Bases
A base is the one body you build rather than find. It refines super-probes into energy, projects a tech radius of its own, belongs to no galaxy, and keeps standing when the galaxy around it is destroyed.
Raising one
Drag from one of your planets onto an empty cell. That raises a level-1 base of your own, holding no super-probes. Raising costs nothing and sends nothing.
An empty base is dormant: it burns nothing, pays nothing and grants no tech. It stays dormant until you send it super-probes. While it is empty, any enemy payload takes it, so a base raised within reach of an enemy is worth supplying straight away.
You can only have one dormant base at a time. The slot frees when you supply the base, when someone takes it, when you abandon it from its ring menu, or when it expires: a base that stays empty for 24 hours is removed.
While it stands, nothing else is ever placed on its cell: not a planet or sun the galaxy generates, and not a meteorite.
Upkeep and energy
A supplied base burns its level in super-probes every minute and pays energy for them. Higher levels pay more per super-probe:
| Level | Burns per minute | Pays per minute |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 5 | 5 | 7 |
| 6 | 6 | 9 |
| 7 | 7 | 11 |
| 8 | 8 | 14 |
| 9 | 9 | 17 |
| 10 | 10 | 20 |
No tech applies to a base itself. No upgrade changes what it burns, what it pays, what a level costs, or how it fights.
Tech radius
A supplied base grants tech the same way a sun does: a planet or launch inside its radius gets every upgrade its owner or a clan ally has bought, exactly as it would inside a friendly sun's. A dormant base grants nothing. The radius is the base's own level in grid units, so it grows as you upgrade: 1 at level 1, up to 10 at level 10, a bit further than a sun's 8.
A base's radius can overlap a sun's or another base's freely. Standing in more than one never stacks the bonus; it is exactly the same as standing in just one.
Upgrading
A level costs 100 × level² super-probes, taken from the base's own garrison: 100 for the first, 8,100 for the last, 28,500 for the whole climb, or about 2,850,000 probes. That is the whole price of a base. It buys the better rate, 20 energy for 10 super-probes at level 10, and the widest tech radius.
Running out
When a base's super-probes run out it goes dormant again. It keeps its level, and resupply already in flight still arrives. An empty base is easy to take, so keep it supplied. Once it has been empty for 24 hours it is removed and you get a log entry; supplying it restarts the clock.
Abandon in the base's ring menu asks for confirmation. An empty base is removed at once and its cell is free again. A supplied base turns neutral: you lose its super-probes, it pays nobody, and it is removed when it runs dry.
If you restart, your bases are released. A base nobody owns runs down and disappears once it is empty.
Feeding one
Send probes at it from a planet, the same way you reinforce anything else; they convert at 100 probes per super-probe on arrival. A base carries no automation of its own, but it is a valid relay target: point a planet's relay at it and that planet keeps it supplied.
A base cannot launch anything. Its garrison only ever leaves through upkeep or through losing a fight.