Starbases
Starbases can be built at planets, and once built they will orbit that planet. Starbases are primarily used to build ships. Starbases can also repair damaged ships, recycle ships that are no longer useful and perform a range of other orders. Additionally, starbases greatly help in defending planets in battle.
Free tech natives
Some native races provide a base with free techlevels. Depending on the
race, a base which is built over a planet with these natives gets one techlevel
set to 10 for free. This applies to both shareware and registered players. To
receive this free techlevel the appropriate natives have to be present at the
time the base is built.
In case of the Cyborg: as long as there are still natives at the moment you give orders to build the base (building bases comes way before assimilating natives) you will receive the free techlevel. You will keep this techlevel even after the last native has been assimilated, both with shareware and registered versions. New natives appearing on a planet that already has a base will not give that base any free tech levels nor allow shareware players to upgrade any techlevel beyond the shareware limitation.
Starbase techlevels are reduced by the damage the base (and the planet) has suffered in combat. A planet/base that is 70% damaged will have all it's techlevels reduced to a maximum of level 3. Previous build-orders will be maintained (if the base was set to build an all tech 10 ship, it still will) but it is impossible to buy new parts unless the techlevels are upgraded again.
Starbases work on ships
Starbases can, when given the order, repair&recrew (fix) a ship or recycle a
ship. Only one ship per base per turn can be fixed or recycled, and only ships
belonging to the starbase's owner can be fixed or recycled
Repair & Recrew (fix)
By giving a starbase the command to repair a ship, any damage the ship has will
be fixed at no cost. Additionally, if the ship's crew is incomplete it will be
completed, also at no cost (no clans are taken from the planet). As this happens
before movement, it is possible to give a ship a waypoint and a heading, and
have it arrived at it's destination completely fixed. During the flight the
ship's warpspeed will not be limited by the damage.
The text in the Winplan helpfile is wrong; it only applies to the DOS version of VGA Planets:
"The Fix command allows you to repair damaged ships in orbit around this starbase's planet. The command also allows you to load torpedoes and fighters onto ships that are equipped with handle ether one. When you build torpedoes using the build torp command remember to build only the torpedo types that match the launcher types that you are using on your ships, otherwise the torpedoes will remain in storage."-In Winplan, the fix command DOES NOT load torpedoes onto ships. This is done by the 'load fighters/torps' command.
Recycle
By giving a starbase the command to recycle a ship, the base's personnel will
take the ship apart. The hull is converted back to minerals; engines, weapons,
torpedoes and fighters will be stored at the base. Other than with the
colonise ship command, the hull is 100% recycled into
minerals.
If there is no room to store the fighters that are onboard a carrier which is being recycled (a base can hold a maximum of 60 fighters) the extra fighters go to waste.
Starbase orders
Starbases can have one of six Primary Orders set. Five of these orders take
place after all ships have moved:
Force Surrender
"Force a surrender" is the sixth possible Primary Order for a starbase. A
starbase with this order set will attempt to force a surrender on all ships
belonging to other races that are orbiting the starbase. Contrary to the other
Primary Orders, this one is executed before ships move.
A ship that is forced to surrender at a starbase will have it's waypoint reset
and it's warp set to zero.
To surrender, a ship has to meet at least one of the following criteria:
Birdmen starships on a super spy mission are immune to the surrendering functions of starbases as long as they have at least one unit of fuel - if on Super Spy, they will likely match the planet's friendly code but will not surrender because of this. If the Birdmen ship switches it's mission to anything other than Super Spy it will surrender to a planets starbase if it has a matching friendly code and the starbase mission is set to force surrender.
A ship surrendering to a base will send a last message to it's (old) owner, while the new owner receives a similar message from his starbase:
(-s0055)<< SUBSPACE
MESSAGE >> The Bird Man
starship Rejoice |
Free fighters
Through the host configuration, it is possible to
give the races a number of free fighters per turn at each of their starbases. By
default, only the Evil Empire gets these 'free' fighters, they get five fighters
per turn. These free fighters are built with minerals from the planet (3
tritanium and 2 molybdenum per fighter, as with all fighters). These fighters do
not cost any money or supply-units. When you are given free fighters through the
hostconfig, you can not disable this unless you make sure one or both of the
required mineral are not present on the planet.
Dump parts
By setting a friendly code of "dmp" a starbase will
convert most of the parts in the starbases storage bins back into minerals and
dump them on the planets surface. Engines, beams and torpedoe tubes are
disassembled into separate minerals and dumped on the planet's surface. This
way, 100% of the minerals that were used to build the parts are converted back
to raw minerals - regardless of the host-configurable
colonisation rate. Torpedoes and fighters will not be
dumped. While the planet/base's friendly code is set to
"dmp" it can not unload cargo from ships belonging to other races using
the starbase mission "unload freighters".