Starbase

Contents 1 Why Have a Starbase 2 Location, Location, Location 3 Anchoring 4 Fuel 5 Components of a Starbase 5.1 Control Towers 5.2 Turret Batteries 5.3 Missile Batteries 5.4 Ship Maintenance Arrays 5.5 Corporate Hangar Arrays 5.6 Electronic Warfare Batteries 5.7 Energy Neutralizing Batteries 5.8 Cynosural Arrays 5.9 Jump Bridges 5.10 Shield Hardening Arrays 5.11 Assembly Arrays 5.12 Mobile Laboratories 5.13 Moon Harvesting Arrays 5.14 Reactor Arrays 5.15 Refining Arrays 5.16 Silos 6 Structure Control 7 Starbase Management 7.1 Force Field Settings 7.2 Defence Settings 7.3 Structures 7.3.1 Structure Information 7.3.2 Access 7.3.3 Control 7.3.4 Control Towers 7.3.5 Jump Bridges 7.4 Processes 7.4.1 Fuel 7.4.2 Production Information & Settings 8 More Information

A starbase, or POS (player-owned starbase), is a series of anchorable semi-permanent structures that can be placed in orbit around a moon. They can be anchored in any system with a security rating of 0.7 or lower. This is the security rating that is visible on the map, or in the top left corner of the screen when in space.

Why Have a Starbase

Starbases give corporations a way to set up a staging point, or even a kind of "mini-space station" in remote or strategically important areas. A starbase is always anchored on behalf of a player-run corporation by an individual member of that corporation.

The first thing a corporation should do when considering putting up a starbase is to figure out what need that starbase will fill. Starbases can do many things. Some of the most common functions include the ability to provide staging points for fleet actions large or small, provide storage facilities where no other is available, run all manner of construction and research operations, and provide refining capabilities in areas where access to a space station is not available. Starbases are also often used in high security space to provide additional capacity for blueprint research and copying.

If you aren't familiar with all the options starbase structures can offer, take a while to look at the market tool, under starbase & sovereignty structures, then starbase structures. Make sure to uncheck “Show Only Available” to get a full listing of all the items.

Location, Location, Location

Once you have an idea of what purpose the starbase will serve, the next step is to find a location. Usually the function of the starbase will help determine this. For example, research laboratories mainly go in high sec both for ease of access and to help protect the assets the starbase laboratories are working on.

A starbase can only be anchored to a moon and only one starbase may be anchored to any moon at a time. If the intended purpose of the starbase is to mine minerals from the moon it is anchored to, then first probe the moon to ensure it will provide the minerals you require.

When anchoring in any system that is not in 0.0, your corporation will need to have the standing equal to that security rating towards the faction holding the system in order to anchor the starbase. For example, to anchor in a .5 in Amarr space your corporation will need to have a 5.0 standing towards the Amarr. To anchor in a .7 system your corporation will need to have a 7.0 standing. Details regarding the standings mechanics can be found here.

Standings ARE NOT required to anchor a POS in low or null sec (as of Incursion).

Anchoring

Once you have decided on your location, here is how you get your tower in place. Obviously you will need something that can carry the tower to get it to the moon. The larger Industrial ships easily do the job, and smaller ones may be used if you have cargo expansions on them. You can not use a freighter to move the tower in place (as you can not jettison cargo from a freighter) but once anchored and online, freighters are very useful in moving in the rest of the equipment. You only need the Anchoring skill at level one for the control tower, however some equipment needs up to level three.

You will also need 1 starbase charter in the cargo hold with the tower if you are anchoring in empire space, the charter will not be consumed. You may find that having exactly the amount of standing required won't allow you to drop in high security space, so always grind an extra .01 of factional standing over what you need before assuming your set to anchor a tower. In example, when 5.0 standings are required to drop a tower in 0.5 security systems, grind factional standings to 5.01 instead.

