Bonker

@bonker

dunno which toon i'll bring yet, or if i'll be there, but if its important i'll update you later.

Personally I have thousands of hours in my various bases. Have spent hundreds of hours in lots of your bases taking pics and getting interviews and writing them up for the scoop. I've written guides and developed personal relationships with several devs over the years trying very very hard to get some love for bases.

Even after all that, if the best we can hope for is a complete revamp, so that bases are relevant to the game, character and group development again, I am 100% behind it.

I would start over in a second and dump every bit of salvage, every last IO, every tier 3 insp, every badge if need be, just so that bases were *something* again.

This is not to say that I hope this is what happens. I doubt very seriously that this worst case scenario would be something the devs would consider approaching, but if they know we, the community most effected by any major change, would accept even the kinds of changes that would require a great deal of re-work on our part, it might free them up to think a little bit more outside the box and approach the system from an entirely fresha nd new angle that will result in a much better final product.

Thats my hope, anyway. I'll do what I have to if they do what they can.

Dare I ask it?

We, the denizens of the base building forum and the stylisitc stackamaniacs, are already a down trodden lot. We mope about knowing we will likely never get anything fixed or added to our favorite part of the game.

We share pictures of the fairly amazing things we've been able to do within this rather poor system that has always been promised to be so much more.

But still we keep hope. Still we trudge on.

We stack like mad, we make the most out of every crumb (like removing pathing rules) which is thrown at us, Even when those crumbs are bequeathed to us at the expense of things like base raids, still, we take it on the chin.

We create works of art of out of garbage, and we all enjoy, appreciate and congratulate each other.

But under it all, something else has happened to the game. Huge changes have made the biggest benefits to being part of a Super Group to anyone outside of the *artiste* of the lot, no longer so *beneficial* or attractive.

For one, the teleporters. It used to be the only one-stop-shopping fastest means of travel. Now, every train goes to every zone; Oro, pocket d, the mission transporter vet powers, the black market and wentworth temps and the list goes on. Its now so easy to get around, who cares if you have teleporters, honestly? I barely use them at all anymore, and I know I'm not alone, at least in the circle of folk I play with and talk to.

Sure they are still nice to have for those out of the way place like eden or boomtown, but when other things stack up that make being part of a larger SG less attractive, this is simply not beneficial enough to make it worth while.

For instance, base storage. This has long been a buggaboo for base leaders and base users alike. How do you protect yer personal stuffs, but still make the base useful for everyone in the sg? They threw a bandaid at it a while back where you can set permissions based on rank, but that is a far cry from making any table really personal. And the extreme limitation on the amount of storage you can have, even on the largest plot size makes it so that there is no effing way you're going to be able to provide even a decent percentage of the folks in even a small-to-medium SG with storage and certainly nothing protected and personal. The enh table holds 100, the insp 100, and the salvage 30 (wtf?!).

The alternative is small solo bases that are designed solely for storage. Many of my friends do this, even though we are all loosely attached to several SG's. You can e-mail yerself hot items you want to save, log onto the one toon you have in yer solo sg and and dump em in your base. Much more attractive item than trying to place them in a large base and hope no one else will mess with em till you need something. This is extremely easy to do anymore, and even though the rent is based on these utility items, it is still rather easy to accumulate if you just run in sg mode for a couple TFs a month (or every six weeks*)

So, what is the benefit of being in a huge group with a huge base anymore? How do we attract new members to our SG to run in SG mode to allow us to add that one more beaker stack, or that one more red bottle bunch.

Some will say "The friends! The SG channel! The Coalition Tab! How else will you find things to do and people to do them with?"

Many a group, especially the larger and most active ones have developed global channels just for this purpose, because the SG channel and coalition channel, global friends lists, etc. are so limiting. So a global channel does what a large SG does, but so much better.

So are bases obsolete? Are we, the already downtrodden base building artistes, about to all be outta work? Or should we all start changing our focus to selling our trade to the young solo sg apartment owners as "interior designers" or whatever?

Seriously, am I gonna have to start wearing a pink ascot?

Cuz that's just the last straw, man.

Here's my data chunk.

Just recently rebuilt this guy, nothing too terribly expensive on teh build except the 5 lotg's. A few of the cheaper purple sets in, and 3 slighty expensive items with the apocs in dark blast.

You'll notice the defense and resistance numbers are not all that impressive when looked at by themself, but part of the beuty of dar/dark is all the -tohit, which is equivalent to adding to your effective defense. Combined, I simply cannot be touched even in a ful 8 man spawn. The combination of anchoring darkest night in the middle, then tarpatch, and spamming tents, blast and gloom means their to-hit is floored.

The other *trick* to my build is the combo of a single slotted oppressive gloom and spamming of howling twilight. Start off with laying down a darkest night anchor in the middle of the mob, quickly drop tar patch under them, run in let oppressive gloom start to work, then bam with howling twilight, let fluffy start doing his thing, then back up a tad to set up your tent cone, and watch them all fall down.

The other thing is the -def, so you dont have to elevate your acc or tohit numbers to astronomical levels to hit even +4 mobs, so I was able to devote a lil more space to damage, which dark can sometimes be sorely lacking in.

So, not having to concentrate too heavily on maxing my def, because of all the -tohit me fluffy and I be throwin around, nor on too much accuracy to be able to take on higher level mobs cuz of all the -def, I was able to concentrate on throwing in a lil bit of dmg, some recharge, maximize recovery and a lil regen, and threw in a lil bit of resistance.

The one thing I would go back and look at how to improve would be to somehow stop getting mezzed. The only thing that does it are the typical things like high level malta or knives, or illusionist, but when you get stunned held or whatever and darkest night and oppressive gloom drop, it usually spells disaster. I just carry a few breakfrees with me at all times and that works fine, but if I werent so lazy or cheap, I'd probably look for a way to improve that.

The one power I rarely use but is in the build is life drain. I tried slotting for damage, procs, heals, all sorts of things and could never find an ideal slotting for making the power useful compared to everything else in the build, so again, if I went back and revisited a respec, I might drop that, or move the slots at the very least, though I really dont know which power I would take in its stead, or where I would put the slots.

Hope this helps! And I certainly dont mind anyone's thoughts on this build if they care to offer them. Nor would I mind showing in person what it can do. It *farms* quite nicely on both blue and red, set on insane difficultiues.

Meh, it's not really about *taking it on the chin* or whatever, when discussing things like this in this medium, its usually more about recognizing that alot of people will *take up a position cuz it will be fun to argue*, or simply be contrary cuz they can.

They typically uitilize tactics, as shown here, such as changing the focus of the conversation completely, so that the original point is lost in the noise. I thought the conversation interesting enough, but felt the original point, which is really indisputable, needed restating.

Necro thread revival! Sorry.

Sorry, this was just a very interesting topic and had to chime in.

The subject has skewed from the original post quite a bit, from "there is a gap from 400-700k prestige", to whether or not that gap is formidable.

In my first guide to base building for the small sg, that gap was considerably higher, from like 500k to 1.8 million or something. Whether that gap is formidable or not or how long it takes a group to overcome it isnt really the question. The point is that from 0-400 or so prestige, the upgrades come quite naturally, logically, incrementally, and in a fair amount of time for even a solo sg. You can enjoy an upgrade in function on a fairly standard schedule based on whatever your prestige earnings are for your size group. This schedule is obviously longer for a small or solo sg, but it is incremental, and logical. every few thousand or so you can enjoy an upgrade (for reference, pls see guide in my sig which includes a discussion of this topic.

But when you reach that 400k point you must now wait an inordinate amount of time for the next functional upgrade. That's *inordinate* based on a comparison of only the other upgrades that have come before, and those that will come after, not some fantasy comic book world of bat-caves vs. justic-leagues.

Its an incongruity within the system, and it is off-putting for small or solo sg's. To go from having an upgrade of some sort every few days or once a week for months, to having to wait for a month or two months or longer for the next one does not make sense *within the context of the system itself*.

Discussions of how you can overcome that gap, or bandaid it by throwing easily earned inf at it, or how severe that gap is for a small/medium/average groups it is not really the point at all. The point, going back to the original post, is that there IS a gap, and it is an incongruity in the system, and it has been around for a long while, and it should be fixed.

Sorry again fer necro-ing.

I've actually updated my small base builders guide several times over the years, last time was in i17.

Here be the link:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=226183

The most update version will always be in my sig, too.

Guide to base building for the small SG [I17]
(version 3.7, Jun 2010)

This is a guide for base building for the small SG. We'll start out covering the different options you can start out with using only the 300k maximum start up bonus you can get on the very first day of your new SG (I'll cover the explanation of this *bonus* in just a moment). Then we'll move on and take you through the steps beyond the initial 300k basic base, to a very complex and fully functional base that fills the entire basic 8x8 plot size, and allows you to get the most function out of it that you possibly can. All in all, I give the following different base examples, complete with screen shots and prices (you can simply ctrl+f on this post to get to the base or price range you are interested in):

Base 1 thru 3, all less than 300k prestige. Combinations of med bays, teleporters power and energy needs discussed.
Base 4a, 305k prestige, but with control and energy problems (illustrative)
Base 4b, 730k prestige. CTRL and NRG needs met, med bay, 2 teleporters, 4 beacons
Base 5a, 855k. Med bay, 3 porters 5 beacons. (CTRL and NRG needs being met throughout and figured into the cost of each upgrade.)
Base 5b, 972k. Med bay, 4 porters 8 beacons.
Base 6c, 1,310k. Med bay, 6 porters 12 beacons.
Base 6f, 1,435k. Med bay, 6 porters 12 beacons, 1x2 workshop+empowerment station.
Base 7, 1,760k. Same as above but upgraded the control room to 2x3 in anticipation of greater control needs.
Base 8, 2,000k. Med bay, 8 porters 16 beacons, Workshop.
Base 9, 2,135k. Same as above, but sold off the 2x3 control room and all the control items to go back to the 2x2 control room and the supercomputer in anticipation of greater control needs and better use of limited space.
Base 10, 2,225k. Our final example. 10 porters, 20 beacons, med bay, no workshop. All on the 8x8 (rent-free) plot size.

