do you arm your mining stations / space stations?

[jadelith]

I like to build superfortresses out of my mining stations and space stations, but they do cost quite a bit to maintain. I always play with the strongest pirates possible with respawning, so I'm more or less constantly getting attacked since I don't like paying them (unrelated question: do you pay pirates off or not?). I don't really attack other nations so thats less of an issue.

How do you design your bases?

[Evan85]

That is a pretty interesting question. Note that I play prewarp with Icemania's AI improvement mod.

Since I installed that mod, I can't afford to pay pirates beyond the prewarp-phase. Not that the imperial economy can't handle that expense, but the unlawfuls can turn that income into a mass of ships. In case I forget to cancel even an 500 credits agreement for a while, the huge fleet they can build from it either cripples an opposing empire or they hurt mine badly. So I rather struggle with attacks than to ever pay up. The only exception is when another AI in the other end of the galaxy worries me. Quameno, Zenox, Boskara, Keskudon maybe Lipids can grow fast and/or aggressively - supplying a nearby raider faction can cut their advance. Though I keep this option as a last resort - it's easier to battle with empires than pirates that build bases in god-forsaken systems.

Arming mining bases is an even tougher question. Since building, retrofitting and maintaining them is payed by the private sector, it's a good way to put their reserves to use. But it has a serious danger: if their funds run out, civilian production stops. That means a shrinking number of freighters, what sooner or later results in resource shortages - thus even military ships can't be built. The only way to counter that is to cut taxes (a lot), so private income rises, and the newly built ships produce a -big- profit on the peaked resource prices. That mitigates the problem caused by the economic crysis, but I prefer to avoid this situation.

So what I do is to use a stripped down version of mining stations in colonised systems (or very near to them), mildly fortified versions at the rim of my empire, and heavily fortified ones at key resources outside my influence (at super-luxuries, and calson refueling ports). This way I can keep my taxes as high as planet happiness rating allows it while still leting the civilian sector grow.

Just two things to add:
-even the smallest mining stations of mine has 1-2 assault pods. A destroyed base can be easily rebuilt, but an unshielded podless base can be captured even by a single passing pirate, and it requires military units to be cleared.

-my constructors always build the smallest version of bases. Once it's finished, it can be retrofitted to a fortified design, but meanwhile the builder ship can leave where it has more use. It almost feels like an exploit, but one needs all the edge with the AI mod.

[Hikikomori]

Mining stations no, not really. But i also play usually with weak pirates, and if the annoy me i might reconsider.

Since the private sector has to pay for the maintenance it wouldn't be that much of a expense though.

I once drove my private sector into a grinding halt by designing freighters and mining ships like fortresses.
The moment i offered cheap designs they actually scraped their expensive ones and ordered the new ones like crazy.

So i am a bit reluctant about that. I also build way too many stations, so if i choose better where and where not to build i might upgrade them a little.

Spaceports are usually heavily armored and shielded, but possess relative little firepower. They also have only fighter bays, for the range, combined with tractors.
Defensive Bases are the other way around, they are relatively weak protected, but wield insane offensive capabilities.

[Kizucha]

I'm doing it like "evan85", i make station designs for a few jobs.

small/med/large heavy armed/not armed space ports
small/med/large no-lux-mineral/no-lux-gas/only-lux near/light-armed-border/med-armed-out of border mines
only the defensiv stations are limited to 2 desings, small and heavily-super-armed-1-hit-anything beasts.[;)]

And as an extra everyone has an deep space design what is only designed for an station that is not very well visited and have fuel for a long time.

It sometimes takes time to make all the designs but its one of the areas of the game i enjoy the most.[:D]

[NephilimNexus]

Are you kidding? My mining stations are tiny fortresses, especially once they get to size 1500+

Once I cross the 2000 threshold I'm usually packing over 7500 shield points and 40+ fighters on every mine. I've seen entire fleets get annihilated trying to take one down. It is a thing of beauty.

Heck, it's not like any of this comes out of the State budget. [;)]

While I used to do the assault pod thing, as it's kind of ironic to capture the very same pirate ship that was coming to raid your base, there is a flaw with this tactic, at least for me: Assault pods and fighters don't mix. The standard combat AI tells your ships to stop firing once you've got boarding parties on the target. The problem is that with fighters this means that instead of switching to a different target, they just hover over the same target until it finally gets captured. When facing a single opponent that's fine but when you've got 6+ enemy ships attacking your base that means that your fighters effectively shut down for the entire duration of your boarding attempt. Meanwhile, the other enemy ships continue pounding on your base with impunity because your fighters are goofing off. That is not good.

[johanwanderer]

I hate that assault logic. I used to have fleets torn to pieces while trying to capture a target.

[Chet Guiles]

Absolutely. I buff up mining stations and gas mining stations to where they can usually ward off pirate attacks. I let the space stations stand as-is without additional armament, but that's a good thought and I may buff them up as well, esp. small space stations.

Thanks for the thought.

[johanwanderer]

I actually design my small space station to be as cheap as possible, so I can build them quickly and kickstart the planet's commerce. I then immediately retrofit them to a better design. I find that less frustrating than waiting for a better designed station to be build just to see it get shot to pieces.

[Euler]

I go with starbases instead of space ports on my minor planets...small as possible just to get the medical and recreational buff. I just rebuild them when they get taken down by pirates.

I build my space ports to last. So they get a lot of weapons, but I typically only have one space port in play per 3-4 colonies (mainly as a resource and repair hub).

Mining stations, I go middle ground on these. A couple of weapons and shields to chase off the casual pirate ship. But not enough to survive a real assault. In that case its easier to wait until the pirates are gone, then rebuild.

[Flinkebeinchen]

Afaik you can control the auto boarding behaviour in the Empire Settings.

[NephilimNexus]

Really? I'll have to look into that, thanks!