Starbase Maint Idea Thread

Why to the 1.7 power?

I was thinking on increasing maint. cost/# of modules added to the starbase since the modules need maint.

~SDC~

Sure but resource StarBases should pay for themselves. I'm asuming the resouces mind do get sold at one point.

Even better, make it so different Political Systems handle StarBase maintenace differently.


~SDC~

^^^^^^^^^^^^
mind = mined

~SDC~

Why not add more maintenance cost as you add modules to the starbase?

A basic one-constructor job could be cheap, while a fully tricked-out Trade base with Culture improvements might cost quite a few BC's per turn.

~SDC~

The ^1.7 power seems designed so that at 10 starbases, the average maintenance is 5 - ie at 10 starbases you pay the same maintenance as in 1.03.

I think maintenance on a per-module idea is a bad idea: the idea with having maintenance was to reduce the number of starbases rather than the quality of each.

In terms of the ^1.7 power system: be aware that this will have big consequences on a large map - should you really have to pay a larger proportion of your economy for starbase maintenance for a given starbase density on larger maps than on smaller?
Maybe so: after all, each individual resource will have a larger impact on your your empire on larger maps because your empire will be bigger.
But maybe not: system boosting effects will have the same impact on a small map as a large one, so why should you have to pay more to get them?

Just things to think about.

|Zero|

How about a tax/multiplier on multiple starbases in a single sector so that this would apply to larger and smaller games?

If that is a bad idea, have the tax kick in based on the number of sectors in the universe so gigantic can have more starbases before the tax kicks in than tiny.

I like the tax/multiplier on multiple starbases in a single sector or make them totally count for nothing. That would make it even across different size galaxies. I can see on gigantic how you'd get 50 pretty darn quickly and easily.

I think to the 1.3 or 1.5 power would probably do better for the #too rather than to the 1.7 But I do like the 5 as it is now. That's not bad.

I also think the resource starbases should be free. The 1.7 power idea sounds good, but it would definetly need to be adjusted for larger maps.

~SDC~

Here's another idea I thought I'd float:

Have star bases cost 8 each to maintain BUT create a planetary improvement called "Starbase Support Network". For each one of these you build, the maint. of one star base is paid for.

So if you have 30 planets and each of them builds one of these, you can have 30 star bases with no maint.

Hence, it would scale up and it's relatively easy to understand.

Plus, we could create a new wonder that doubles the value of the Star base support networks.

I was kinda iffy on the idea. I could understand if they weren't in a sector you "owned", but that last idea is pretty neat. And you're right, it is easy to understand. I vote for the "Starbase Support Network"

Would it make any sense to have maintenance convoys, similiar to trade routes, flying to starbases? Perhaps if you can't protect that supply route it would cost you more (new supply ships beeing build) and efficiency of starbase would go down?

Also I think maintenance should depend on how far from your planets your base is. Perhas coupled with connection to certain planet with supply route, cost would be reduced from planets income/production.

I really hope that this is the number of starbases in the same sector.

Many have implied that is what it is, but it was not in frogboy's post. Just wanted to make sure.

I liked a previous idea I floated, that each starbase costs 1 BC maintenance, and each module added after that costs 1 BC more, with a maxium maintenance of 5 BC (or whatever seems appropriate). This would be more realistic IMO because the maintenance cost would be directly related to the size of the starbase. This would also keep those undeveloped starbases from costing the maximum maintenance cost as if they were fully developed. It would probably be even more beneficial for the AI, which isn't very efficient at starbase stuff. This allows you to be more diverse with your starbases, while still putting a reign on the 'sector 'o starbases' thing some people were doing earlier.

But it all depends on what you on the Stardock team are shooting for: do you think there are too many starbases in the game? Or that they show up too early? Or that they give too much for the maintenance? How you all feel about this issue will be the dominating factor in what type of maintenance algo to introduce, since maintenance is the only real controlling factor for starbase spread.

What happened to your old idea of linking it somewhat to tech discoveries so even the "ppor" nations of the galaxy could have cheaper bases too.