Anyway, onto the guide:

There are lots of reasons to want to keep it simple and have a small SG with just a few friends. Or the much talked about private lair, where it's just you (and yer alts) by your lonesome. With recent changes to base rent and the massive reduction in prices across the board, it is quite possible to have a very nicely viable and functioning base in a fairly short amount of time even with only a few people or even one workign on getting prestige.

This guide will walk you through the very first steps of base building, suggest some possible floor plans (with screenies if I can make them work) and end with some ideas on how to make the very best use out of the smallest plot size, since with the new base changes, rent is now calculated on functional items int eh base rather than plot size, allowing a small group to maximize its savings, while still getting maximum utility from their base. I'll be trying to cover both Villains and Heroes base building, but there are very few instances where they might differ.

This guide is aimed at maximum function and therefore covers none of the decorative items or rooms. I will also not be cover how to get a raid-ready base, as that is currentlyt disabled and the rumors are that it will never be available again. Please visit the base building forum at coh.com if there are questions/problems that you don't find covered in this guide.

I'll be using mostly tech items in my examples. The reason for this is that for a few notable items, the footprint of certain tech items is smaller than the corresponding arcane items. It is worth noting though, that for every single tech item, the corresponding arcane item costs exactly the same and provides the exact same utility and fits in exactly the same amount of space (except for a few notable items where the corresponding arcane item has a larger footprint, the only arcane item that has a smaller footprint than the tech item is the raid porter, but I will not be covering raid items in this guide).

First things first, once you reach level 10, head inside city hall at Atlas (Heroes), or the large building with Arachnos flags all over it in Port Oakes, just south of the Marconeville waypoint (Villains). There you will find the person who let's you start up your SG. Once you've got the naming and the colors and the SG chest emblem all picked out, talk to the same guy again and start construction of a base. After you've started the group and started construction, find one of the base porter waypoints in any zone (most any zone), and pop inside.

You'll have the smallest plot size (an 8x8 grid) and the entrance that takes up 2x2 squares. Assuming its just you in the SG at this point, you'll have 20k to spend. Sadly, umm, not alot you can do with that prestige, except decorate your little entrance. But, for every new toon you add to your little SG, you'll get another 20k prestige (for a maximum of 15 toons, or 300k prestige). If its just you and yer own lil private lair, find a kind soul that is willing to join your SG for a the time it takes you to invite all of your alts and you could be talking about a good lil pile of starting capital. If you're starting your SG with at least one other friend, you could maximize that 300k *boost* of start up prestige by each of you inviting all your alts.

The great thing about base building is that you can sell items for exactly what you paid for them, so you are free to mess around and try new things by placing something, and then selling it and placing something else. You are never penalized, in other words, by buying items. The one exception to this is the *personal items* like the teleporters or other items created using salvage. While all prestige spent to place these *personal items* is returned to the SG if you delete them, the salvage used to generate or craft them is gone forever.

So now you have to kind of decide what you want to be able to do with your base, from a planning and playing perspective. Will you want a teleport factory? Will you want the medical bay? Do you want to maximize your storage abilities for inspirations/enhancments/salvage?

These goals/aims will shift over time, of course, but I'll try to offer suggestions based on the very most bang fer yer buck as far as functionality goes as you go along. You're going to be swapping priorites as time goes on and the prestige starts piling up, so I'll try to go from cheapest to most functional on the first building plot. Space will soon become a premium, and you'll really have to choose one thing over the other, eventually. You'll be selling rooms, moving them around, deleting and restarting often, so try not to go too nuts with decorations early on, as it's sometimes painful to spend hours decorating a room just the way you like it, only to realize a few short days later that you have enough for the next functional upgrade and that room simply has to go in order to get the most bang fer yer buck. Also remember you might have to sacrifice some function or another of the base as you go on, in order to gain more function later; trading down in the short run, to go up in the long run, in other words.

So, starter base. Base 1: Med base: 210k (1st med room and the reclamator, oversight room and the combo unit, insp storage)

Getting the rez unit, or *Basic Reclamator* into your base first and foremost is a good goal. When you die, you can choose to go to your base instead of the hospital, well, we can start there: The first med bay room (found under the medical tab) costs 50k to build, and the reclamator (under place item) is a measley 10k to place. You'll notice quickly though that this just ain't enough. The reclamator consumes 50 energy and 25 control, neither of which we have produced yet. So we need to build an oversight center first, for 50k, and then place the combo power and control unit in it for another 25k.

Grand total? 135k to get your small base up and running with nothing but a hospital replacement unit in it and 3 rooms. Needs to be said though that if you choose to rez in your base rather than the hospital, you rez with about 25% of your full health and end, rather than the 100% granted by the hospitals. It can still be worth it, if you're going to be spending time in the sewers for your first few levels, as exiting the base after rez puts you right back in the sewers where you died, or for the opposite end of the spectrum, if Hami's got you down, you can base rez and then exit the base to reappear right where he last got ya in the Hive. Also the Shadow Shards have the same nifty ability. Any zone that doesn't have a teleport beacon to it allows you to do this.

We can make it a little more enticing to rez in the base by adding some storage tables for inspirations by adding an inspiration table, for 75k. You can fill this up with your most needed inspirations (100 of them).

New total, 210k.


So Base 1 is:
Oversight room 50k
Combo unit 25k
Med bay 50k
Rez unit 10k (135k subtotal)
Insp storage 75k
total 210k
Base 1

210k, and not a bad lil starter base.

Alternate starter base. Base 2: Porter base

Bit more complicated, as you have to craft the porters on the basic workbenches, and also accumulate enough salvage in order to be able to combine it to make the porters, but entirely within the grasp of a starting SG, within the first day or so of forming. First we're going to need power and control. Oversight room (50k) combo unit (25k), same as above. You'll need to at least temporarily place either the arcane or the tech basic workbench in the oversight room in order to combine salvage. Either basic workbench can be placed for 25k.

Now, look at the recipes, there are three different recipes on each of the basic workbenches (tech workbench will make a tech porter, arcane workbench will make an arcane porter). Now, back under the add room tab there is a transportation room you can place, where you can place one porter and one beacon (the smallest 1x2 porter room) but, consider that you have just spent salvage to make this item. When it comes time to upgrade, and you want to place two porters or more in a room, you will have to juggle this item around by creating temporary rooms elsewhere to hold it, while you delete the room it was in, and build a new room and then replace that item in the new room and delete the temp room. Once space starts becoming more of a premium, the juggling is going to get a bit more precarious, so you really need to start thinking ahead when it comes to placing crafted items. While the SG is young, salvage can be as much at a premium as prestige is. So you COULD build the smallest porter room for 50k, and place a single porter (that you crafted with some purchased or earned salvage) in it for placement cost of another 15k, and then a beacon to some zone for another 10k. Total cost for a base that gets you to one zone?

Base 2a
Oversight and combo unit 75k
sml porter room 50k
place crafted porter 15k (and the porter recipe salvage)
beacon 10k
total 150k

So, we have room and more prestige, let's place another porter room for another 50k, craft another porter for 6 combined salvage, and place it for 15k, and then a beacon for it for 10k.

Base 2b
Oversight and combo unit 75k
2 small porter rooms 100k
Place 2 porters 30k (and 12 combined salvage)
2 beacons 20k
total 225k

So I can continue to make a lil porter factory, adding a new small porter room and one porter and one beacon each time I get 75k and enough salvage to make a new porter, but I'm going to quickly run out of space. Most I could fit on one 8x8 square, taking into account the space taken up by the oversight room, is 8. But well before you get there, you're goin to have energy and control problems trying to maintain that many porters and wasting their potential of 2 beacons a pop. I recommend instead that you hold off and go for the 2x2 porter room that will hold 2 porters and 4 beacons.

Base 2c
Oversight and combo unit 75k
1 2x2 porter room 100k
Place 2 porters 30k (and salvage)
4 beacons 40k
total 245k

Base 3: Combination of Bases 1 and 2. This is where choices start coming into play, not just for the prestige, but the energy and control cost of items. Let's say I want a med bay AND a porter to start with.

Base 3
Oversight and combo unit 75k
Med bay and reclamator 60k
small porter room 50k
place 1 porters 15k (and 6 combined salvage)
1 beacon 10k
total 210k

Keeping mind that we can swap out the beacon in that small porter room as needed, only takes a few seconds in the base edit screen.