Setup and Takedown Timers

The previous timers for anchoring, onlining, offlining and unanchoring structures are suboptimal from a player-experience perspective, so CCP optimized them. Here are the changes:

• Jump Bridges now take 30 seconds to anchor (but are otherwise unchanged).
• Cynosural Generators now take 10 seconds to anchor and unanchor (but are otherwise unchanged).
• Cyno Jammers are unchanged.
• CSAAs and CSMAs now take 30 seconds to anchor, 3 seconds to online/offline and 10 minutes to unanchor.
• Turrets, launchers, EW batteries and hardeners now take 5 seconds to anchor/unanchor and 120 seconds to online/offline.
• Every other structure not already mentioned in this list now takes 5 seconds to anchor/unanchor and 3 seconds to online/offline.

Fuel

Starbases use Fuel Blocks [1] as of the Crucible expansion, instead of multiple fuel types like they did previously. The Fuel Blocks themselves require multiple types of resources to be manufactured though. This makes keeping your Starbase fueled much easier than previously. (Note: This does not affect charters, they are still required for High-Sec Starbases).

The four racial Fuel Blocks will be built in batches of forty in all stations, plus starbase ammo assembly arrays (blueprints coming to a Thukker Mix station near you; build time approximately ten minutes). Each batch of forty will need the following components:

• 8x Coolant
• 4x Enriched Uranium
• 400x Isotopes (Nitrogen, Helium, Oxygen, or Hydrogen)
• 4x Mechanical Parts
• 20x Oxygen
• 1x Robotics
• 150x Heavy Water
• 150x Liquid Ozone

Towers will use 10 block/hour for small, 20 blocks/hour for medium and 40 blocks/hour for large. The CPU and Power load will no longer have any impact on your fuel needs - all towers now need the same amount of fuel, regardless of configuration.

Fuel Blocks will be 5m3 each. To make fuel bay sizes line up more nicely, we've boosted the bays on normal towers to 35/70/140k, so you get a nice round 700 cycles in each, which works out at a hair over 29 days. (Does not affect strontium bays!)

Trade goods (made with Planetary Interaction)

• Enriched Uranium
• Oxygen
• Mechanical Parts
• Coolant
• Robotics

POS Fuel Block materials made from ice

Isotopes (used to power your Control Tower):

• Nitrogen Isotopes (used by Caldari towers only)
• Helium Isotopes (used by Amarr towers only)
• Oxygen Isotopes (used by Gallente towers only)
• Hydrogen Isotopes (used by Minmatar towers only)

Other materials from ice:

• Liquid Ozone
• Heavy Water
• Strontium Clathrates ('Reinforced Mode' only)

Finally, if you want to set up your POS in highsec you need the correct Starbase Charter.

When CCP first publicly introduced the new fuel block approach, it was based around a 1/2/4 blocks per hour consumption rate. This, however, made it impossible to give faction towers a fuel consumption bonus any more as tower could not consume 2/3 of a block with such a bonus applied. This no doubt made it difficult to give a reduction in consumption rate to sov-holders as well, but it was unclear if CCP intended to remove this bonus or not as no mention was made of it in early posts about the fuel block approach.

Allegedly, in the development of the new fuel-block approach, the devs wisely talked to some large-scale starbase operators about the plan and its implementation. They learned from this group that the main bonus of faction towers, for large-scale POS operators, at least, is actually that they last longer between fuel cycles. To try and compensate for the increased running costs, devs initially took the above bay size increases and added +25% bay size on top of that for the "tier 1" faction towers, and +50% bay size for the "tier 2" faction towers.

While many smaller-scale POS fuelers saw convenience in this approach, they also felt that without a fuel consumption bonus and its cost savings, the high cost for faction towers would never be recouped. After several long threads regarding the missing fuel consumption bonus for faction towers and for sov-holders, CCP reversed course and altered their originally plans to what we have now on Tranquility. Blocks were reduced in size 10-fold and increased in rate per hour 10 fold - becoming 5m3 per block instead of 50m3, and increasing the rate of consumption to 10/20/40 for small/medium/large, instead of the previously planned 1/2/4. The new math allowed for simple reductions in fuel consumption per hour. Sov-holders now receive their old 25% fuel bonus, and faction POS receive a 10% and 20% reduction for tier1 and tier2 faction towers.

The whole episode was a clear case of CCP wisely consulting with parts of their player base prior to implemention of a new system, and then further adjusting those plans based on the feedback of their established player base.

