The part of the game that I would like to see expanded upon is the mobile starbase. One that can not only build ships but act as a trade port, a refinery, and a central hub so you can create a true nomadic empire.
What this would allow the player and the AI to do is 1, roleplay, ie. a BSG type game running from the cylons etc. 2, It would create an almost "battleship" like environment in which you can keep moving your forces making the galaxy seem that much bigger and more dangerous.
In the traditional game if your playing on a large scale map you know that the enemies are around the outer ring so you can quickly speed rush the ones next to you. -You can't do that if everyone can pack up and move.
In the current game, everything is so stationary and predictable. All your seasoned players spam fleets and your noobs diversify but die nevertheless.
The thing a mobile empire does is it reestablishes fleet role importance. By having a completely mobile fleet/empire you can establish defense vessels like escortships and true support ships that exist only for the defense and maintenance of the mobile fleet and its core of civilian type ships.
I talked a little bit about this with ZombiesRus5, As I built an unofficial variant off of his SOTF fall of Kobol mod. I took his Colonials section of the mod and tried creating a completely nomadic version to simulate a weak yet versatile BSG race like the show portrays. I refitted all of the ships to no longer self repair, or retain antimatter. While the AI isn't currently equip to deal with this change, it creates for a more strategic PVP game.
Mod elements for each empire included:
- Frigates that actually work like support ships by repairing vessels and/or replenish Antimatter reserves. The experience for being destroyed is also higher to implement the need for protecting them.
-created unarmed defense frigates that deploy stationary batteries for several minutes at a time, to help protect the fleet while its stationary etc.
- scouts and corvettes are actually useful as escorts or scouts since they are cheap. unlike the other ships.
- the Titan remains in the flagship role but is obviously harder to get as a mobile empire.
- Capitalships also remain the same. Although 1 or 2 may be geared more for defense and support of the fleet rather than offense.
- Mobile rulership with the STTC ability for everyone! This research takes stationary players and allows a way for them to be mobile, To make it fair, their economies are halved; Forcing them to move one planet to the next gathering resources via STTC By destroying planets it allows for a vast empty galaxy; a bit more realistic, and perfect for a wandering empire.
-onboard labs per capitalship works the same as vanilla, allowing research of higher techs, but for everyone not just Vasari.
- *Mobile starbases* - the goal I had for the mobile starbase was to act as the hub for the nomadic empire; the commandship if you will. A large ship that doesn't necessarily have weapons but the tools to make them. ie the economy and the factories.
- I gave the starbase an ability to simulate mining or resource collecting ( thanks to the maelstrom mod for that; I like the idea of that ability. I added a constraint to stop the ship from moving while mining to make it fair)
- the Starbases' already have the tradeport ability so if you change the number of starbases allowed per gravity well, you can create inter-fleet traffic - which looks cool imo + generates income.
- The starbases also have the factory ability so ships can be built while on the move. - that's a cool feature - just have to find a way to make it capitalships aswell.
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While making a mobile empire does undermine certain elements of the game like culture and super-weapons the enjoyment and the thrill of the hunt & being hunted is worth it.
It is so much fun to do a PVP game with someone and to actually use a scout-ship as a scout before jumping the whole fleet into a questionable system. or actually have to debate over using a mining ability in a system since the ship is immobile for 3 minutes after use.
I personally feel that having a mobile empire adds so much more immersion and strategy to the game that its really a shame it wasn't put into place already.
There is no in game panic, that matches the fear of not knowing when or where an enemy is lurking.
So Overall the idea of a nomadic empire intrigues me and I want to create one that is flawless. Unfortunately here are the problems I have run into and what I would like to see fixed in DLC
- number of starbases that can jump at once to the same sector (unless a new class of unarmed ship that can do this can be made) currently only one starbase can jump into a sector and no other starbase can be present even upon jumping even if you throw in a modifier.
- Create a mining ability like the mobile tradeport so it looks like the refinery ships are collecting from space junks, asteroid-belts and other mineral deposits.
I think that's it actually... As long as i'm not forgetting anything 
everything else I think I can create on my own.
Thanks for your time.