I like the curve idea as long as some techs could lessen the slope somwhat or reduce cost.

~SDC~

The improvement for paying for Starbases is a good idea. You might also just make the improvement automatic. What I mean is that you get free starbase support for the number of planets, or stars you control. You could still have the wonder to double this perhaps.


~SDC~

Just some thoughts...

How much would it cost to maintain a "Starbase Support Network"?

Maybe you could create a series of SB modules that would perform the same function? This would fill in, or use up, some of the time spent pumping out SB modules from the Military queue in the late stages of a game.

Perhaps a series of economic improvements could be added to perform the same function in the Social queue? In my last game I must have cancelled and rebuilt the Hyperion Shipyard a dozen times on twenty planets; all to avoid increasing my maintenance costs by building expensive, new (and unnecessary) improvements that would have given me meaningless morale boosts (I was at 100% morale).

I maintain (pun intended) that the problem of SB proliferation and Social Project stagnation is related. Currently, every game that reaches a certain duration seems to force the player down a specific path: SB proliferation (if you're not at war, what else can you build?), Improvement "churning" (cancellation and rebuilding of projects to avoid escalating maintenance costs), or war (which gives you an excuse to favour miltary spending over social spending _and_ to build something other than star bases).

Possible solutions:
1) Adding a new conflict, or set of conflicts, to the late stages of the game (triggered by economy size?)
2) Re-scaling the costs of building and maintaining ships and improvements (economy size again?)
3) Lengthening the Tech tree (adding more techs and improvements before the Final Frontier) and stretching out the Ship techs (placing ships in the gaps currently between frigate and battleship, dreadnought and ranger, avatar and overlord).
4) [your suggestion here]

Star base maintenance makes sense and geometrically increasing costs sounds fine, but I don't think it's based on observable economic reality. Why does this matter in a game? It doesn't, but my experience with creating game rules has always been that a good rule is either based on realism or can easily fit into a realistic justification. That is, star bases now have a maintenance cost of 5bc in an effort to reduce SB proliferation, but putting a maintenance cost on star bases _also_ makes sense from a realistic point of view.

End transmission.

~SDC~

Some starbase proliferation is due to the "wasted resource" issue. If I want three planets creating frigates, I can either waste the resources on the six other planets or create constructors. Once the constructors are built, there is nothing to do with them but build starbases.

How about finding another use for constructors, such as when you send them to another system, they expedite the social projects in that system. I am sure you can think of something better, but the combination of wasted resources and single function constructors will often lead to starbase overconstruction.

I have a simple solution (though it might be tough to code)
Starbases on resources have no maintenance
The first starbase in a populated system (colonized PQ 15+) has no maintenance.
All other starbases have maintenance (5 BC?).

This makes you pay for all starbases in the middle of nowhere (such as trading bases, culture booster bases, range booster bases, and attack bases), but doesn't punish you for building a starbase to boost sector production or mine a resource.

If you do do the 1.7 thing, you should make the value different for different sized galaxies.

On a related note, I've seen reference to a cheese tactic where you send all of your freighters from a single star to a single star, and then trade starbase the entire line.
Ever heard of the laws of diminishing returns? You should not be able to set up a duplicate or multiple trade routes between 2 stars (they can, however - 1 of yours and 1 of theirs). In fact, I don't think you should be allowed to have any star as the destination for more than 1 trade route from your civilization.
But that's just me.

I like the idea of the Starbase Support Network. It fixes several problems at once. Setting the cost to an exponential is artificial and doesn't meet the needs of both tiny maps and gigantic maps. The Starbase Support Network scales well, and gives folks something else to build which can save them money thus allowing for a larger fleet or whatever.

I don't like the name 'Starbase Support Network' though. I think that a good name for the planetside facility where starbase maintenance & resupply shuttles dock should obviously be named the 'Stardock'.