This is the base I recommend starting with, in fact. Keeping in mind that the next upgrade may be a little way's off for the very small SG. To understand why, we need to consider one other aspect we have not yet talked about: the power and control cost of various items.

Our oversight center and combo unit will generate for us +125 energy, and +75 control. The reclamator in our med bay cost -50 energy and -25 control. The porter cost -50 energy and -25 control as well. The beacon merely -5 control:

Combo unit +125 nrg, +75ctrl
Reclamator - 50 , -25
1 porters - 50 , -25
1 beacons , -5

Leaving us with a +25 energy and +20 control surplus. We can use the surplus to temporarily power the workbenches when we place them to craft recipes.

To understand how these energy and control costs limit our base as much (if not more) than the prestige cost, let's look at the next logical upgrade.

Base 4a
Oversight and combo unit 75k
Med bay and reclamator 60k
2x2 porter room 100k
place 2 porters 30k (and recipe salvage)
4 beacons 40k
total 305k

It won't take long doing missions before you've gotten the extra 5k worth of prestige (beyond the start up bonus of 300k) required to get yourself this upgrade, but we need to look again at our power and control costs.

Combo unit +125 nrg, +75ctrl
Reclamator - 50 , -25
2 porters -100 , -50
4 beacons , -20

Leaving us in the negative for both energy and control (-25 energy, -20 control) meaning that not all of our placed items will function. Sadly, we cannot simply place another combo unit in our oversight center as the room will only hold one, and no other energy or control items. We can also not simply place another oversight center and a combo unit, as there is only one combo unit allowed in an entire base. We've reached the limit of what we can do with the start up bonus prestige and the energy and control for our little base.

From now, we need to start thinking long term, as far as planning ahead for our energy and control needs, as well as prestige each time we want to upgrade.

The bottom line is, the oversight center and combo unit were intended to only really cover the very most basic needs of a start up base, and our base is no longer *start up* so they have outlived their utility and we need to now upgrade to our more long-term energy and control rooms, to satisfy the needs of our growing base. Before you get too crazy with the *delete room* button just yet, let's look at the rather sobering costs of this next step up in the evolution of our base.

Deleting the oversight center and combo unit will recover our 75k worth of prestige, but placing the energy room costs 100k, and the control room costs 100k, and then we have to actually place the generator (200k) in the energy room and that will generate 1000 Energy for us. Then a mainframe (50k) placed in the control room gets us 50 control, which is not enough so we also need 1 database (50k) for another 50 control, for a net change of 425k.

(/start mini-rant) The recent changes to base building are definitely a step in the right direction for a small SG, but they leave 2 major gaps in the linear upgrading of bases. I start out with one of the starter bases of this guide for under 300k, and the next minor upgrade will cost me an added 425k or more, due to the reconfiguring of power and control items needed. That's a very long time to wait for a small or single person SG. Why not make this scale, in some small way? Allow me to attach a circuit breaker and/or a database in the oversight room, so I'm not so quickly shut down, with such a long and major gap between a start up base and a fully functional one? Why make the difference between a base that works today, and one that won't after a single porter is added not work again for 425k? Bump the combo unit's output by 75 energy and allow the two CB attachments, and 2 database atachments to it, and base building for small SG's becomes completely linear, without the major lag between start up and initial upgrades as is present now (/end mini-rant).

So the seemingly simple upgrade of adding 1 more porter and a few more destination beacons to our base makes our little tally sheet look a mess:

Base 4b
Energy room 100k
Generator 200k +1000 nrg,
Control room 100k
Mainframe 50k - 50nrg , +50 ctrl
Database 50k - 50 , +50
Med bay and reclamator 60k - 100 , -25
2x2 porter room 100k
place 2 porters 30k - 100 , -50
4 beacons 40k , -20
Totals: 730k + 700 , + 5

Holy empty pocket books, Batman! Yes, you read that right, its 730k prestige. And that's not even including any storage items (which do not have energy or control costs associated with them). So, it's a big jump and likely quite a wait for a small SG from our small base that cost us 300k or less to get started and minimally functional, to this, but it will come. Just don't be in a rush. It took me and just 2 friends in our small SG about 3-4 months to get to around 6 million prestige or so and max out our functionality on the smallest plot size, and we are quite *casual* players.

Quick discussion of the workshop, workbenches and empowerment stations as it relates to a small or start up SG:

You can place the workshop and a single workbench/empowerment station, as needed, *temporarily*. Get the crafting you need to do over with then sell these items and recover the prestige to be used for other items with more function. With a base we are designing to make the most of our limited prestige earning capabilities (being a small SG) but with maximum function, we can't waste prestige on something we will only be using, at most, once a playing session, and more than likely, once a week or less. I'd rather have more porters, or more storage items that I will use several times a day in my base, than the workshop. So, anyway, my advice, place the smallest workshop and one bench/empowerment station at a time as you need it, and then sell it back, keeping your eye set on the next goal/the next upgrade. You can place 1 storage item in both the control and energy rooms, by the way.

Assuming we've gotten to the point where we have our energy and control room and items placed, and our base 4b is up and running, the next logical upgrade to our small base would be to add another porter and beacon destination. 50k fer the smallest porter room, 15k (I'll just assume from now on you know you need to craft them) to place the next porter, and 10k to place a new beacon. If you'll notice, we are right at the edge of our control generation, so we'll also need another database placed in the control room in order to generate a little more control, so 125k more makes this next upgrade happen.

Base 5a
base 4b totals: 730k + 700nrg, + 5ctrl
+1 Database 50k - 100 , +50
+small porter room 50k
+1 porter 15k - 50 , -25
+1 beacon 10k , - 5
Total: 855k + 550 , +25

To recap: we now have 3 porters with 5 possible destinations (keeping in mind we can swap these destinations around as needed), the med bay, and enough energy and control to keep them all running in tip-top shape.

Our next logical upgrade would be to change that last uprade of the small porter room into the 2x2 porter room, adding another porter and 3 more beacons. Again, we need to look at control, just the one added porter will use up all our remaining control, the associated beacon(s) will put us in the negative, so we need to add yet another control generating item. If you have enough prestige, you could opt to simply place yet another database for +50 control, but we only really need 15 more control than we are already generating, so we could opt instead to go for the cheaper costing terminal for 10k, that costs us only -10 energy and generates +10 control. 2 of these fills our needs. There is also the corner terminal that costs 12k, takes -15 energy and generates 12 control. For the sake of variety, I'll place one terminal and one corner terminal in the control room. Then I'll place the 2x2 porter room, another porter and 3 more beacons (total for next upgrade: 117k)

*Again, I need to remind that placing personal items like porters becomes tricky as you cannot simply delete them and hope to replace them at will. You need to have the personal items via salvage available. The next upgrade illustrates that point as you'll want a 2x2 porter room. You need to move the 1x2 room with porter installed to an an unused place on the plot, place the new 2x2 room, move the porter there and then delete the 1x2 room it came from. Space is starting to become a premium in your 8x8 square, so you will soon not have enough room for this juggling, so you really need to start placing crafted items carefully, and perhaps hold off on placing the 1x2 porter rooms until you have enough to simply place the 2x2 porter room (100k vice 50k) in order to avoid the juggling of the crafted teleporters.*

Base 5b
base 5a totals: 855k +550nrg, +25ctrl
+1 corner terminal 12k - 15 , +12
+1 terminal 10k - 10 , +10
-1 1x2 porter room 50k
+1 2x2 porter room 100k
+1 porter 15k - 50 , -25
+3 beacons 30k - 0 , -15
Total: 972k +475 , + 7


We have a pretty nice little base set up here. Before we start building more porters or placing a permanent workshop or some such, let's take a hard look at our energy and control requirements for further upgrades so we can plan ahead better. Let's assume we want our final base to look something like this:

Base 10

With 5 total 2x2 porter rooms (wrapping around the outer edge in this pic) with 10 porters and 20 beacons (access to all but one available zone on hero side, in other words). Each additional porter is going to cost us -50 energy, and -25 control. Each additional beacon will cost us -5 control. If I were to place all of these now I would need an additional +300 energy. No problems there, as I have +475 still available from our hard working little generator. I will also need an additional +210 worth of control though, and that is where we run into problems.

Let's go back to base 5b, and take a good look at our control room. Let's sell the terminal and corner terminal (recovering 22k) and place another database (50k). We can make this upgrade to our base for just 28k. Now let's look at our numbers again, and get a fresh tally.

Base 5b.1: (no need for a pic, the layout is still the same as 5b, just with one more database in the control room)
Energy room 100k
Generator 200k +1000 nrg,
Control room 100k
Mainframe 50k - 50 , +50 ctrl
3 Databases 150k - 300 , +150
Med bay and reclamator 60k - 100 , -25
2, 2x2 porter rooms 200k
place 4 porters 60k - 200 , -100
8 beacons 80k , -40
Total: 1000k + 350 , +35

Concentrating on just the control for now, and remembering that we will need an additional 210k worth of control to place our 6 more porters and 12 more beacons, we're gonna need alot more databases. But things are, unfortunately, just not that simple. Let's add one more database.