Components of a Starbase

Now that you know the why and where for your starbase it is time to consider the what: which type of starbase and what components will go with it. Once you know all the pieces it is just a matter of getting it out to the location, anchoring it, fueling it, and getting it online.

Control Towers

Control towers are the core structure of any starbase; each starbase requires one control tower which all other structures are then connected to. The control tower supplies powergrid and CPU which all the other structures anchored at the starbase site will then use. The amount of CPU and Powergrid offered by the tower will determine which other structures can be anchored there and how many of them.

There are 3 different sizes of control towers, Small, Medium, and Large. There is a set of Control towers for each playable race in EVE, each pirate faction and each elite pirate faction, making a total of 42 different types.

Each control tower will offer a different set of bonuses to the shield resistances and other structures anchored at the same location.

Amarr

Racial Bonuses:

• 50% bonus to Energy Sentry Optimal Range
• 25% bonus to Energy Sentry Damage
• 50% bonus to Silo Cargo Capacity

Caldari

Racial Bonuses:

• 25% bonus to Missile Battery Rate of Fire
• 50% bonus to Missile Velocity
• -75% bonus to ECM Jammer Battery Target Cycling Speed

Gallente

Racial Bonuses:

• 25% bonus to Hybrid Sentry Damage
• 100% bonus to Silo Cargo Capacity

Minmatar

Racial Bonuses:

• 50% bonus to Projectile Sentry Optimal Range
• 50% bonus to Projectile Sentry Fall Off Range
• 25% bonus to Projectile Sentry RoF

Turret Batteries

Turrets are one of the most widely used offensive starbase modules available. These turrets behave in exactly the same way that the turrets on a starship would, except that they are not dependent upon a player for targeting or the command to fire. Turrets will acquire the same target that the control tower does, based on the defense settings put in by the owners of the control tower. Turret batteries cannot be anchored inside the force field. Part of their popularity is their lack of need for CPU, which means that they continue to remain active even if the POS they're anchored to is reinforced.

Weapon turrets can be manually controlled by players as well. To assume control of an offensive battery (weapon or EW), one needs to be a member of the corporation that owns the starbase, have the Starbase Defense Operator role, have the Starbase Defense Management skill to at least level 1 and be within 15000km of the control tower itself.

There are three basic varieties of turret batteries, and within each type there are two categories, just as there are with ship based turrets:

Hybrid

• Blaster
• Railgun

Laser

• Pulse laser
• Beam laser

Projectile

• Autocannon
• Artillery

These turret batteries are then further split into three sub-types for each category. Each sub-type will use a different size of ammunition; the ammunition used is the same as ammunition used in starships. Turret batteries use ammunition one size larger than their own size. A large battery uses extra large sized ammunition. A medium battery uses large sized ammunition. A small battery uses medium sized ammunition.

Missile Batteries

Just as with turret batteries missile batteries are stationary semi-permanent versions of their ship-based counterparts. However, unlike turret batteries, missile launcher batteries use the same size/class of ammunition as their ship-based counterparts.

Ship Maintenance Arrays

One of the most common non-offensive starbase structures in use today are ship maintenance arrays.

These arrays allow storage of ships and fitting and onlining of ship modules and drones at a starbase. This lets pilots refit and store their ships without the need of a space station. This is especially useful for pilots who need to quickly adapt to a changing battlefield.

Pilots must be within 2,500 meters in order to use these arrays.

Ship maintenance arrays can store any number of assembled vessels up to a total volume of 20 million m³. Storing repackaged ships in a ship maintenance array is not possible. To assemble a ship you need to store it in a corporate hangar that is anchored at the starbase.

Corporate Hangar Arrays

Possibly the most widely used non-offensive structure is the corporate hangar array. The same as in stations, corporate hanger arrays allow storage of equipment, goods, modules, and other items at the starbase.

These Hangars have a capacity of 1,400,000 m³ to allow players to store whatever they need at remote locations where access to a station is not available, or not practical, and secure containers are not big enough. These hangars are separated into the same division hangars as any other corporate hangar in a station and access to those division hangars is restricted in exactly the same way.

Electronic Warfare Batteries

Another of the offensive structures available for starbases, the Electronic warfare batteries allow more options for the defense of the starbase.

