Help a N00b with Space Bases

[Loser]

Quick question tesco: why put a Satellite- or Mine-launcher on a base orbiting a planet? Planets can launch a near-infinite number of Satellites or Mines every turn. I'm just thinking that I'm missing something in your plan.

Repair Bases are Grreat! Any time you're doing the retroseries thing you want a few of these around. They are quick to build, can be mothballed when not necessary, and are fairly cheap to unmothball.

Throwing population into a Cold Storage base is only something you'd only want to do after you've confessed that you are a micro-manager. That said it's usually a may to recover from a mistake, mistakes like "why did I leave that non-breather population there" or "why have I let population get all the way to the max on this world" or even "why, oh why, did I forget I was at war with half the people on this world". I use them.

Remember to never mothball your Last Ship Yard Base at a remote location.

When I first started playing I shunned the Ship Yard component because it was so much slower than the Facility. But once you have five or six of those babies going at once you see their value. Then you get twenty-three of them going, cracking out hollow, basic hulls and retroseries those into a war fleet with your seventeen Repair Bases.

When using Ship Yard bases it's a good idea to name them after the planet they orbit, that way you can tell where they are when you open the Construction Queues window (F7), and sort by name. I name mine something like "Errul II Alpha Ship Yard" or sometimes just "Errul II A" depending on how many moons Errul II has.

[Loser]

Originally posted by Mephisto:
you can use emergency build with your base

Quick note, in case you are not going to scrap the base right after it's done with it's Emergency Build: a mothballed base will not use up 'Slow turns'. That is, a base with 10 Slow turns remaining after a long stint of Emergency Building, will still have 10 Slow turns left when you unmothball it.

[Cyclop]

Lets not forget that a Starbase or any base with mining bots can help pad your resource influx each turn. I usually create a Base Ship Yard that then creates resource bases that usually have an output between 5K-30k+ a turn for specific resources. It takes more than 10-15 turns to build a good asteroid mining farm but once that supplemental income starts coming in, I found it to make a HUGE difference that has pushed me over the edge. AND none of the resources gained by mining given to any of trade treaty.

[tesco samoa]

Some people will deply the base build yard on a 1500 kt base with the mine layers and sat launcher on it and build the 100 mines and sats for the warp point.

Loser it is a warp point deployment.

[Alneyan]

I believe he referred to that part:

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
bases are great for building ships and units as well.

a 500 kt base can hold 1 space yard, command and then there is 50kt left over for a missle or a sat launcher or mine layer and a cargo.

I would believe such bases are over planets, except if you are willing to put them in danger over warp points. And in the early game, you cannot put a Space Yard on a ship, until you have Cruiser technology.

[ September 29, 2003, 18:32: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[Fyron]

When using Ship Yard bases it's a good idea to name them after the planet they orbit, that way you can tell where they are when you open the Construction Queues window (F7), and sort by name. I name mine something like "Errul II Alpha Ship Yard" or sometimes just "Errul II A" depending on how many moons Errul II has.

I agree, though I suggest that in a PBW game you try not to use such obvious names. Best to fool the enemy for as long as you can.

[mac5732]

As mentioned, bases are good for a number of reasons. As to what weapons etc to use, it would depend on where they are deployed. Example, if you use them for a wormhole defense then some good powerful short range weapons with some longer ones mixed in, torpedos are good for the quick hit. Over a planet, they you might want to consider missles and longer ranged weapons. Use these in conjunction with Sats (pds etc) and they can cause some heavy losses especially on wormholes.

In addition, as you expand your empire, you will find that you outrace your space yard production and it takes longer to get from way back to the front. Build space yard bases over foreward planets or a system behind and you keep you builds coming faster, in this case you mothball your backyard ones until/unless they are needed. I usually take 1-3 planets per system and build 3-5 spaceyard bases over them. This gives me the capacity to build lots of ships and get them to the front quicker.

They give you more building power/production then if you only use planet bound ship yards.

Weapon mix again depends on what you want to accomplish and the type of racial trait/s you've taken. best way is to experiment until you find what you like. Remember tho, each game is different and therefore you may have to change your base makeup each game again depending on what trait/s you took and who your are fighting in the game.... enjoy

just me 2 cents worth
just some ideas Mac