Base 5b.2:
Base 5b.1 totals: 1,000k +350nrg , +35ctrl
+1 database 50k -100 , +50
Total 1,050k +250 , +85

You'll notice we are still not close to our +210 control needed to place all the remaining porters and beacons we want, and you'll also notice that our energy output now has dropped below what we'll need in the end. If you go in and try and add another database, you'll also be sad to notice that we can no longer add anymore databases, as we've reached the maximum this room will allow (1 mainframe and 4 databases). Which is the reason I took this little diversion to illustrate that we need to do a little prior planning here before we just start adding porters and rooms. If you got down to having combined salvage and placed that 9th and 10th porter before realizing that there is no way you'd ever be able to power them, you'd be mighty pissed at this little guide when you had to delete them, I imagine.

But, we do now have enough energy and control to place 2 more porter rooms, and add in porters and beacons in one at a time.

Base 6

(I lined the upper side of the map with the new porter rooms, but since the base I'm using for these examples is a villains base I don't want to waste the salvage to make more porters to place in there, please use your imagination)

Each room costs 100k to place. So Base 6 Total (before adding any porters or beacons into these two new rooms): 1,250k

Adding one porter, 2 beacons:

Base 6a:
Base 6 totals: 1,250k +250nrg, +85ctrl
+1 porter 15k - 50 , -25
+2 beacons 20k - 0 , -10
Total: 1,285k +200 , +50

Quick note for Villain bases: you don't need to go further and add a 10th beacon as there are presently only 9 beacons available. You've reached the pinnacle of your teleport capabilites/needs for your small base, and for just under 1.5 million prestige. Well done. Now you can start adding rooms and items we've since neglected in favor of function, such as decorative rooms, permanent workshops and workbenches/empowerment stations, work on getting the supercomputer (500k prestige) in the control room to maximize control output. You could also look into some of the other threads about getting your base raid and item of power ready for when the cathedral of pain trial finally (as if) becomes available. Again, well done, go have yourself an ice cold adult beverage, you've earned it.

As for Hero bases, well if you're as obsessive as I am, looking at those 2 porter rooms with 4 porters and 8 beacons is purty darn nifty, but all you can really see is the 14 other zones and beacons you are not yet able to go to via your small base. If you're not as nuts as I am, well, you too can celebrate with the villain architects and go indulge in the aforementioned adult beverage, and start thinking along the lines of purtifying your base, adding in the permanent workshop, making some purely decorative rooms, working towards the supercomputer or the larger generator, or even work towards getting your base raid ready. 8 zones is nothing to sneeze at, and if you are choosing your beacons wisely, you should be able to get to just about any zone with merely 1 or 2 zonings.

But let's pretend you're all as OCD as I am:


Another porter and 2 beacons:
Base 6b:
+1 porter and 2 beacons 35k - 50 , -35
Total: 1,310k +150 , +15

You can see we don't have enough control left to place another porter, much less the beacons to accompany it, and no way to increase our control output right now with our present control room, so let's delete that last porter room (the one with no porters or beacons in it!) for now and recover our 100k prestige to use on a different upgrade.

Base 6c
-2x2 porter room +100k
Total: 1,210k +150nrg, +15ctrl

Let's next look at the med bay. We used the basic med bay when we started, but if one of our alts is an AT that can heal, chances are we're going to earn the first SG healing badge at some point, and that will unlock a recipe that will allow us to be able to craft a nifty little inspiration dispenser (auto doc or tree of wonders) that will sell us blue and green inspirations. In order to place this newly crafted item, we will need to upgrade our med bay to an infirmary. We'll recover our 50k it cost to place the med bay by deleting the room, and then it will cost us 100k to place the infirmary (this may take some tricky juggling with rooms and the placing of doorways to make sure *base continuity* is maintained, I really hope you haven't been decorating too lavishly as you may have to delete rooms or place doors in places you didn't think you'd have to to be able to delete the med bay). Then we can place the rez ring back in there and our newly crafted insp dispenser for 50k, -35nrg, and -15 control. Total cost of this upgrade: 100k, but the footprint of our base is exactly the same as it was before.

Base 6d totals: 1,310k +150nrg, +0ctrl.

In anticipation of later needs, let's add circuit breakers in my energy room for 30k a piece (max of 2), each of which will increase my energy output by +150.

Base 6e (+2 circuit breakers): 1,370k +450nrg, +0ctrl.

That hole in the center of the map is begging out for something to put in there, So let's place a 1x2 workshop there for 50k, and an empowerment station for 15k (does not cost nrg or ctrl to operate). You can swap out the tech and arcane empowerment stations to combine salvages as needed, but do not combine or use the salvage to make the empowerment station upgrades yet, as we are actually just biding our time until we can make upgrades to control, so we can get more porters and this room is simply temporary.

Base 6f
+1x2 workshop 50k
+empowerment station 15k
Total 1,435k, +450nrg, +0ctrl

If we haven't already, let's add some storage tables. Though I haven't really been carrying the cost of the storage tables in the base total costs up until now, you really should already have a couple of these in place in the energy and control rooms, and also now the infirmary. It's a great way transfer items of interest from one alt to another or to share items with other members of the group.

Let's drop an inspiration table in the infirmary next to the autodoc for 75k (more if/when you can, inspirations are mighty handy to have on hand when using your base to rez, so you can pick up needed inspirations without having to run to a contact). If you've been following this guide, you already have the auto-doc (or tree of wonders) in your infirmary which will give you health and end inspirations, so you only need to really worry about storing the others. I use my higher level toons to stock these up with awakes and break frees, mostly, but also reds, yellows, purples, and oranges, as well, for use by all my toons.

Enhancement tables cost 95k to place, and at first glance seem kind of a waste or an extravagance, after all, when I get drops I don't need, I sell them immediately so I can get the INF for them I so desperately need since I'm running in SG mode constantly (this is only a factor as far as inf earnings post 25 btw) but consider that if you're playing your freshly enhanced lvl 47 today, fighting +1's +2's or +3's (or higher), high level SO drops and recipes will be quite common for you. Dropping out of SG mode for a mish or two will net you quite a bit of spending capital, as well, and you don't really need to be enhancing much further . . . popping into the base to drop off these expensive enhancements will make them available to your lower level alts to pick up, go sell and get much needed influence. It's like gifting your alts influence without the need for an intermediary, or a second player/account, or filling up your e-mail. They are also convenient places to dump your enhancements temporarily when you are on a fast paced team and you don't want to take too long a break from them to go find all the appropriate stores to sell your enhancements for max selling prices. You can dump them here and then come pick them up in groups (like grab all the science enhancements and head to the science store, etc.)

Your new workshop will hold one storage table (I suggest the salvage rack for now, as it will be close to where you've placed the empowerment station. Your infirmary, energy and control rooms will also each hold one storage item. So a salvage rack in the workshop, an inspiration table in the med bay (for close access to the entrance), and an enhancement storage in the energy room and control room.

Base 6g:
+1 salvage storage 15k
+1 inspiration storage 75k
+2 enhancement storage 190k
Total: 1,715k, +450nrg, +0ctrl

We've put it off as long as we can. I could delay things further by running around my base and adding purty things every couple of days, changing room locations, etc, but the fact remains, I simply cannot add anymore function to my base without addressing the control issue. And, sadly this is another one of those long pauses in the base upgrades.

Going back to where we left off with our control room, we know that we are maxxed out as far as having one mainframe in there and 4 databases. We are simply not allowed to add anymore. Much like the situation with the oversight center where we could not simply add another combo unit somewhere in the base, we cannot add another mainframe in the base either (databases must be attached to a mainframe). So I could delete my workshop, add another control room there in the center of our base and put some databases in there, but since they are not attached to a mainframe it does me no good. The good/bad news is, if you've been following along, and paying attention to my base layouts in the pics I've been linking, you're closer than you think to increasing your control output.

Look at the control rooms tab, the next room we want is the 2x3 room that costs 145k. This room will allow us to place up to 10 databases vice the max 4 we are limited by in the 2x2 room now. Those of you that can do the math quick, know this will give us plenty of control to reach our goal of at least one more porter room with 2 more porters and 4 more beacons.

Delete the 2x2 control room. You'll recover the cost of the control room (+100k), the Mainframe (+50k) and all 4 databases (+200k). You need to put those immediately back into the 2x3 control room so we haven't really recovered anything, though.

Purchase the 2x3 control room for 145k. Immediately place back the mainframe and 4 databases. Total added cost just 45k.

Base 7
(**note: This picture is missing the 1x2 workshop and the empowerment station and the salvage bin, but those items are still being carried in the costs).
Total 1,760k +450nrg, +0ctrl

Before we can go for the next porter room, we need to bump up that control. Next database, 50k.

Base 7a:
+1 database 50k -100nrg, +50ctrl
Total: 1,810k, +350nrg, +50ctrl

Knowing that I'll need at least 70 ctrl to place 2 porters and 4 beacons, I'll need just a tad more control. 2 terminals in the control room will take care of that for 20k.

Base 7b:
+2 terminals 20k, -20nrg, +20ctrl
Total: 1,830k, +330nrg, +70ctrl

Now, we're finally ready to place some more porters. Next 2x2 room: 100k. 2 porters 30k -100nrg, -50ctrl, 4 beacons 40k, -20ctrl.