There are three basic types of batteries available:

• ECM (Electronic Counter Measures)
• Warp Disruption
• Stasis Webification

These batteries are essentially just slightly more potent versions of their ship-bases cousins. Each battery having roughly enough potency to be effective against a single battleship, or smaller, sized target.

Energy Neutralizing Batteries

These are starbase counterparts of the energy neutralizing modules used on ships. They come in only one size and they are designed to drain the capacitors of enemy ships. Pilots can assume control of these batteries in order to direct their effect to certain targets.

Cynosural Arrays

The Cynosural Generator Array creates a cynosural field at the array’s position; the function is the same as that of a Cynosural Field Generator I module. It can be used by capital ships to move between systems where such generators are online and ship-generated cynosural fields.

TheCynosural System Jammer disallows all Capital ships from jumping into the system, both by deactivating any ship-generated cynosural fields and by putting all Cynosural Generator Arrays in the system into an anchored state. It effectively prevents any Cynosural Fields from being activated within the same solar system.

For both Cynosural Generator Arrays and Cynosural System Jammers there is a (combined) limit of one online array per solar system. As soon as a Cynosural System Jammer goes online, the Cynosural Generator Array is offlined.

Jump Bridges

Jump Bridges are structures anchored at a starbase that enable players to jump between two starbases owned by the same corporation. Jump Bridge arrays are anchored at a starbase and are activated by linking them to another Jump Bridges array. Activating a jump is handled in the same way as with a Titan jumps other ships; it consumes fuel based on distance and mass of the ship that jumps through. The only exception is that the structure does not need to activate the feature, i.e. the jump option is always active as long as it is online and is connected to another array.

Jump Bridges can only be linked to a single other Jump Bridge at a time. The twinning jump bridge also needs to be in range of the initiating Jump Bridge, which is specified in Light Years by the "maximum jump range" attribute.

Jump Bridges need to be anchored 15km outside the force field to prevent bumping on jump-in. Only one can be anchored per alliance per system (subject to change).

Jump Bridges can only be anchored in a system with the Advanced Logistics Network strategic upgrade, available only when the strategic Development Index of the system reaches level 3 (details here).

Since the Incursion 1.5 patch, released on 2011/05/19, only ships without jump drives and Black Ops can use Jump Bridges: Dreadnoughts, Carriers, Supercarriers, Titans, Jump Freighters and Capital Industrial Ships cannot use the bridges anymore.

Shield Hardening Arrays

A purely defensive structure, the shield hardening array will increase the resistances of the shield of the tower which they are anchored at.

There is one array for each damage type and each array will give an additional 25% shield resistance value, in the same way that shield hardeners would on a starship. (25% of the non hardened value. e.g. base 0% resist would then become 25%, base 50% would then become 62.5%). Stacking penalties apply to shield hardening arrays in the same manner they do for ship modules of the same type.

In contrast to offensive starbase structures, shield hardeners are anchored within the forcefield of the control tower. This makes them immune to attack and they provide shield hardening as long as the force field is operational and the tower is not in reinforced mode.

Assembly Arrays

Assembly arrays can be added to a starbase to provide manufacturing capacity to the players at remote locations.

These assembly arrays will have various advantages or disadvantages when compared to their space-station based counterparts. These could include different production times, material requirements, number of assembly lines etc.

The types of assembly arrays available are as follows:

Ships

• Advanced Large Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 2 Battleships and Jump Freighters.

• Advanced Medium Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 2 Cruisers and Battlecruisers.

• Advanced Small Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 2 Frigates and Destroyers.

• Capital ship assembly array

Can produce Dreadnoughts, Freighters, Carriers, Supercarriers, and Titans. Requires a Strategic Index level of 1 or higher to anchor, as well as a Supercapital Construction Facilities strategic upgrade module installed in an Industrial Hub within the system.

• X-Large Ship assembly array

Can produce Dreadnoughts, Freighters, Carriers, Industrial Command, and Capital Industrial Ships. Cannot be anchored in high security systems.

• Large Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 1 Battleships, Freighters and Industrial Command Ships.

• Medium Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 1 Cruisers and Battlecruisers.

