I have been borg basing it a bit on rwd4 lately, often against a remarkably lack of clue. (151 kills == someone has no clue) I have noticed both friendly and enemy play that reveals that people have not pondered enough what is going on. Here are a few tips for people to use when playing with a starbase in the game.

First, a few tips for the enemy:

• Don't ogg the enemy base without coordination
  The base is more powerful than you. You will die. And unless he is near to your home planet, he will be FULLY repaired before you get back to give him another kill. UNLESS you coordinate with at least two other people on your team, forget it.
• Avoid the enemy base, unless there is a reason not to.
  The way to kill bases is to lure them too far away from their home planet, then to ogg like crazy. The way to lure them forward is simply to avoid them... you are faster than they are. They cannot kill you unless you ask for it by going to them. And there is almost always something better for you to be doing than trying to ogg bases. Scout bomb. Take a planet that is just off the base's screen. Ogg enemies with kills that are not lurking near the base.

1. To help a weapon-temped starbase, dock on it! I often see a starbase survive the first og wave without taking much damage but weapon-temp, and then its escorts hover around out of fuel but afraid to dock to the starbase because there are oggers coming, perhaps even an enemy already in range. Don't be so afraid to dock! If you just hover there out of fuel, the first ogger in will do like 800 points of damage because nobody can kill him or det his torps. If you dock, you can get the fuel to kill the oggers, plus you can det torps for the base. You'll probably blow up causing 100 points of damage to the base, but that's small potatoes. Warning: there are drawbacks to this plan, the main one being that your starbase will probably foolishly pressor you away and then yell at you.

When you have 4 armies, don't go to try to destroy the agri in their space. It's usually better to destroy a non-agri planet. Why? Because if you drop an agri to zero, they have only to put 1 army on it for it to pop back to 4 very quickly. So they undo your hard work very easily, plus they get the bonus that then your team has to touch that planet. Also, there's a good chance you'll get only some of your armies down before dying, or else the planet might pop while you beam. You get no partial credit for reducing agris, whereas reducing non-agris is very valuable. Of course if it's not going to be so easy for them to drop the 1 army, or if it's the most open planet, then go for it. I just don't like to see my team put all its effort into destroying an enemy core agri when there are easier and more appropriate targets we could go for. [Herbert Enderton]

I've been playing a lot of starbases in pickup games the last few weeks, and I'm constantly annoyed to see team members do dumb things because they think it will help me. I almost always play a fighting base; I bring it up to around the center of our front line, and establish "space control." E.g. I become an obstacle to enemy oggers; if an ogger is chasing carrier on my team, the carrier can fly across my zone of death and I'll nail the ogger if he follows. Also I can occasionally clear planets, more rarely defend attacked planets, and the enemies tend to waste some time and throw away some ships with kills in their efforts to kill me. I'll beam up armies from the front too, but I always prefer to have planet-takers use my armies ASAP. (Note that there is another style of base play in which its main purpose is to protect the army hoard on the homeworld, but in my opinion that's wasting the base's firepower, and anyway it's boring.)

Dumb things you guys do as my teammates include:

1. Shuttling armies to me. This is almost always an incredibly stupid thing to do. Your ship can use those armies to take a planet. Mine cannot. So don't transfer them to me! Take (or reduce, or reinforce) planets instead. Yes, there are rare situations where shuttling is a good play, e.g. if there are several planets around with 6 armies each, and you have a scout with a kill, you can quickly shuttle a few armies to me and then use the last two armies you pick up. But most of the time it's just plain dumb to put armies on a starbase.
2. Hanging around "defending" me from oggers when you could be off taking a planet. Look, you're an og target, and I'm an og target, so we should SEPARATE. Go off and try to take a planet. Probably half the oggers will go to stop you, and that will save my ass much more effectively than having you fly in circles near me. Plus which, if you hang around I will do my best to keep you alive, detting for you etc, because that's the base's job, so your presence is very likely to get me hurt. Anyway, the idea of the game is to take planets.
3. Offering me a tow. Almost always a waste of time. Particularly annoying is when you get behind me (relative to the oggers) in hopes that I'll tractor you and pull myself to safety. Get in front, between me and the oggers, and maybe I'll pressor off of you. In general, I pull and push on friendly ships all the time, usually to shove them in the direction they're headed already, in order to speed them up. If you're coming towards me I'll almost always pull you in. Please don't misinterpret this as meaning that I want a tow, and turn around! I will generally never tractor an friendly ship that is moving away from me, or pressor a friendly ship that is trying to move towards me. (Well, maybe for a second in order to dodge a stream of torps...)
4. Hanging around waiting for a safe time to dock. The last thing I need is to have to protect you for a long time while you're low on fuel or hurt, the whole time trying to guess what it is that you want. Just bloody dock to me, if that's what you're here for. I'll det the torps (you can too).
5. Protecting the base at the expense of bombing or planet-taking activities. If you want to help me, do the things I can't do, i.e. attack enemy planets. When I get hurt, I will retreat and repair, and I feel bad because I'm not fighting at the front, but don't compound the problem by hanging back with me! If you want to help me, start by doing what I ask. E.g. if I'm begging the team to go bomb, don't expect me to be grateful to you for hanging around "escorting" me when you could be bombing!

Also, use phasers to shoot oggers, not torps so much. Three reasons:

1. Good players will dodge torps, but they can't dodge phasers
2. Your exploding torpedos can hurt me (and other ships on our team)
3. A phaser hit on a cloaker shows its location. This actually goes for all aspects of netrek; good players use phasers, bad players use torps. (Which in turn explains why DDs are good for use by twinks against other twinks, but aren't effective fighters in high-clue games.)  [Herbert Enderton]

This is a fighting SB that is probably in an even game. When you are down, it is very useful to save every army you can. This often means shuttling to the base rather than taking or reducing planets.
I think bert is referring to a mostly even game, where he sits on the front and you could just as easily drop the armies on an enemy planet as you could drop them on him.
:-)(4) Hanging around waiting for a safe time to dock.
Unforunately most bases don't feel this way. I guess the most important thing is "know your base". Some bases are religous about not docking under fire, others don't care.
:-)(5) Protecting the base
Again, if you're losing, the base is more of an asset than it is on the front (well, probably:). Sometimes its worth that extra minute of protection to ensure your army supply. [Rob Hill]

 

MAKING USE OF YOUR STARBASE

Here is some advice for people playing on my team while I'm basing. Most of it is be applicable to other bases too. It is NOT a guide to basing (see Balton's playing-sb for that).

**Ask not what you can do for your base, but what your base can do for you**

I base to help my team win. My primary purpose is normally to store and protect armies, but there are other things I can do, both for the team and for you individually.

Armies:
Do not ask me whether I have armies or not. I will regularly send army count calls, either when the number changes or when the last message has scrolled of my team message window (which is about 8 lines long).
When picking armies up off me do not worry about incoming torps. I will det them for you and you should take no damage. It's probably best not to try to pick up of me in the middle of an ogg wave though. If an ogger is after you your best bet is to get behind me and let me try to find him with a torp spread or phaser-lock.
If we have lots of planet bound armies and you can't use them all (only one kill maybe), it may be a good idea to ferry them to me so that they will be safe from SC bombers. Remember that I have a carrying capacity of 25 armies. It is probably best not to ferry to me when I am doing space control on the front line.

Kills:
If you are looking for some kills and I am in the action, then hanging around me is a good way to get some. I will do my best to give kills away (they are no use to me) by holding people down with my tractors/ pressors and softening them up so you can nail them. However I do not like having enemies nearby and shooting at me, so try to get them fast. You will find that ships that have been struggling with base tractors for any length of time will tend to be short of fuel.
(Sometimes my ogg reflexes take over and I will phaser a half dead scout just before you get him. I'm working on it...)

Logistics:
You can refit (to a different ship type) on a starbase. You can refuel and repair on a base. So a base is like a mobile home planet! There is the additional advantage that my firepower tends to deter enemies from approaching. If you are on my tactical and need help fast (eg you are 80% damaged), toggle your shields on-off-on-off-... and I will try to tractor you in. (If you are coming in to pick up armies you can get me to speed up your run in in the same way.)
If I am being ogged then do not try to use me as a base. There are likely to be a lot of torps flying/ships exploding, and you will do a lot of damage to me if you blow up while docked.

