Starbases

General Info

A starbase, or POS, is a series of anchorable semi-permanent structures that can be placed in orbit of a moon. Starbases are meant to give players a way to setup a staging point, or even a kind of "mini-space station" in more remote or strategically important areas. Starbases offer players the ability to setup staging points, storage facilities, construction operations, remote refining capabilities etc. in areas where access to a space station is not available. Starbase structures come in a wide variety, for various purposes. The different categories that these structures come in are:

• Assembly arrays
• Control Towers
• Corporate Hangar Arrays
• Cynosural Generator / Jammer Arrays
• Electronic Warfare Batteries
• Energy Neutralizing Arrays
• Jump Bridges
• Missile Batteries
• Mobile Laboratories
• Moon Harvesting Arrays
• Reactor Arrays
• Refining Arrays
• Shield hardening Arrays
• Ship Maintenance Arrays
• Silos
• System Scanning Arrays
• Turret Batteries

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 towers supply 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:
25% bonus to Hybrid Sentry Damage
100% bonus to Silo Cargo Capacity

Pirate faction control towers have bonuses to hit points, anchoring and onlining times and fuel consumption.

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.

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 in close proximity of the control tower itself.

When controlling a starbase battery the player loses control of his or her own ship.

There are 3 basic varieties of turret batteries:

• Hybrid
• Laser
• Projectile

Within each type there are 2 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 3 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.

Large battery

Uses Xtra Large sized ammunition

Medium battery

Uses Large sized ammunition

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.

Unlike turret batteries however, missile launcher batteries use the same size/class of ammunition as their ship-based counterparts.

Currently there are 3 types of missile launcher batteries available.

Ship Maintenance Arrays

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

These arrays allow storage, fitting, and onlining of modules and drones at a starbase. This allows pilots to refit and store their ships without the need of a space station. This adds the ability to quickly adapt to a changing battlefield, or allow refitting at remote locations where a station is not available.

Pilots must be within 2,500 meters in order to use these arrays, and there may not be any other ships or pilots within range of the array.

Corporate Hangar Arrays

Possibly the most widely used non-offensive structure in starbases; the Corporate Hangar Array allows storage of equipment, goods, modules, and other items at the starbase.

These Hangars have a capacity of 1,400,000 m² to allow players to store whatever they need at remote locations where access to a starbase is not available, or not practical.

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 3 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. Players 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. To online a cynosural generator array requires the owning alliance to have a sovereignty level of at least 2 in the designated solar system.

The Cynosural 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. To online a cynosural system jammer requires the owning alliance to have a sovereignty level of at least 3 in the designated solar system. Onlining the cynosural jammer will also consume a certain quantity of fuel.

For both Cynosural Generator Arrays and Cynosural System Jammers there is a limit of one online array per corporation per solar system. A corporation can online one of each in a given solar system, but not two of the same kind.

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 Bridge array. Activating a jump is handled in the same way as with a Titan; 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 attribute on the array (Maximum jump range).

Jump Bridge arrays can only be onlined in systems with Sovereignty level 3 or higher, and need to be anchored 15km outside the force field to prevent bumping on jump-in. Only two can be anchored per alliance per system.

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.

Assembly Arrays

Assembly arrays can be added to a starbase to provide manufacturing capacities 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

Advanced Medium Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 2 Cruisers and Battlecruisers

Advances Small Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 2 frigates and destroyers

Capital ship assembly array

Can produce Dreadnoughts, Freighters, Carriers, Motherships, and Titans

Large Ship assembly array

Can produce Tech 1 Battleships

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 (can NOT produce fighters!)

Efficient Equipment assembly array

Can produce ship modules, builds in 80% 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, with a smaller number of slots, and they can be destroyed.

These can however allow players to move research to a remote location where it may be more useful to their needs. All types of research and even invention can be carried out at these structures. Drug labs are used in booster manufacturing.

Moon Harvesting Arrays

Moon harvesters are structures that will extract resources from the moon which the starbase is anchored at.

Each moon may have some resources that it contains, you can see what resources it has by using probes on the moon before anchoring the starbase, or by checking the production tab on the starbase control tower's management window itself (discussed later).

Reactor Arrays

Reactors are structures that convert raw materials into the components for Tech 2 production and Booster Manufacturing.

Currently there are 2 types of reactors (Standard and Biochemical) and 2 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 2 construction in the form on simple or complex reactions. The standard variant can be sued to produce either simple or complex reactions. The medium variant can only be used to produce simple reactions.

Refining Arrays

Refining arrays are structures that allow reprocessing of ore and ice into minerals and ice products.

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 exactly 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.

Silos and coupling arrays can accept moon materials and 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.

System Scanning Arrays

It works as a combined scan probe and probe launcher, scans a given area and gives the player who activated the scan details on presence of found objects. It is capable of scanning only for player ships and not other objects or entities. It has a much bigger range and scan strength than any scanner probe. To use a System Scanner Array the player needs to assume control of the structure. Only one scan can be active at one time.

The structure requires Sovereignty level 2 to online. You can only have one anchored per solar system per alliance.

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 role Starbase Defense Operator 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, energy neutralizing batteries and system scanner arrays. Except for the system scanner arrays they all need to be anchored outside the force field.

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. The exact amount of setup and management 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.

Below are the different tabs and their functions for control towers.

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 with the bigger towers, 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/information:

Defense Settings

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

You will find the following options:

Sovereignty Claim

This is the simplest part of the management interface. A single check box determines whether the control tower is contributing towards the sovereignty claim in the system that it is anchored. Note: You MUST be a member of an alliance for this to work.

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 mothership building.

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.