I use military starbases as well. But this strategy seems a little imabalanced so far because it seems to me, at least in my games, the AI has never tried to take out my military starbase without which all my ships would be junk. Instead the AI keep attacking my planets and getting its sgips destroyed, litterally dozens of ships, when not all their ships. It should go for the starbase instead ! Maybe it can be tweaked to attack it more. I see it attack resource starbases all the time, but not my military assistance starbases.