My Suggestion

absolutely. it is really tedious moving hundreds of constructors around upgrading SB after SB...

Starbase micro-management is killing me...

Its the only part of the game that feels like work rather than a game, and in the end its 90% of what you do.

Sounds like a good idea!

Absolutely, this feature would make me stop cringing once I reach an endgame.

Maybe include a prioritization system to put starbase x higher on the upgrade list than starbase y.

Better yet, be able to click a box which designates starbase x as a culture base for instance. It will be upgraded as much as possible as new culture techs become available.

You mean starbase governors?

Anything to reduce constructor micro-management. I'm going to have to take a break from GalCiv. Having some symptons of RSI already from too many gigantic games.

In "real life" surely a star base would would only need constructors in order to get itself up and running. Any sensible starbase design would quickly call for internal production facilities so that constructors become unnecessary for that star base. It should simply take time for the star base to come up with new modules, assuming raw materials are available and can be extracted from stellar dust which should appear in the "real life" sector.

In fact, thinking out loud, the rate at which starbase modules would be built should depend on the availability of raw materials (planets and star systems) in the sector.

So perhaps a way forward would be to micromange the first few constructors for a starbase and then hand over to the star base commander to build up the starbase according to a schedule.

Of course, if there is no need to build loads of constructors what do you do with all that unwanted production capacity that the constructors soak up?

Aren't constructors supposed to represent the raw materials and labor for the modules? And how would you get minerals from stellar dust? Sounds too time consuming.

And if you don't want to build ships, shift spending away from military production.

I'll seconding the starbase auto-upgrade motion.

*seconding = second

I'll also second the edit button motion. :notsure:

Rally points ought to help a lot.

I'm not so sure about rally points, I mean its not like I've forgotten where my bases are. I like the idea about prioritizing bases, and the whole notion of bases building themselves (like Dave Richardson said) is interesting. But if the starbases built themselves up then, instead of constructors the game would probably need to compensate by making starbase building an expense, like military/domestic/research funding or at the very lease an expense like espionage or maintenence. One last suggestion, could scout ships (or any ship for that matter, though scout ships seem more apropriate) be set to "auto explore" the way survey ships can be sent to "auto survey"? If there is something like this already in the game could someone tell me where?

With rally points, though, you can set specific planets to build, launch and send constructors to a specific starbase. Then you only have to worry about what happens when you get there.

The rally point idea is a step in the right direction. Maybe then you could add a build queue to the starbases. So you don't have to keep picking the modules when you know you want a starbase to be an economic starbase, cultural base, etc. I think that alone would greatly cut down on micromanagement.

later

~SDC~

i.e. StarBase Govenors


~SDC~

Well, heck, we already have governors...maybe we could just add another tab to the governor screen. I only worry that making governors for the starbases would be doing too much for the player. I generally play for a cultural, technological, or alliance win and then I might switch to military later, but that means that at some point, I'm at peace with everyone and all I'm doing is building starbases.

Instead of governors, how about you set a priority for each starbase (economic, cultural, military, etc.)?
Then, on the tech tree, add an "automated constructor" that automatically upgrades the base to the specified priority, if possible. Combining rally points, starbase priorities, and automated constructors might work. Maybe the base constructor should have automation, not sure.

Routing constructors and selecting modules (if you know in advance which ones you want) is pretty menial. GalCiv is great in most areas of letting you make decisions, but making it easy to implement them.

CariElf, Since I gather starbases were a late addition, what was the endgame like before you added them? Was there even less to do?

You could solve the starbase glut/micromanagement by limiting starbases to one per race per sector and having resources appear randomly throughout the game. If you already have a base in a sector with a newly discovered resource, tough luck. UP could also vote to permit 2 or 3 per race per sector.

I think that it tended to be more mopping up with avatars and stuff before starbases. It's been awhile, so I don't really remember.

Having priorities would be even more hands-off than starbase governors because then it'd have to pick the best module for you. At least with governors you'd have to create the priority queue.