The main issue I had with the economy articles is the fact it seems to be based on a large sector with asteroid fields and plenty of space. Nothing wrong with that, but I’ve been looking primarily at pass sectors, and to me those tend to have a hard time staying at 30k (for the black market) and don’t have any asteroid fields nearby. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong sectors, but if the SB isn’t populated at 30K, you can’t have 16 building slots. Also if the ore isn’t nearby, your forced to import the stuff. That just raises the cost of building the scrap parts.

Also, those SB should have a more natural defense posture. If they rely on the MO’s defense before they build their HDAs, they won’t have but maybe a SDA if they are lucky, and could quite possibly be hit before they get any additional defenses up.

Most of them are two sectors away from a planet. Some are one, but those planets tend to be Class I. Thus they are still short of a good food supply.

I haven’t found a good solution to this ‘problem’. And to be honest I’m starting to question the purpose of those SBs. If they don’t have a good economy around them, they tend to fight to stay alive (or at least mine did).

At the same time, isn’t the front lines where you want your weapons? That way they are readily accessible for combat.

Anyways, enough rambling.

Thanks,
Camper

Rylar’s Response:
This post by Camper is exactly why you should never develop any system that is not connected to a Class M planet, within 3 sectors of Exotic Matter, and near a player starbase.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but chances are, no one in your entire alliance has a clue how to run a starbase. Even the oldest, most experienced alliances in Pardus run starbases poorly. We write a lot about economies and prices and how to build scrap economies. But, sadly, almost no one implements our advice. Instead of creating massive empires, pilots construct tiny economies and use force and charity to keep them running! Most system owners have no goals or just don’t really know what their goals are.

The goals of a starbase owner are:

1. Produce Credits
2. Build Ships
3. Build Weapons
4. Store Goods
5. Offer Repairs
6. Defend the Base

Producing Credits

Imperial starbases are by far the best at creating wealth. They produce the highest quality, most valuable goods that rely on the most advanced items to produce. If most of your bases are not owned by imperial pilots, find someone to go Imperial and run a base for you. A single Imperial starbase will support 11 battle weapons factories. By contrast, a 200,000 population class M planet supports only 4 advanced buildings.

Producing Ships

Base owners invest heavily in ships. However, an entire alliance of 90 players only needs a handful of ships per month. A large alliance with 6 or 7 starbases has no need for 21 shipyards. Building ships that never sell is a waste of credits and the shipyards waste valuable starbase buildings. Allowing starbase owners in your alliance to compete with each other breeds hostility, creates waste, and drives your prices down. So, select your best location and consolidate all ship production into one base. You can always keep 2-4 of each ship in stock, and your alliance and neighbors will never have to wait for a ship again.

Build Weapons

Keeping a store of weapons is important to rankers. Supporting your team is a key mission for a starbase commander. You should always have a healthy stock of missiles and keep 1 weapons factory producing missiles constantly. These weapons slow down the production of scrap, but you already have the weapons factories, so you might as well offer a full range of weapons.

Store Goods

A starbase should store Robots, Droids, Hand Weapons, Metal, Ore, Electronics and sometimes Exotic Matter. The only starbase that needs a warehouse is your main shipyard, and starbases near to exotic matter. Any base owner storing large amounts of crap is wasting prime buildings that should be converted to weapons factories.

Offer Repairs

If your base is near a good NPC like pirates, dragons, roid worms, or space crystals you should offer repairs. Otherwise, replace your repair bay with a weapons factory. The income from repairs is minuscule and the discount is only a tiny benefit to other players.

Defend the Base

Most managers rely on 4+ heavy defense artillery. These buildings are not only useless in 99% of cases, they cost you 25,000 credits per day in lost income. Ask your alliance when the last time a starbase was attacked. They will either not know, or have some vague story from many years ago. HDA do not protect your starbase. If someone hires squads and uses them to assault your base, Bomber squads tear through HDA like they aren’t even there. The only defense against attack is having defensive squads in place. But, at 100 HWP per day for a squad to exist, that can only be done if you’re online when the attack happens.

In short, you cannot defend your base and must rely on strong pass MOs to protect in. When your pass is breached, build 2-4 HDA and hire a squad to place over one. But, during the 12 months of peace between wars, those HDA are just costing you credits. The entire economy suffers. Shipyards will probably ignore this advice to prevent pirates from attacking, but if a pirate managers to hire squads and charge their AP next to your base, your puny HDA won’t stop them. They won’t even last 60 seconds.

How Many Weapons Factories is Enough?

Our shipyard runs 6 or 7 weapons factories. But, everyone else in the alliance is required to run at least ten. However, the ideal starbase will run 16 weapons factories. Yes, 16 weapons factories in a single starbase. TW has yet to manage this. Our best base is running only 13 factories, because we haven’t yet finished the construction of the required 22 L8 BWF. Each starbase should support between 10-12 battle weapons factories. In a large system with 3 starbases, that means you can support 30! If only you could find enough fuel tiles for them all…

The Union are technologically specialised in defensive and special ship equipment, the Federation in ship construction and ship drives whilst the Empire is technologically specialised in weaponry.

The Backbone of an Economy

Each faction can benefit in multiple ways through the use of their specialisation. One such benefit for the Empire is the humble 140MW Particle Laser.

It is not out of the question to expect a profit of 3,500,000 credits to 3,750,000 credits per week

The 140MW Particle Laser retails at Imperial planets for a solid 1,400,000 credits. It represents a very good choice in weapon – albeit limited to Empire pilots who have achieved the rank of Earl and above. However this weapon is particularly appealing to the Imperial starbase owner not because of the damage it deals, but the remarkably low cost of production.
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