Base 8
(**Note: again the 1x2 workshop with empowerment station and salvage bin is missing, but it's costs are included still in this guide)
+2x2 porter room 100k
+2 porters 30k -100nrg, -50ctrl
+4 beacons 40k _ 0 , -20
Total 2,000k + 230 , + 0

Now, again, we have to accumulate some prestige. My next upgrade I really want is the super computer to maximize my control output, but it costs a whopping 500k to place. The good news is I can place it back in the 2x2 control room, so I can offload the 145k 2x3 control room and all the control items in it, for an additional 320k, total of 465k recovered. I'll need 100k of that to re-place the 2x2 room, so I only need 135k more to get to the 500k I need. So when you've got 135k in the bank, sell off the 2x3 control room, replace it with the 2x2, and place the super comp in there. (This is an instance of the arcane item, while costing the same, and providing the exact same function, has a larger footprint. The arcane version of the super computer does not fit into the 2x2 control room, so it's not a good option for a small base trying to make the most out of every bit of prestige and space).

Base 9
(**Note: the 1x2 workshop and the associated items are still in the totals, though not pictured)
Total 2,135k

To recap, we're running 4 2x2 porter rooms, 8 porters and 16 beacons. We have an Infirmary with a res ring, and an auto doc. We have a generator and 2 circuit breakers, and a super comp. We also still have a couple enhancement tables and an inspiration table, and even a salvage bin and an empowerment station in the small workshop.

We are pumping out 1,150 energy, and 500 control.

Our 8 porters are using 400 energy, and 200 control.
Our 16 beacons are using 80 control.
Our Rez ring is using 50 energy and 25 control.
Our auto-doc is using 35 energy and 15 control.
Our super comp is using 500 energy but giving us 500 control

Leaving me +165 energy and +80 control.

We're ready for the next porter room for 100k, but first we need to delete that 1x2 workshop in the center. Pull all the salvage out of that bin and either sell it or store it elsewhere (like an alt or at the market, or the bank or whatever). Selling the room and the rack and the empowerment station gets us back 80k. Net difference, 20k.

Base 10

I can place 2 porters in there for 30k, -100 energy and -50 control, 4 beacons for 40k, -20 control
Total 2,225k, +65 energy, and +10 control

And our base is completely full. Some could say too full. There's simply no room to place a workshop. There is no real reason to have 20 beacons (just one porter short of hitting every possible beacon) in there, anyway (unless you're obsessive like me), so you could (perhaps should) use that last spot in the map for a 2x2 workshop room instead of more porters. Place the empowerment stations in there, and some storage instead of that last porter room. Entirely up to you of course.

But, we've come to the end of this (much longer than intended when I started writing it) guide. Our little 8x8 square is practically bursting with utility and function. I've seen much larger and more expensive bases that were far less functional or logically laid out.

Remember, Do NOT decorate too lavishly early on. As I said earlier, it can be painful to spend hours or days decorating, only to have to delete it in a few short days so that you can upgrade the function of your base.

A short note about porters and placement. I progressed the porters in the above pics around the base. I started close to the entrance and placed atlas and galaxy as the first porter beacons, then king's and skyway on the second. Hollow and perez on the third, steel and faultline on the 4th, indy and talos on the fifth, croatoa and brickstown on the sixth, then dark astoria, striga, terra volta, boomtown in the next room, founders and eden on the 9th, crey and peregrine on the 10th. Only zones missing were the Rikti War Zone and Pocket D. In other words, I progressed from lowest zones to highest zones as you moved away from the entrance. One more pic:

Porter Pic

I lower the floor in my base all the way down, and then raise the places where I will be putting my porters so they are elevated by two, and then place the beacons on that little section under the porters so you can tell at a glance where the porters are attached to. Just a suggestion.

Visit the CoH.com Base Building Forum if anything else should ever come up and give you problems in your base building. A lot of very helpful and knowledgeable people there that are always willing to help out.

So, we're done! Can't believe how long this turned out to be. I hope this little guide has been helpful. While I have done my best to check my facts and numbers, I have no doubt made mistakes or missed some little tidbit of information. Please feel free to point these things out to me so I can include them in future updates.

My Guide To Base Building For The Small SG, updated for I17

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...27#post2955627

Guide to base building for the small SG [I17]
(version 3.7, Jun 2010)

This is a guide for base building for the small SG. We'll start out covering the different options you can start out with using only the 300k maximum start up bonus you can get on the very first day of your new SG (I'll cover the explanation of this *bonus* in just a moment). Then we'll move on and take you through the steps beyond the initial 300k basic base, to a very complex and fully functional base that fills the entire basic 8x8 plot size, and allows you to get the most function out of it that you possibly can. All in all, I give the following different base examples, complete with screen shots and prices (you can simply ctrl+f on this post to get to the base or price range you are interested in):

Base 1 thru 3, all less than 300k prestige. Combinations of med bays, teleporters power and energy needs discussed.
Base 4a, 305k prestige, but with control and energy problems (illustrative)
Base 4b, 730k prestige. CTRL and NRG needs met, med bay, 2 teleporters, 4 beacons
Base 5a, 855k. Med bay, 3 porters 5 beacons. (CTRL and NRG needs being met throughout and figured into the cost of each upgrade.)
Base 5b, 972k. Med bay, 4 porters 8 beacons.
Base 6c, 1,310k. Med bay, 6 porters 12 beacons.
Base 6f, 1,435k. Med bay, 6 porters 12 beacons, 1x2 workshop+empowerment station.
Base 7, 1,760k. Same as above but upgraded the control room to 2x3 in anticipation of greater control needs.
Base 8, 2,000k. Med bay, 8 porters 16 beacons, Workshop.
Base 9, 2,135k. Same as above, but sold off the 2x3 control room and all the control items to go back to the 2x2 control room and the supercomputer in anticipation of greater control needs and better use of limited space.
Base 10, 2,225k. Our final example. 10 porters, 20 beacons, med bay, no workshop. All on the 8x8 (rent-free) plot size.

Anyway, onto the guide:

There are lots of reasons to want to keep it simple and have a small SG with just a few friends. Or the much talked about private lair, where it's just you (and yer alts) by your lonesome. With recent changes to base rent and the massive reduction in prices across the board, it is quite possible to have a very nicely viable and functioning base in a fairly short amount of time even with only a few people or even one workign on getting prestige.

This guide will walk you through the very first steps of base building, suggest some possible floor plans (with screenies if I can make them work) and end with some ideas on how to make the very best use out of the smallest plot size, since with the new base changes, rent is now calculated on functional items int eh base rather than plot size, allowing a small group to maximize its savings, while still getting maximum utility from their base. I'll be trying to cover both Villains and Heroes base building, but there are very few instances where they might differ.

This guide is aimed at maximum function and therefore covers none of the decorative items or rooms. I will also not be cover how to get a raid-ready base, as that is currentlyt disabled and the rumors are that it will never be available again. Please visit the base building forum at coh.com if there are questions/problems that you don't find covered in this guide.

I'll be using mostly tech items in my examples. The reason for this is that for a few notable items, the footprint of certain tech items is smaller than the corresponding arcane items. It is worth noting though, that for every single tech item, the corresponding arcane item costs exactly the same and provides the exact same utility and fits in exactly the same amount of space (except for a few notable items where the corresponding arcane item has a larger footprint, the only arcane item that has a smaller footprint than the tech item is the raid porter, but I will not be covering raid items in this guide).

First things first, once you reach level 10, head inside city hall at Atlas (Heroes), or the large building with Arachnos flags all over it in Port Oakes, just south of the Marconeville waypoint (Villains). There you will find the person who let's you start up your SG. Once you've got the naming and the colors and the SG chest emblem all picked out, talk to the same guy again and start construction of a base. After you've started the group and started construction, find one of the base porter waypoints in any zone (most any zone), and pop inside.

You'll have the smallest plot size (an 8x8 grid) and the entrance that takes up 2x2 squares. Assuming its just you in the SG at this point, you'll have 20k to spend. Sadly, umm, not alot you can do with that prestige, except decorate your little entrance. But, for every new toon you add to your little SG, you'll get another 20k prestige (for a maximum of 15 toons, or 300k prestige). If its just you and yer own lil private lair, find a kind soul that is willing to join your SG for a the time it takes you to invite all of your alts and you could be talking about a good lil pile of starting capital. If you're starting your SG with at least one other friend, you could maximize that 300k *boost* of start up prestige by each of you inviting all your alts.

The great thing about base building is that you can sell items for exactly what you paid for them, so you are free to mess around and try new things by placing something, and then selling it and placing something else. You are never penalized, in other words, by buying items. The one exception to this is the *personal items* like the teleporters or other items created using salvage. While all prestige spent to place these *personal items* is returned to the SG if you delete them, the salvage used to generate or craft them is gone forever.

So now you have to kind of decide what you want to be able to do with your base, from a planning and playing perspective. Will you want a teleport factory? Will you want the medical bay? Do you want to maximize your storage abilities for inspirations/enhancments/salvage?

These goals/aims will shift over time, of course, but I'll try to offer suggestions based on the very most bang fer yer buck as far as functionality goes as you go along. You're going to be swapping priorites as time goes on and the prestige starts piling up, so I'll try to go from cheapest to most functional on the first building plot. Space will soon become a premium, and you'll really have to choose one thing over the other, eventually. You'll be selling rooms, moving them around, deleting and restarting often, so try not to go too nuts with decorations early on, as it's sometimes painful to spend hours decorating a room just the way you like it, only to realize a few short days later that you have enough for the next functional upgrade and that room simply has to go in order to get the most bang fer yer buck. Also remember you might have to sacrifice some function or another of the base as you go on, in order to gain more function later; trading down in the short run, to go up in the long run, in other words.