• Small Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 1 Fighters, Frigates, and Destroyers.

Equipment

• Ammunition assembly array

Can produce Tech 1 and 2 ammunition of all types.

• Component assembly array

Can produce components needed in the construction of capital ships.

• Drone assembly array

Can produce Tech 1 and 2 drones; it can NOT produce fighters: a Small Ship assembly array is required for fighters.

• Equipment assembly array

Can produce ship modules, builds in 75% of normal time.

• Rapid Equipment assembly array

Can produce ship modules, builds in 65% of normal time, but uses 20% more materials.

Mobile Laboratories

Mobile Laboratories function in exactly the same way as lab slots found in space stations, but have a smaller number of slots. Laboratories allow players to move research to a remote location where it may be more useful to their needs, or when public research slots are scarce to come by. All types of research and even invention can done with these structures.

Advanced mobile laboratories provide better blueprint copy facilities at the cost of fewer other research slots. Experimental laboratories are used for the reverse engineering of sleeper technoloty. Drug labs are used in booster manufacturing.

All mobile laboratories can be anchored in systems with a security rating of 0.7 or lower.

Moon Harvesting Arrays

Moon harvesters are structures that will extract resources from the moon where the starbase is anchored at. Each moon may have some resources that it contains, you can see what resources it has by first using probes on the moon before anchoring the starbase, or by checking the production tab on the starbase control tower's management window.

Moon harvesters can be anchored in a system with a security rating of 0.3 or lower. In wormhole systems moon mining is not possible at all.

Reactor Arrays

Reactors are structures that convert raw materials into the components for Tech II production and Booster Manufacturing. Currently there are two types of reactors, Standard and Biochemical, and two variants of each type, standard and medium.

Biochemical reactors are used in the production of materials required for booster manufacturing. The standard variant of this type can be used to create standard, improved, and strong booster materials. The medium variant can be used to produce Standard and improved booster materials.

Standard reactors are used in the production of materials required for Tech II construction in the form on simple or complex reactions. The standard variant can be used to produce either simple or complex reactions. The medium variant can only be used to produce simple reactions.

Reactor arrays can be anchored in a system with a security rating of 0.3 or lower.

Refining Arrays

Refining arrays are structures that allow reprocessing of ore and ice into minerals and ice products. They can also refine rogue drone loot but as with ore you can only process one type of ice/ore/drone loot per cycle. The various types will offer different speed and volume of reprocessing. It will take from 1 to 3 hours for the processes to complete depending on which one you use.

Silos

Silos and Coupling arrays are used to store materials used in reactors and for storage of moon materials obtained from a moon harvesting array. They can also store the products of simple and complex reactions.

Hazardous chemical silos, general storage, and biochemical silos are used to store the materials for and the products of biochemical reactions used in booster manufacturing.

Structure Control

Players can assume control of offensive starbase structures and use them on specific targets. In order to be able to control a starbase structure the player needs to meet the following prerequisites (assuming he or she is already a member of the corporation that owns the starbase):

• Have the Starbase Defense Operator corp-role.
• Have the skill Starbase Defense Management skill. Each level of the skill will allow control of one additional starbase structure, up to a maximum of 5.
• Be within 15Km of the control tower itself.

Structures that can be controlled by players include weapon batteries (both turret and missile), EW batteries, and energy neutralizing batteries. All batteries must be anchored outside the shield.

While the player controls one or more starbase structure he loses control over his own ship and cannot move or warp away. He has to relinquish control of all the structures before he can regain control over his ship and be able to move.

In order to assume control of one or more structures, the player can either select the structure(s) and use the right-click menu option “Assume control” or select the structure(s) from the management panel of the control tower, under Structures. To give up control of one or more controlled structure, select “Relinquish control” from the right-click menu.

Starbase Management

Each starbase will require a certain amount of setup and management, the exact amount of each will depend entirely upon what you want the starbase to do. The management of a starbase is always handled at the control tower. You can access the management options for the starbase by right clicking the control tower and selecting manage.

Force Field Settings

A startbase force field is only active if there has been a password set. What this means is that if you just deploy the control tower and set no password, there will be no force field to keep other players from entering your starbase and taking any ships or unanchored objects that you have left within the range of the force field, or even attacking the ships and structures.

