Starbase/Sector question?

[Ragnar_84]

I'm at work so I don't have the benefit of having the game in front of me. I have a, hopefully simple question. I been reading about starbase strategy and I'm curious about the effect of their area of influence. In several threads there is a reference to only influencing the sector of its location. I have the grid view on my main map. Is each grid square represent a sector or how many grid squares or how big an area does a sector encompass? Also, if the starbases only influence one grid do you or can you build one on top of a planet? Also is it a good strategy to build them in empty space (say along a trade route) and uprade without the benefit of a resource? Thanks in advance for any help!

[Felch]

A sector is one grid square and starbases only affect the grid square they are in at that time. However, cultural influence bonuses do spill over.

Building them in empty space works well if you have a very heavily used path for trade routes.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: Starbase/Sector question?

Originally posted by Ragnar_84
In several threads there is a reference to only influencing the sector of its location. I have the grid view on my main map. Is each grid square represent a sector or how many grid squares or how big an area does a sector encompass? Also, if the starbases only influence one grid do you or can you build one on top of a planet?

It sounds like you might be confusing the grid squares. The thinner bordered squares are each one parsec across - this is the space that a single planet, space station, etc. fits in, and is the basic movement unit for a ship. A 12x12 array of these grids has a heavier border, and is a sector. The sector coordinates are shown on the upper right of the main map - something like Sector 7,3.

Starbase benefits affect the sector the Starbase is located in, although culture benefits spill over somewhat. That's why if you check the influence level, you can have an empty sector with some influence from multiple races, even though nobody has that sector.

There are several things you can do with starbases in empty sectors:

By themselves, they extend the operating range of all your ships.

You can make military addons to increase the speed of your ships and decrease the speed of enemy ships. Build a line of these in several sectors, and you can speed up transit across the galaxy, to support invasions with fresh forces.

You can make military addons to speed up repair, increase attack and increase defend values, and use these as forward support bases when your warships go against an enemy.

You can build them along trade routes and add econ modules to get additional trade benefits.


Also is it a good strategy to build them in empty space (say along a trade route) and uprade without the benefit of a resource? Thanks in advance for any help! [/QUOTE]

[Ragnar_84]

Thanks guys your help clarified a lot!

[Ellestar]

Official encyclopedia - Influence

http://www.galciv.com/encyclopedia.asp?action=showpage&page=http://www.galciv.com/influence.html

Official encyclopedia

http://www.galciv.com/encyclopedia.asp

Also is it a good strategy to build them in empty space (say along a trade route) and uprade without the benefit of a resource? Thanks in advance for any help!

1 Sector with speed increasing starbases - 'ship catapult'. You can build, say, 260 speed increasing modules on 130 starbases - good enough to reach any destination on gigantic galaxy. Don't forget, that a fleet of ships don't recieve speed bonus, just press 'space' for a fleet and then select this fleet and split them.

Trade routes - less length of a trade route - better profit if you build a lot of trade starbases (length 10 sectors - 1 base has 1/10 of maximum efficiency because it gives bonus only 1/10 of the time, length 2 sectors - 1/2 efficiency). Also, it's more efficient then you have more freighters. So, i think that more efficient is to cancel all old trade routes with far planets, and make new trade routes with near minor civ before starting building trade starbases. Also, it's better to trade with minor civ at this time because your trade parthner recieves same money as you, so if you are gaining 10.000 a turn from trade, it's bad to give same money to any of the major empires, if you are not in alliance with them.

Production - more planets in this sector - more efficient production starbases - it gives bonus to several planets (N planets in the sector - *N efficiency). But this rule only good if you build ships. If you build buildings, then it's not working because of the 'wasted resouces issue' - your good sector builds all buildings faster, and then just 'eating' money (increased with production bonuses) while your other planets still building all these buildings. (May not be the case if you are building Ship-increasing buildings in you best sectors, but it's bonus bugged now, not working after loading, so that may be good later).

[Pyrkaige]

Keep in mind that with the latest patches, each starbase costs 5bc a turn. So some of the sillier strategies such as the 'ship catapult' will soak up a lot of cash that is generally spent elsewhere.

It is almost always useful to have a 1-3 starbases in your main sectors that have the highest planets producing ships. And even if they aren't building ships, you want to have a few planets with high production to crank out trade goods, as well. Ideally, it will be the same planets; high production so they can crank out your highest end starships, as well as trade goods and galactic wonders.

As far as the trading issue goes, you will rarely make more money by creating very short routes with starbase trade boosters than long routes. Since you have to pay for each starbase, that eats up a lot of the bonus. The bigger issue in most games is that you want to use the trade routes to make certain races like you, as well as making money off of them. Especially with the latest patch, the AI looks at whether and how much you're trading with them when deciding whether to declare war; having trade routes also raises your relations with the trading race, over the long-haul.

So, trade routes can be utilized as much more than just a necessary way to make money; if you use them correctly, they also make other major races dependant on you, and thereby more likely to assist you in wars.

[Jamski]

OK, if I have two SB's in a sector, ech of which gives +10% production, do I get +20% production? If so, would it be wise to have 20 SB's for +200% production? How about the trade multipliers? What happens if I have two of these in a sector? I notice that culture seems to stack. Try putting 3 culture palaces in one sector - hello and welcome to the Human Imperium

-Jam

[LDiCesare]

Bonuses add up. There are caps on production based on PQ, however, so additional starbases beyond some point don't pay as much as the first ones. Ship speed bonuses are used to catapult ships for instance, and production and trade bonuses are certainly common.

[Ellestar]

Trade. 5 BC/turn... It's LOL. If 1 ship brings 80 bc*6 (number of ships) / (1/2 percent of time starbase gives it's bonus)*0,5 (trade bonus of starbase)=120 bc - 5bc upkeep = 115 bc/turn for a cost of 800 bc for constructors.

Starbase bonuses to production&trade stack. So, 2 production starbases +40% gives +80%. If you have bonus 25% from building on a planet, then it will be 80+25=105%

Starbase bonuses to culture multiply.

More on that http://www.galciv.com/encyclopedia.a...cs/undocs.html (production caps, tax caps, research)

IMHO better to do at least Phase Factory 1,2,3 - 5%+10%+25% = 40% for 4 modules (1 for starbase) = 10%/module, 40%/starbase
But only 13% is free production, 5bc maintenance/13% = 38.5 base military+social production in sector gives zero profit (also don't forget, all is rounding down in this game, maybe except taxes from population)

Trade seems to be more efficient now, if you can's set spending to 100% in mid-lategame.