to maximize/specialize each planet. Most planets will eventually get some more tiles via terraforming types of techs but in my experience planets aren't equal in this regard. There may be some rare random events, or minor races can appear later in the game, to make a size 0 planet into something else, but it's not something you can count on. If you want more planets you have to "acquire" them via conquest or influence flipping. A typical good world starts with 8-12 tiles. Anything more than that is a higher quality world (like the 15's the minor races start on, making them prime expansion targets).

Note that your starbases have a radius. I'm very fond of generic economic bases because they can jack up your planets' production and research while also boosting trade income if freighters pass thru their radius. These effects stack so having multiple economic starbases with lots of overlap can radically jack up your planets.

If you plan/orchestrate your trade routes in tandem with economic starbases you can seriously bump your trade income - but trade routes can easily be disrupted so I don't like to totally count on trade (target planet(s) change hands, wars cause freighter loss, etc).

If you build economic starbases such that they include as many planets as possible in their radius, and build a few next to each other with overlap, you can get some NICE bonuses on your major production planets.

Military starbases can be handy, as can influence bases, but I think you get the most bang for your buck out of economic starbases (purely opinion). Your borders and empire can easily shift rendering military or influence bases largely useless, while an economic starbase, even if it's just jacking producion and research, is always effective. But, of course, you can easily crank out waves of constructors if you build on every planet, so destroying and rebuilding starbases isn't THAT big a deal (once you get rolling).

I have a bit of a question about starbases. I researched the last starbase fortification tech and can upgrade the weapons on my starbases (the +30 to either beam missile or mass driver) but I can't upgrade the defenses. Did I miss something? Do I need more construction modules on my ships? Is it another tech that has the defense techs? When I got the lower techs I upgraded the starbases defenses, but now I can’t (and its my luck that they stopped using missiles and switched to mass drivers so my defenses are pretty weak) and it tells me I have something like 37 more modules left on the starbase.

LOL BoogieBac, that was my plan! However I was waiting for my movies to finish downloading before doing the campaign! I figured there would be a lot of media content in there and I didn't want to miss it, so I started a regular game to get some of the mechanics down.

Thanks for the input!

Yeah SEIV had some amazing good and some amazing bad. I can't remember when I actually tactically played out a large combat. Also relying on ministers was crazy, but necessary as your empire would grow to insane sizes on the larger maps. Some of the AI mods helped with this but it was never very good.

My dream (for any of these games really) was always to make a fleet template. That is I want to make fleets consisting of these designs: 1 BC, 2 CV, 4 CA, 4 CLAA, 10 DDG, 4 MS. Then the AI could easily figure out what to produce and what quantities it would need, ship them off to an assembly point and voila... instant fleet with some of the management off my shoulders! The ships would still be all my design, and in the proportions I want, but I could turn my brain off of daily production. Especially in SE IV where you had to produce fighters, satellites and mines.

Darktalon
Can't help you there, I've never been that far ahead in the attack modules. Are you sure you've not reached the max number of modules? Have you reserched the starbase defenses all the way?

That's all i can think of for now. A more experienced player will probably step in...