Boosting:
If I am around our home planet/entry point, I will use tractors and/or pressors to give you a boost towards the front line. I try to be careful not to get this wrong, but I will probably send you the wrong way sometimes.

LOOKING AFTER YOUR STARBASE

Since a base is such a useful thing to have, it is worth investing some effort in keeping it! Mostly I can look after myself, but there are some situations when I appreciate support. The first is when they are trying to ogg me. This will usually involve waves of 4+ ships coming in cloaked. One or two escorts can do a lot of damage to an ogg wave on the way in, especially if they are good at phaser-locking (hitting cloaked ships with phasers).
The best thing you can do here is to use the numerical advantage the ogg should give our team to take their planets. (If you genocide them they can't ogg me :) But if you do get a chance to hassle someone who is coming to ogg me by all means do so! Forcing them to use fuel dodging and/or cloaking early will reduce the time they have to plan their approach and/or the amount of stuff they can shoot at me.

Towing:
It is important to get the base to where it can be of the most use as fast as possible. A base can move much faster with the assistance of another ship and tractors or pressors. Procedure for towing a base is to move over the base in the direction of movement while the base tractors you (you will etemp fast if you do the tractoring). If there is more than one ship then the others can tractor me themselves, however do not ever tractor me unless you are sure I want it - it is particularly annoying not being able to orbit a planet because someone is tractoring you. If I want a tow I may flash my shields to request one.

Close escorting your base:
I do appreciate escorts when I'm being ogged, but two close escorts is the most I would ever need/expect except when seriously damaged/crippled.
Do not fire torps over the base - cloaked enemy ships can det them on me, and I may be waiting for a cloaked ship to uncloak so I can pressor him away from me before killing him. Try to phaser lock cloaked ships/catch them with a torp spread - even if you only score one hit it will give me something to target the base's heavy phasers on.
If there are uncloaked ships firing at me from a distance, you should det the torps for me (fly alongside and hit "det torps" repeatedly) - with practise you can det a lot of torps without taking much damage. Detting torps is particularly important when several ships are firing at me at once - I can usually dodge a torp spread from one ship without collecting more than one or maybe two torps.
The other purpose of a close escort is to give me something to tractor/pressor myself off. A base can improve its manoevourability greatly by doing this, and that matters a lot when dodging torps or cloaked incoming ships.

The Advanced Base:
If it is necessary to hold a critical front-line planet, or clear a critical front-line planet for a take, or front line space control is needed, the base will often move forward. Under these circumstances it is very exposed, and may need support in a hurry if the enemy try to ogg it.

The Crippled Base:
If the base is crippled (moving at warp 1), then the most important thing is to get it to a repair planet as fast as possible. So a tow should be organised (the base can still use tractors and pressors fine). If more than one ship wants to help then pressoring is slightly better than tractoring as it puts you between me and potential oggers. The critical thing if a crippled base is being attacked is to kill the enemy ships before they get close enough to do any damage (counter ogging). It is essential to try and phaser lock cloaked ships and uncloaked ships firing from a distance should have their torps detted (it's much harder to dodge at warp 1 than at warp 2) and be killed as quickly as possible.

The Wtemped Base:
The major constraint on a good base's survival is his wtemp limit rather than his hull/shields. If I send a distress call and don't appear damage, it may be because I am wtemped (look for the W in the call) or close to wtemped (the message will give the percentage). A wtemped base cannot use its weapons or det (but can T/P). The most vital thing when trying to protect a wtemped base is to stop enemies getting near it and to kill anyone who uncloaks on top of it real fast (don't worry about the explosion doing damage, multiple torps will do far more). If you are out of fuel you might want to dock with me and use my fuel (since I can't). (NOTE: don't do this when I am not wtemped, 'cause I will run out of fuel and you will blow up on me.) [Danny Yee.]