So, starter base. Base 1: Med base: 210k (1st med room and the reclamator, oversight room and the combo unit, insp storage)

Getting the rez unit, or *Basic Reclamator* into your base first and foremost is a good goal. When you die, you can choose to go to your base instead of the hospital, well, we can start there: The first med bay room (found under the medical tab) costs 50k to build, and the reclamator (under place item) is a measley 10k to place. You'll notice quickly though that this just ain't enough. The reclamator consumes 50 energy and 25 control, neither of which we have produced yet. So we need to build an oversight center first, for 50k, and then place the combo power and control unit in it for another 25k.

Grand total? 135k to get your small base up and running with nothing but a hospital replacement unit in it and 3 rooms. Needs to be said though that if you choose to rez in your base rather than the hospital, you rez with about 25% of your full health and end, rather than the 100% granted by the hospitals. It can still be worth it, if you're going to be spending time in the sewers for your first few levels, as exiting the base after rez puts you right back in the sewers where you died, or for the opposite end of the spectrum, if Hami's got you down, you can base rez and then exit the base to reappear right where he last got ya in the Hive. Also the Shadow Shards have the same nifty ability. Any zone that doesn't have a teleport beacon to it allows you to do this.

We can make it a little more enticing to rez in the base by adding some storage tables for inspirations by adding an inspiration table, for 75k. You can fill this up with your most needed inspirations (100 of them).

New total, 210k.


So Base 1 is:
Oversight room 50k
Combo unit 25k
Med bay 50k
Rez unit 10k (135k subtotal)
Insp storage 75k
total 210k
Base 1

210k, and not a bad lil starter base.

Alternate starter base. Base 2: Porter base

Bit more complicated, as you have to craft the porters on the basic workbenches, and also accumulate enough salvage in order to be able to combine it to make the porters, but entirely within the grasp of a starting SG, within the first day or so of forming. First we're going to need power and control. Oversight room (50k) combo unit (25k), same as above. You'll need to at least temporarily place either the arcane or the tech basic workbench in the oversight room in order to combine salvage. Either basic workbench can be placed for 25k.

Now, look at the recipes, there are three different recipes on each of the basic workbenches (tech workbench will make a tech porter, arcane workbench will make an arcane porter). Now, back under the add room tab there is a transportation room you can place, where you can place one porter and one beacon (the smallest 1x2 porter room) but, consider that you have just spent salvage to make this item. When it comes time to upgrade, and you want to place two porters or more in a room, you will have to juggle this item around by creating temporary rooms elsewhere to hold it, while you delete the room it was in, and build a new room and then replace that item in the new room and delete the temp room. Once space starts becoming more of a premium, the juggling is going to get a bit more precarious, so you really need to start thinking ahead when it comes to placing crafted items. While the SG is young, salvage can be as much at a premium as prestige is. So you COULD build the smallest porter room for 50k, and place a single porter (that you crafted with some purchased or earned salvage) in it for placement cost of another 15k, and then a beacon to some zone for another 10k. Total cost for a base that gets you to one zone?

Base 2a
Oversight and combo unit 75k
sml porter room 50k
place crafted porter 15k (and the porter recipe salvage)
beacon 10k
total 150k

So, we have room and more prestige, let's place another porter room for another 50k, craft another porter for 6 combined salvage, and place it for 15k, and then a beacon for it for 10k.

Base 2b
Oversight and combo unit 75k
2 small porter rooms 100k
Place 2 porters 30k (and 12 combined salvage)
2 beacons 20k
total 225k

So I can continue to make a lil porter factory, adding a new small porter room and one porter and one beacon each time I get 75k and enough salvage to make a new porter, but I'm going to quickly run out of space. Most I could fit on one 8x8 square, taking into account the space taken up by the oversight room, is 8. But well before you get there, you're goin to have energy and control problems trying to maintain that many porters and wasting their potential of 2 beacons a pop. I recommend instead that you hold off and go for the 2x2 porter room that will hold 2 porters and 4 beacons.

Base 2c
Oversight and combo unit 75k
1 2x2 porter room 100k
Place 2 porters 30k (and salvage)
4 beacons 40k
total 245k

Base 3: Combination of Bases 1 and 2. This is where choices start coming into play, not just for the prestige, but the energy and control cost of items. Let's say I want a med bay AND a porter to start with.

Base 3
Oversight and combo unit 75k
Med bay and reclamator 60k
small porter room 50k
place 1 porters 15k (and 6 combined salvage)
1 beacon 10k
total 210k

Keeping mind that we can swap out the beacon in that small porter room as needed, only takes a few seconds in the base edit screen.

This is the base I recommend starting with, in fact. Keeping in mind that the next upgrade may be a little way's off for the very small SG. To understand why, we need to consider one other aspect we have not yet talked about: the power and control cost of various items.

Our oversight center and combo unit will generate for us +125 energy, and +75 control. The reclamator in our med bay cost -50 energy and -25 control. The porter cost -50 energy and -25 control as well. The beacon merely -5 control:

Combo unit +125 nrg, +75ctrl
Reclamator - 50 , -25
1 porters - 50 , -25
1 beacons , -5

Leaving us with a +25 energy and +20 control surplus. We can use the surplus to temporarily power the workbenches when we place them to craft recipes.

To understand how these energy and control costs limit our base as much (if not more) than the prestige cost, let's look at the next logical upgrade.

Base 4a
Oversight and combo unit 75k
Med bay and reclamator 60k
2x2 porter room 100k
place 2 porters 30k (and recipe salvage)
4 beacons 40k
total 305k

It won't take long doing missions before you've gotten the extra 5k worth of prestige (beyond the start up bonus of 300k) required to get yourself this upgrade, but we need to look again at our power and control costs.

Combo unit +125 nrg, +75ctrl
Reclamator - 50 , -25
2 porters -100 , -50
4 beacons , -20

Leaving us in the negative for both energy and control (-25 energy, -20 control) meaning that not all of our placed items will function. Sadly, we cannot simply place another combo unit in our oversight center as the room will only hold one, and no other energy or control items. We can also not simply place another oversight center and a combo unit, as there is only one combo unit allowed in an entire base. We've reached the limit of what we can do with the start up bonus prestige and the energy and control for our little base.

From now, we need to start thinking long term, as far as planning ahead for our energy and control needs, as well as prestige each time we want to upgrade.

The bottom line is, the oversight center and combo unit were intended to only really cover the very most basic needs of a start up base, and our base is no longer *start up* so they have outlived their utility and we need to now upgrade to our more long-term energy and control rooms, to satisfy the needs of our growing base. Before you get too crazy with the *delete room* button just yet, let's look at the rather sobering costs of this next step up in the evolution of our base.

Deleting the oversight center and combo unit will recover our 75k worth of prestige, but placing the energy room costs 100k, and the control room costs 100k, and then we have to actually place the generator (200k) in the energy room and that will generate 1000 Energy for us. Then a mainframe (50k) placed in the control room gets us 50 control, which is not enough so we also need 1 database (50k) for another 50 control, for a net change of 425k.

(/start mini-rant) The recent changes to base building are definitely a step in the right direction for a small SG, but they leave 2 major gaps in the linear upgrading of bases. I start out with one of the starter bases of this guide for under 300k, and the next minor upgrade will cost me an added 425k or more, due to the reconfiguring of power and control items needed. That's a very long time to wait for a small or single person SG. Why not make this scale, in some small way? Allow me to attach a circuit breaker and/or a database in the oversight room, so I'm not so quickly shut down, with such a long and major gap between a start up base and a fully functional one? Why make the difference between a base that works today, and one that won't after a single porter is added not work again for 425k? Bump the combo unit's output by 75 energy and allow the two CB attachments, and 2 database atachments to it, and base building for small SG's becomes completely linear, without the major lag between start up and initial upgrades as is present now (/end mini-rant).

So the seemingly simple upgrade of adding 1 more porter and a few more destination beacons to our base makes our little tally sheet look a mess:

Base 4b
Energy room 100k
Generator 200k +1000 nrg,
Control room 100k
Mainframe 50k - 50nrg , +50 ctrl
Database 50k - 50 , +50
Med bay and reclamator 60k - 100 , -25
2x2 porter room 100k
place 2 porters 30k - 100 , -50
4 beacons 40k , -20
Totals: 730k + 700 , + 5

Holy empty pocket books, Batman! Yes, you read that right, its 730k prestige. And that's not even including any storage items (which do not have energy or control costs associated with them). So, it's a big jump and likely quite a wait for a small SG from our small base that cost us 300k or less to get started and minimally functional, to this, but it will come. Just don't be in a rush. It took me and just 2 friends in our small SG about 3-4 months to get to around 6 million prestige or so and max out our functionality on the smallest plot size, and we are quite *casual* players.