Force field range will vary by the size of the tower, growing larger as the size of the tower grows, up to a 30km radius.

Once you have selected the Management option you will, by default, be at this tab.

Listed you will find the following options and information:

• Status: This will tell you if the force field is active or inactive.
• Password: This provides you with a box to enter in a password of your choosing (you will be required to confirm the password)

• Restriction Masks: This allows you to set the force field to automatically allow people from your corporation, alliance, both, or none to enter the force field, when active, whether or not they know the password.

Defence Settings

The defense setting tab will determine the criteria by which the tower will attack people nearby.

You will find the following options:

• Attack if standing is lower than:

If any pilot with a standing (applies only to the pilot's player corporation standings towards the POS's owner corporation) lower than the value you type into the box gets in range of the starbase then the tower will attack.*

• Attack if security status below:

If any pilot with a security status lower than the value you type into the box gets in range of the starbase then the tower will attack that player.

• Attack if our standing is dropping:

If any pilot with a standing (applies only to the pilot's player corporation standings towards the POS's owner corporation) that is decreasing while the player is in range of the starbase then the tower will attack.*

• Attack if other security status is dropping:

If any pilot commits an act that causes their security status to drop while they are near the starbase, it will attack them.

• Attack if aggression:

If any player makes an aggressive action while near the starbase (firing on someone, using ECM, attacking with drones etc.) including members of the corporation or alliance that anchored the starbase, the starbase will attack them.

• Attack if at war:

If any pilot, who is at war with your corporation or alliance, warps to the moon where the starbase is located, the tower will attack that player.

Structures

Structure Information The structures information tab will show you which structures are currently in space within range of the control tower. It will show you it's current state (unanchored, anchored, online, anchoring, onlining, unanchoring), how much CPU and powergrid the structure uses. It also allows you to change their state from this menu by clicking and pushing the appropriate button at the bottom of the screen or simply right clicking the structure and selecting the appropriate option.

Access The access tab allows you to set custom access settings for people in your corporation or alliance. This enables corporations to give the ability to add fuel, or maintain a single starbase to someone without giving them the ability to do the same for all starbases owned by your corporation. It also gives the option to limit access to certain structures based on roles. For example, you would like to give a Caretaker access to fueling the Control tower and emptying the silos but at the same time restrict all his access to the Capital Ship Assembly Array where you have a supercarrier building. At the bottom of this tab, you will also find options to grant the right to either specific roles or Corporation/Alliance members to anchor/unanchor/online/offline all structures of this Starbase, including its Control Tower.

Control In this tab are listed all starbase structures that can be controlled by players (if any are present in the range of the control tower). Through the buttons at the bottom of the screen or through the right-click menu one can select the appropriate actions to take – Assume or Relinquish Control. When one or more structures are being controlled by players this tab will list their names in the Control column.

Control Towers This tab lists all the control towers owned by your corporation throughout the universe and the distance to them in jumps. The solar system tabs can be expanded to allow view of all the control towers present in a solar system.

Jump Bridges The Jump Bridge arrays controlled by your corporation are listed in this tab, together with the distance to them in light years and the fuel consumption. Also the linked/unlinked status of the jump bridges is shown. It is not possible to change Jump Bridge connections from this tab, to do this you need to select the jump bridge array itself and then connect or disconnect it from another jump bridge.

Processes

Fuel The fuel information tab allows you to see what fuel types are required, how much is currently in the control tower's storage and how long that amount will last in terms of days and hours. The first column will list the types of fuel, the second column the number of units used every cycle (hour) and the third column the total quantity of fuel of that type that is present in the control tower.

Production Information & Settings The production tab allows you to see what resources are available at the moon for moon harvesting. It will also list out each silo and reactor you have anchored at the starbase. Through this tab you can setup and alter the connection from reactors to silos, as well as online and offline reactors and silos and change the resource type of silos.

More Information

• Starbase Defense Management
• Ships inside starbase force fields
• Basic Moon Mining Guide
• Moon mining
• Starbase Configuration Roles
• Starbase Aggression
• Sovereignty guide