I think I agree with what Vorlin has to say- I like the idea of a maximum cost of some sort. In a sense, we could attribute it to economies of scale. I also do like the idea of having a social improvement that can cover some of this- adds something that has definite value.
One idea Ive been thinking of for starbases is to fix a cost associated with each Starbase, and link it to distance to some extent- this would make the culture bomb cheese tactic (build multiple SB in other's terriotry) against the Altarians that much harder. One last thing - I think the idea of capturing SB's in some form would be a great thing to implement, though I have to admit Im not sure how exactly this would be done.

My second choice would be the Starbase Support Network idea (if my method was judged unworkable for whatever reason). But I just want to note a couple of issues with that, they aren't flaws so much as something that I think should be considered: varying planet abundance settings can produce a huge variation in settled planets per sector. It's not unusual in an abundant galaxy to have 2-5 systems per sector, and often one or more of those will have multiple settled planets. This might lead to far more 'free' starbases than is desired, and might lead people to choose abundant to get those free bases. This method would effectively make abundant galaxies of any given size far more productive than ones with fewer planets, because your starbase/sector ratio would potentially be quite a bit higher.

And if you don't want that many bases (I never multi-base a sector unless I'm playing some variant of my normal GalCiv game) it means you have to build that Support structure in micromanage style (i.e. select one particular planet in a given sector to build the structure on, since using the governor would result in massive over-building of the Support building). Then if later you want another you'll have to go back and pick another planet. This isn't critical (even on a gigantic galaxy you rarely control so many sectors as to make this prohibitive, at least not till nearer the end game), but it's always good to avoid any micro IMO since games like this tend to suffer from it anyway.

I like the idea of certain techs lowering maintenance for my idea or for the 1.7 idea. For instance, Large Scale Building could lower it by -1 BC. But not in the case of the Support idea, as it is already offering free support for bases I don't see the need to also make additional bases cheaper as well.

One advantage of my idea (and the 1.7 idea) is that both are easy to adjust for any given patch, if it is found they are too inhibiting (or not inhibiting enough). The Support method doesn't seem to adjustable from what I can see, it's pretty much cut-and-dried, if it was found that it allowed too many bases under some circumstances (like Abundant) then it would be hard to alter coherently to change the amount allowed.

The 1.7 method, although it looks like it would probably work quite well, is possibly just a *teeny* bit counter-intuitive

I think we need to be clear about what sort of behaviour is being discouraged here. Mass-conversion via culturebase spamming wouldn't be very different, just more time-consuming... you just bomb the target cluster, wait for conversion, dismantle all (but 1?) base and move on. Do we want to punish those who build many small bases (i.e. the AI , or a few large ones? I guess all that would be factored into the SB cost formula.

Perhaps a variation on the SSN theme would be starbases costing... err... whatever (5bc + 1bc per sector from the nearest planet? 1bc per module up to N?) and starbase support buildings having free maintenance and also chopping Xbc off the empire's total SB maintenance bill. Techs would increase their reduction by 1bc per SSN building. *shrug*

So long as we all make a point of whining at Brad until we get what we want


~SDC~

I like what Keith suggested, but with the following modification

Why not also have starbases cost more as they are further away from the nearest owned planet (as they would be a bit more difficult to keep "supplied" as it were)

The 1.7 method seems easy and good. It does what it is supposed to do. Reduce the ludricous amount of starbases that human players seem to build.

In order to make this method work the AI must understand that it should upgrade it's bases and not create lots of tiny ones. Otherwise we do need a module maintenance cost.

The starbase support network seems like a sound idea too, but what would the upkeep of the network be? And what would the cost be?

I think the first idea is better.

I vote for 'starbase support network'.

Please ensure that the tech required for this is NOT on the standard military or research routes so that people have to make a definite decision to research towards this and not just gain it as they research military techs or go for a tech victory.

Another interesting idea would be to not allow ANY starbases without the required planetary support. Therefore you have to build a planetary support structure before you can build starbases. The maintenance would be associated with the support structure NOT the starbase.

starbase control building - allows 1 starbase per building
enhanced starbase control - allows an extra starbase per building

This would really slow dopwn the initial resource grab section of the game and reduce the proliferation of starbases.

Paul.

~SDC~