Quick discussion of the workshop, workbenches and empowerment stations as it relates to a small or start up SG:

You can place the workshop and a single workbench/empowerment station, as needed, *temporarily*. Get the crafting you need to do over with then sell these items and recover the prestige to be used for other items with more function. With a base we are designing to make the most of our limited prestige earning capabilities (being a small SG) but with maximum function, we can't waste prestige on something we will only be using, at most, once a playing session, and more than likely, once a week or less. I'd rather have more porters, or more storage items that I will use several times a day in my base, than the workshop. So, anyway, my advice, place the smallest workshop and one bench/empowerment station at a time as you need it, and then sell it back, keeping your eye set on the next goal/the next upgrade. You can place 1 storage item in both the control and energy rooms, by the way.

Assuming we've gotten to the point where we have our energy and control room and items placed, and our base 4b is up and running, the next logical upgrade to our small base would be to add another porter and beacon destination. 50k fer the smallest porter room, 15k (I'll just assume from now on you know you need to craft them) to place the next porter, and 10k to place a new beacon. If you'll notice, we are right at the edge of our control generation, so we'll also need another database placed in the control room in order to generate a little more control, so 125k more makes this next upgrade happen.

Base 5a
base 4b totals: 730k + 700nrg, + 5ctrl
+1 Database 50k - 100 , +50
+small porter room 50k
+1 porter 15k - 50 , -25
+1 beacon 10k , - 5
Total: 855k + 550 , +25

To recap: we now have 3 porters with 5 possible destinations (keeping in mind we can swap these destinations around as needed), the med bay, and enough energy and control to keep them all running in tip-top shape.

Our next logical upgrade would be to change that last uprade of the small porter room into the 2x2 porter room, adding another porter and 3 more beacons. Again, we need to look at control, just the one added porter will use up all our remaining control, the associated beacon(s) will put us in the negative, so we need to add yet another control generating item. If you have enough prestige, you could opt to simply place yet another database for +50 control, but we only really need 15 more control than we are already generating, so we could opt instead to go for the cheaper costing terminal for 10k, that costs us only -10 energy and generates +10 control. 2 of these fills our needs. There is also the corner terminal that costs 12k, takes -15 energy and generates 12 control. For the sake of variety, I'll place one terminal and one corner terminal in the control room. Then I'll place the 2x2 porter room, another porter and 3 more beacons (total for next upgrade: 117k)

*Again, I need to remind that placing personal items like porters becomes tricky as you cannot simply delete them and hope to replace them at will. You need to have the personal items via salvage available. The next upgrade illustrates that point as you'll want a 2x2 porter room. You need to move the 1x2 room with porter installed to an an unused place on the plot, place the new 2x2 room, move the porter there and then delete the 1x2 room it came from. Space is starting to become a premium in your 8x8 square, so you will soon not have enough room for this juggling, so you really need to start placing crafted items carefully, and perhaps hold off on placing the 1x2 porter rooms until you have enough to simply place the 2x2 porter room (100k vice 50k) in order to avoid the juggling of the crafted teleporters.*

Base 5b
base 5a totals: 855k +550nrg, +25ctrl
+1 corner terminal 12k - 15 , +12
+1 terminal 10k - 10 , +10
-1 1x2 porter room 50k
+1 2x2 porter room 100k
+1 porter 15k - 50 , -25
+3 beacons 30k - 0 , -15
Total: 972k +475 , + 7


We have a pretty nice little base set up here. Before we start building more porters or placing a permanent workshop or some such, let's take a hard look at our energy and control requirements for further upgrades so we can plan ahead better. Let's assume we want our final base to look something like this:

Base 10

With 5 total 2x2 porter rooms (wrapping around the outer edge in this pic) with 10 porters and 20 beacons (access to all but one available zone on hero side, in other words). Each additional porter is going to cost us -50 energy, and -25 control. Each additional beacon will cost us -5 control. If I were to place all of these now I would need an additional +300 energy. No problems there, as I have +475 still available from our hard working little generator. I will also need an additional +210 worth of control though, and that is where we run into problems.

Let's go back to base 5b, and take a good look at our control room. Let's sell the terminal and corner terminal (recovering 22k) and place another database (50k). We can make this upgrade to our base for just 28k. Now let's look at our numbers again, and get a fresh tally.

Base 5b.1: (no need for a pic, the layout is still the same as 5b, just with one more database in the control room)
Energy room 100k
Generator 200k +1000 nrg,
Control room 100k
Mainframe 50k - 50 , +50 ctrl
3 Databases 150k - 300 , +150
Med bay and reclamator 60k - 100 , -25
2, 2x2 porter rooms 200k
place 4 porters 60k - 200 , -100
8 beacons 80k , -40
Total: 1000k + 350 , +35

Concentrating on just the control for now, and remembering that we will need an additional 210k worth of control to place our 6 more porters and 12 more beacons, we're gonna need alot more databases. But things are, unfortunately, just not that simple. Let's add one more database.

Base 5b.2:
Base 5b.1 totals: 1,000k +350nrg , +35ctrl
+1 database 50k -100 , +50
Total 1,050k +250 , +85

You'll notice we are still not close to our +210 control needed to place all the remaining porters and beacons we want, and you'll also notice that our energy output now has dropped below what we'll need in the end. If you go in and try and add another database, you'll also be sad to notice that we can no longer add anymore databases, as we've reached the maximum this room will allow (1 mainframe and 4 databases). Which is the reason I took this little diversion to illustrate that we need to do a little prior planning here before we just start adding porters and rooms. If you got down to having combined salvage and placed that 9th and 10th porter before realizing that there is no way you'd ever be able to power them, you'd be mighty pissed at this little guide when you had to delete them, I imagine.

But, we do now have enough energy and control to place 2 more porter rooms, and add in porters and beacons in one at a time.

Base 6

(I lined the upper side of the map with the new porter rooms, but since the base I'm using for these examples is a villains base I don't want to waste the salvage to make more porters to place in there, please use your imagination)

Each room costs 100k to place. So Base 6 Total (before adding any porters or beacons into these two new rooms): 1,250k

Adding one porter, 2 beacons:

Base 6a:
Base 6 totals: 1,250k +250nrg, +85ctrl
+1 porter 15k - 50 , -25
+2 beacons 20k - 0 , -10
Total: 1,285k +200 , +50

Quick note for Villain bases: you don't need to go further and add a 10th beacon as there are presently only 9 beacons available. You've reached the pinnacle of your teleport capabilites/needs for your small base, and for just under 1.5 million prestige. Well done. Now you can start adding rooms and items we've since neglected in favor of function, such as decorative rooms, permanent workshops and workbenches/empowerment stations, work on getting the supercomputer (500k prestige) in the control room to maximize control output. You could also look into some of the other threads about getting your base raid and item of power ready for when the cathedral of pain trial finally (as if) becomes available. Again, well done, go have yourself an ice cold adult beverage, you've earned it.

As for Hero bases, well if you're as obsessive as I am, looking at those 2 porter rooms with 4 porters and 8 beacons is purty darn nifty, but all you can really see is the 14 other zones and beacons you are not yet able to go to via your small base. If you're not as nuts as I am, well, you too can celebrate with the villain architects and go indulge in the aforementioned adult beverage, and start thinking along the lines of purtifying your base, adding in the permanent workshop, making some purely decorative rooms, working towards the supercomputer or the larger generator, or even work towards getting your base raid ready. 8 zones is nothing to sneeze at, and if you are choosing your beacons wisely, you should be able to get to just about any zone with merely 1 or 2 zonings.

But let's pretend you're all as OCD as I am:


Another porter and 2 beacons:
Base 6b:
+1 porter and 2 beacons 35k - 50 , -35
Total: 1,310k +150 , +15

You can see we don't have enough control left to place another porter, much less the beacons to accompany it, and no way to increase our control output right now with our present control room, so let's delete that last porter room (the one with no porters or beacons in it!) for now and recover our 100k prestige to use on a different upgrade.

Base 6c
-2x2 porter room +100k
Total: 1,210k +150nrg, +15ctrl

Let's next look at the med bay. We used the basic med bay when we started, but if one of our alts is an AT that can heal, chances are we're going to earn the first SG healing badge at some point, and that will unlock a recipe that will allow us to be able to craft a nifty little inspiration dispenser (auto doc or tree of wonders) that will sell us blue and green inspirations. In order to place this newly crafted item, we will need to upgrade our med bay to an infirmary. We'll recover our 50k it cost to place the med bay by deleting the room, and then it will cost us 100k to place the infirmary (this may take some tricky juggling with rooms and the placing of doorways to make sure *base continuity* is maintained, I really hope you haven't been decorating too lavishly as you may have to delete rooms or place doors in places you didn't think you'd have to to be able to delete the med bay). Then we can place the rez ring back in there and our newly crafted insp dispenser for 50k, -35nrg, and -15 control. Total cost of this upgrade: 100k, but the footprint of our base is exactly the same as it was before.

Base 6d totals: 1,310k +150nrg, +0ctrl.

In anticipation of later needs, let's add circuit breakers in my energy room for 30k a piece (max of 2), each of which will increase my energy output by +150.

Base 6e (+2 circuit breakers): 1,370k +450nrg, +0ctrl.

That hole in the center of the map is begging out for something to put in there, So let's place a 1x2 workshop there for 50k, and an empowerment station for 15k (does not cost nrg or ctrl to operate). You can swap out the tech and arcane empowerment stations to combine salvages as needed, but do not combine or use the salvage to make the empowerment station upgrades yet, as we are actually just biding our time until we can make upgrades to control, so we can get more porters and this room is simply temporary.

Base 6f
+1x2 workshop 50k
+empowerment station 15k
Total 1,435k, +450nrg, +0ctrl

If we haven't already, let's add some storage tables. Though I haven't really been carrying the cost of the storage tables in the base total costs up until now, you really should already have a couple of these in place in the energy and control rooms, and also now the infirmary. It's a great way transfer items of interest from one alt to another or to share items with other members of the group.

Let's drop an inspiration table in the infirmary next to the autodoc for 75k (more if/when you can, inspirations are mighty handy to have on hand when using your base to rez, so you can pick up needed inspirations without having to run to a contact). If you've been following this guide, you already have the auto-doc (or tree of wonders) in your infirmary which will give you health and end inspirations, so you only need to really worry about storing the others. I use my higher level toons to stock these up with awakes and break frees, mostly, but also reds, yellows, purples, and oranges, as well, for use by all my toons.

Enhancement tables cost 95k to place, and at first glance seem kind of a waste or an extravagance, after all, when I get drops I don't need, I sell them immediately so I can get the INF for them I so desperately need since I'm running in SG mode constantly (this is only a factor as far as inf earnings post 25 btw) but consider that if you're playing your freshly enhanced lvl 47 today, fighting +1's +2's or +3's (or higher), high level SO drops and recipes will be quite common for you. Dropping out of SG mode for a mish or two will net you quite a bit of spending capital, as well, and you don't really need to be enhancing much further . . . popping into the base to drop off these expensive enhancements will make them available to your lower level alts to pick up, go sell and get much needed influence. It's like gifting your alts influence without the need for an intermediary, or a second player/account, or filling up your e-mail. They are also convenient places to dump your enhancements temporarily when you are on a fast paced team and you don't want to take too long a break from them to go find all the appropriate stores to sell your enhancements for max selling prices. You can dump them here and then come pick them up in groups (like grab all the science enhancements and head to the science store, etc.)

Your new workshop will hold one storage table (I suggest the salvage rack for now, as it will be close to where you've placed the empowerment station. Your infirmary, energy and control rooms will also each hold one storage item. So a salvage rack in the workshop, an inspiration table in the med bay (for close access to the entrance), and an enhancement storage in the energy room and control room.

Base 6g:
+1 salvage storage 15k
+1 inspiration storage 75k
+2 enhancement storage 190k
Total: 1,715k, +450nrg, +0ctrl

We've put it off as long as we can. I could delay things further by running around my base and adding purty things every couple of days, changing room locations, etc, but the fact remains, I simply cannot add anymore function to my base without addressing the control issue. And, sadly this is another one of those long pauses in the base upgrades.

Going back to where we left off with our control room, we know that we are maxxed out as far as having one mainframe in there and 4 databases. We are simply not allowed to add anymore. Much like the situation with the oversight center where we could not simply add another combo unit somewhere in the base, we cannot add another mainframe in the base either (databases must be attached to a mainframe). So I could delete my workshop, add another control room there in the center of our base and put some databases in there, but since they are not attached to a mainframe it does me no good. The good/bad news is, if you've been following along, and paying attention to my base layouts in the pics I've been linking, you're closer than you think to increasing your control output.

Look at the control rooms tab, the next room we want is the 2x3 room that costs 145k. This room will allow us to place up to 10 databases vice the max 4 we are limited by in the 2x2 room now. Those of you that can do the math quick, know this will give us plenty of control to reach our goal of at least one more porter room with 2 more porters and 4 more beacons.

Delete the 2x2 control room. You'll recover the cost of the control room (+100k), the Mainframe (+50k) and all 4 databases (+200k). You need to put those immediately back into the 2x3 control room so we haven't really recovered anything, though.

Purchase the 2x3 control room for 145k. Immediately place back the mainframe and 4 databases. Total added cost just 45k.

Base 7
(**note: This picture is missing the 1x2 workshop and the empowerment station and the salvage bin, but those items are still being carried in the costs).
Total 1,760k +450nrg, +0ctrl

Before we can go for the next porter room, we need to bump up that control. Next database, 50k.

Base 7a:
+1 database 50k -100nrg, +50ctrl
Total: 1,810k, +350nrg, +50ctrl

Knowing that I'll need at least 70 ctrl to place 2 porters and 4 beacons, I'll need just a tad more control. 2 terminals in the control room will take care of that for 20k.

Base 7b:
+2 terminals 20k, -20nrg, +20ctrl
Total: 1,830k, +330nrg, +70ctrl

Now, we're finally ready to place some more porters. Next 2x2 room: 100k. 2 porters 30k -100nrg, -50ctrl, 4 beacons 40k, -20ctrl.


Base 8
(**Note: again the 1x2 workshop with empowerment station and salvage bin is missing, but it's costs are included still in this guide)
+2x2 porter room 100k
+2 porters 30k -100nrg, -50ctrl
+4 beacons 40k _ 0 , -20
Total 2,000k + 230 , + 0

Now, again, we have to accumulate some prestige. My next upgrade I really want is the super computer to maximize my control output, but it costs a whopping 500k to place. The good news is I can place it back in the 2x2 control room, so I can offload the 145k 2x3 control room and all the control items in it, for an additional 320k, total of 465k recovered. I'll need 100k of that to re-place the 2x2 room, so I only need 135k more to get to the 500k I need. So when you've got 135k in the bank, sell off the 2x3 control room, replace it with the 2x2, and place the super comp in there. (This is an instance of the arcane item, while costing the same, and providing the exact same function, has a larger footprint. The arcane version of the super computer does not fit into the 2x2 control room, so it's not a good option for a small base trying to make the most out of every bit of prestige and space).

Base 9
(**Note: the 1x2 workshop and the associated items are still in the totals, though not pictured)
Total 2,135k

To recap, we're running 4 2x2 porter rooms, 8 porters and 16 beacons. We have an Infirmary with a res ring, and an auto doc. We have a generator and 2 circuit breakers, and a super comp. We also still have a couple enhancement tables and an inspiration table, and even a salvage bin and an empowerment station in the small workshop.

We are pumping out 1,150 energy, and 500 control.

Our 8 porters are using 400 energy, and 200 control.
Our 16 beacons are using 80 control.
Our Rez ring is using 50 energy and 25 control.
Our auto-doc is using 35 energy and 15 control.
Our super comp is using 500 energy but giving us 500 control

Leaving me +165 energy and +80 control.

We're ready for the next porter room for 100k, but first we need to delete that 1x2 workshop in the center. Pull all the salvage out of that bin and either sell it or store it elsewhere (like an alt or at the market, or the bank or whatever). Selling the room and the rack and the empowerment station gets us back 80k. Net difference, 20k.

Base 10

I can place 2 porters in there for 30k, -100 energy and -50 control, 4 beacons for 40k, -20 control
Total 2,225k, +65 energy, and +10 control

And our base is completely full. Some could say too full. There's simply no room to place a workshop. There is no real reason to have 20 beacons (just one porter short of hitting every possible beacon) in there, anyway (unless you're obsessive like me), so you could (perhaps should) use that last spot in the map for a 2x2 workshop room instead of more porters. Place the empowerment stations in there, and some storage instead of that last porter room. Entirely up to you of course.

But, we've come to the end of this (much longer than intended when I started writing it) guide. Our little 8x8 square is practically bursting with utility and function. I've seen much larger and more expensive bases that were far less functional or logically laid out.

Remember, Do NOT decorate too lavishly early on. As I said earlier, it can be painful to spend hours or days decorating, only to have to delete it in a few short days so that you can upgrade the function of your base.

A short note about porters and placement. I progressed the porters in the above pics around the base. I started close to the entrance and placed atlas and galaxy as the first porter beacons, then king's and skyway on the second. Hollow and perez on the third, steel and faultline on the 4th, indy and talos on the fifth, croatoa and brickstown on the sixth, then dark astoria, striga, terra volta, boomtown in the next room, founders and eden on the 9th, crey and peregrine on the 10th. Only zones missing were the Rikti War Zone and Pocket D. In other words, I progressed from lowest zones to highest zones as you moved away from the entrance. One more pic:

Porter Pic

I lower the floor in my base all the way down, and then raise the places where I will be putting my porters so they are elevated by two, and then place the beacons on that little section under the porters so you can tell at a glance where the porters are attached to. Just a suggestion.

Visit the CoH.com Base Building Forum if anything else should ever come up and give you problems in your base building. A lot of very helpful and knowledgeable people there that are always willing to help out.

So, we're done! Can't believe how long this turned out to be. I hope this little guide has been helpful. While I have done my best to check my facts and numbers, I have no doubt made mistakes or missed some little tidbit of information. Please feel free to point these things out to me so I can include them in future updates.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Virtue------>™

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey fat kid, you are fat.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why you so mean?

Virtue------>™

This thread needs more nerdrage.

[ QUOTE ]
sigh and once again..after killing scrappers in zone pvp.

i am once again begged to fight in a duel....3 different scrappers all want to duel me


what the bloody hell..

[/ QUOTE ]

So duel them and shut them up, or ignore them and move on . . .

In other words, no one cares, shut up please, ok thanks, bye or:

iow, nocstfukkthnxbai.